Back to School

Business as usual?

Traditionally, the back-to-school season has been one of the biggest for the educational bookseller. Changes in procurement and delivery of books and Learner Teacher Support materials (LTSM) have taken away much of this business over the past years, but booksellers are ever imaginitive and are still finding ways to supply schools by diversifying their content and also their routes to market.

The 2014 National Policy for the Provision and Management of LTSM is intended to guide the provision and management of LTSM, including textbooks, home economics equipment and science laboratory equipment, and is aimed at all levels in the system, from the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to provinces, districts and schools. It affects all government schools in the country.

LTSM is defined as a variety of learning and teaching materials used in classroom. These range from teacher- and learner-created resources to commercially produced classroom resources such as wall charts, workbooks, textbooks, e-books, readers, stationery, science kits, dictionaries, encyclopaedias and more.

Of course each province operates separately. The Gauteng Department of Education has appointed three service providers in the province for the management and distribution of LTSM for the 2017 school year. These companies are Zylec Investments (textbooks), African Paper Products (stationery) and Palm Stationery Manufacturers (stationery). Bongani Rainmaker Logistics will be responsible for placing orders with these service providers.

In Kwa Zulu Natal, the department will supply phase-specific learner packs for use in 2017 to selected schools.

We asked a few of our educational booksellers for feedback on how their back to school season has been.

Hentie Gericke from Books 24/7 said that the season this year was about the same as last year although some schools placed their orders late and a lot of books are in reprint.

Books 24/7 does not supply to the Government. “We supply mostly section 21 schools and private schools. Parents/learners can also buy online from Books 24/7 but first have to pay before we deliver their books,” says Hentie, who adds that their online orders have increased by 68.6 % this year.

“Books 24/7 specialises in text books, prescribed books, dictionaries, atlases and study guides to schools and online orders to individuals.”

Kwa Zulu Natal based bookseller and president of the SA Booksellers Association, Guru Redhi of Redhi Books says that they have had a relatively busy back to school season this year but the buying period gets shorter and shorter.

“Educational Bookselling is a specialised business and it is important that you work on a margin that does not operate a loss. Discounts provided by some booksellers to schools are just too high and because of that service is compromised. I believe you must visit a school at least six times during that delivery period and if high discounts are offered, you cannot achieve that. One must be careful of overbuying and having dead stock on the shelves.”

There have been huge changes to the purchasing and delivery systems. Previously bookshops used to be involved in the supply and delivery of text books to Section 20 schools- that has been taken away from book shops and a single company (not particularly a bookseller) wins the tender for the entire province for LTSM. This year a lot of the Section 21 business has gone to the same company as well and that has disadvantaged book shops greatly. A lot of book shops have experienced reduced turnover due to this factor.”

“We are suppliers to Government but we have had no bulk business from them for a while now due to the Government purchasing model in the regions. Yes, we supply private schools with a list of books given to us in November for the new school year supply. We have a fair percentage of our business done over the counter by scholars and parents. Obviously there is a risk in that the book shop must keep a range of titles for them to hopefully sell it. . Study guides are now the most stocked items in the store.

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