The Ghost of Christmas Past

Book Sales in the General Trade in December 2016

Although mercifully free of the load-shedding woes and Nenegate crashes of the previous two seasons, retail sales took a pummelling this Christmas in the slow wake of these events. Consumers under pressure from sky-high food prices, petrol price increases, expensive data and fewer bonuses were careful to part with their pennies. According to Statistics SA, inflation peaked at 6.8% in December, with food prices up by 11.7% in the past year. Retail sales figures are expected to show a negative for the month, despite the 3.8% growth seen in November. Black Friday accounted for 3.5% of this growth, and is likely to have had an impact on December sales.

In the light of all this, the general book trade came off lightly, showing flat unit sales in December and value growth of 5%.

Considering that most bricks-and mortar bookshops reported a decline in sales, this growth was likely driven by online sales. The challenges for traditional bookshops were manifold:

Booksite Africa’s supply chain was slower than usual as they dealt with backlogs and technical issues stemming from the warehouse move into the old On The Dot premises. Bookshops reportedly waited 2 weeks or longer for some deliveries, with all chains and independents affected.
The closure of Trinity, Wild Dog and PSD left some publishing lists in limbo, with booksellers reporting a significant drop in range sales in the categories they specialised in.
The Disney list moved from Pearson to Penguin Random House last year, but was left unrepresented from October to December. The trade was left with no supply chain for tie-ins of films such as Moana, resulting in lost sales.
The colouring book trend slowed down significantly, with seemingly no trend to replace it. The millions of rands that poured in over the previous December left a noticeable gap in bookshop pockets.
Brexit, and the ensuing decline in the strength of the British Pound, resulted in fewer UK tourists visiting South Africa in December. This had a visible effect on sales in Cape Town and airport bookshops.
The UKZN region’s economic decline resulted in a marked drop in book sales there, as reported by the majority of booksellers trading in the province.

Range booksellers reported a shift towards bestsellers and smaller basket sizes, indicating perhaps that customers chose obvious gifts but fewer books for themselves. Exclusive Books saw a pronounced shift toward paperback fiction with a corresponding drop in trade paperback fiction sales, pointing towards increased price sensitivity. All booksellers reported a decline in cookery sales. At first glance this seems to be due to the strong sales of Real Meal Revolution the previous year, but closer analysis show an overall drop in range sales. This could perhaps be due to a lack of good titles, unless the current food prices have robbed customers of their appetite. One area of growth was in Afrikaans books: most SABA members reported growth of between 4% and 6%.

For most booksellers, the number one bestseller over Christmas was Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, which sold 20 213 copies through the Nielsen Panel from its release date in November to the end of December. The surprise of the season was The Book of Joy, which sold 10 984 copies.
Joy was indeed hard to find as we battled with the ghosts of the past in a climate where a mango can cost you as much as a beach read.