General Trade Report January to September 2017 – decline across all categories

In a Moneyweb article dated 31 October 2017, Hilton Tarrant suggests “When Tasha’s reports a decline in sales, you know there’s a problem”. Based on Famous Brands’ financial results to 31 August, he suggests that South Africa’s upper middle class are under more pressure than we think. Tasha’s, Turn ‘n Tender, Mythos, Vovo Telo, Europa and other brands in the company’s “Signature” portfolio have all reported negative results. Added to this, Woolworths reported a 0,9% decline in its general and clothing sector. Although same-store sales in its food sector grew by 4,6%, this translates to a 3,8% decline if inflation is taken into account. Shopping malls are visibly quieter. For instance, the Woolworths food queue in Brooklyn Mall used to be 10 minutes long on any given Saturday: on month-end Saturday this September, one could whiz right through to till-point.
Of even greater concern is the sudden decline in private education spend. Tarrant, in the same article, reports declining enrolment numbers at both ADvTECH and Curro, partly due to financial pressure, and partly due to a rapid increase in families emigrating.
Considering that books are still seen as luxury items in most households, all this paints a gloomy picture for the general trade, which duly reflects in the numbers: according to SAPnet, the South African general book trade saw a decline of 3,9% in value in 2017 to date, with 7% fewer books sold. The decline spanned across all categories (adult, children’s, fiction and non-fiction).
South African books had a torrid time in the year up to September. Unit sales fell by 17%, with the average selling price shooting up by 8% from R137 to R148. In contrast, books published in the UK, which make up the majority of books sold SA, held steady on price and units. Publishers cite increased printing costs as the main reason for the steep price increases.
On the positive side, green shoots were starting to appear on the horizon at the time of writing this report. Jacques Pauw’s strictly embargoed book, The President’s Keepers, hit shelves on Sunday the 29th of October, promptly shooting to the no. 1 slot on Nielsen’s bestseller list and into immediate reprint. DA leader, Mmusi Maimane, waved the book at Jacob Zuma in a historical moment in parliament on the 2nd of November, asking him to table his declaration of interests since 2009. Pauw alleges in the book that Mr. Zuma was on the payroll of a security company owned by ANC benefactor Roy Moodley. Together with Redi Thlabi’s explosive book Khwezi, which released at the end of September, Pauw’s book might just have an effect on the political landscape, while at the same time resurrecting a struggling local book market. The launch of Thlabi’s book at Exclusive Books Hyde Park was attended by more than 500 people: a record of sorts for in-store launches in South Africa.
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Launch of Redi Thlabi’s book, Khwezi, at Exclusive Books Hyde Park on 27 September 2017
General booksellers enter the festive season in trepidation of what Black Friday and the ANC conference might mean for book sales, yet buoyed by the hope that books can still change the world. Benjamin Trisk, CEO of Exclusive Books, stated the following in an internal letter to staff at the end of October:
“October trading was just about the best monthly result we have had this year. There was
a feeling in September that we might be emerging from extremely tight monetary conditions and
October has given us another sense that this might be so. However, we should not think that we
have reached the end of an extremely difficult economic time. Our country suffers when viewed
against every economic matrix you can imagine.”

By Olinka Nell

* All statistics courtesy SAPnet