With a substantial presence in SA and a growing footprint on the continent, Van Schaik Bookstore is now the go-to resource when it comes to academic textbooks and related products. Servicing institutions, professionals and students for more than 100 years, this is a company that knows how to succeed.
Book publishing is a changing market place, perhaps more so than any other established industry. The rise of technology has catalysed this change. Information is now more readily available than ever, questions and conclusions are more condensed and people don’t like to spend any time waiting for answers.
It’s a natural assumption that the traditional old book may be nearing its extinction; today’s information often comes in just 140 characters, it is just a few clicks away. But does the rise of technology inevitably mean the demise of the book? Well, if you look at information from PWC on global book sales revenue, you’ll find that the development of technology seems to be helping to develop the publishing world. Of all book types (consumer print, educational print, professional print, consumer eBook, educational eBook, professional eBook), eBooks in each segment are the only formats that are set to record growth from 2013 to 2018. Globally, educational print book revenue is set to fall in that period by US $1.6 billion to US $33 billion. In the eBook segment, educational book revenue is set to increase by US $2.9 billion to US $5.3 billion.
In South Africa, one of the leading bookstores, focussing on educational text, is Van Schaik. Founded in 1914 by Johannes Lambertus van Schaik in Church Street, Pretoria, Van Schaik has, for the past century, been working towards its vision of becoming ‘Africa’s preferred supplier of academic resources’.
Managing Director, Stephan Erasmus tells Enterprise Africa that books certainly still have a lot to offer and whether in print or online, there is no comparison when it comes to sequentially building a robust knowledge base.
“The perception is that you can Google anything and you can find things for free but that’s a misconception,” he says. “Text books give you the framework; if you know what question to ask you can probably find the answer online but when you start studying, you don’t even know what the question is. That is why people go to universities, that’s why they need a lecturer and that’s why they need a text book – to give them a frame and a guideline. There’s a sequence of things that need to be studied and learned, and principles that need to be engraved before you can make informed decisions and that’s what a university and a text book gives you. Everything is packaged in the right format and ready to study in the right order so that you can build knowledge and wisdom in the correct way. Yes, you can find information online and if you search long enough you can probably find it for free but that’s not what studying is. Studying is to build knowledge in a sequential and logical format. The textbook is the perfect packaged format, authored by experts, edited and published by people who know what they’re doing, and we bring those products to the market.”
WRITING HISTORY
Four years after opening in Pretoria, in 1918, Van Schaik began supplying textbooks to local primary schools and, realising the potential of this new market, Johannes van Schaik decided to focus solely on educational textbooks.
Even in the very early days of Van Schaik it was clear that this was a company that would lead. In 1942, Van Schaik started making titles available in African languages – a bold move considering the political situation at the time. In 1960, Johannes was awarded a medal of honour by the SA Academy for his contribution to the development of the book industry. In 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 Van Schaik was awarded the much sought after Sefika Academic Bookseller of the Year Award, presented by the South African Bookseller’s Association.
In 2008, the online store was launched and Van Schaik also opened stores on previously disadvantaged campuses such as The University of Zululand. In 2013, Van Schaik responded to the shifting and changing marketplace by adding e-textbook solutions to its product portfolio.
Today, paper text books are still the main product line for Van Schaik and are sold to meet the needs of certain courses, as set out by the different universities and institutions.
“We supply books to students studying at academic institutions. The lecturer will adopt the book, use it in the class as a guideline for the course and the student will then buy the book. The need is created by the institution, lecturer or market,” says Erasmus.
“We sell books from all the big international publishers. We get the top books that you’d find in the US or the UK and those are the things that the academics want to use. 35% of the product we sell is imported directly. There are some books that are printed locally and are edited to suit the local market but are published by Oxford University Press.”
It is clear to see the importance and the impact that Van Schaik has had over the years. Now with a presence in almost all of the educational centres around South Africa, both private and public, this bookstore is helping to shape our leaders of the future.
GROWTH & EXPANSION
The future for Van Schaik is perhaps not as easily mapped out as it would be for other companies. Having grown in a careful and considered manner over the past 100 years, today the business is forced to look further afield, beyond South Africa’s borders, for real growth opportunities. This is because the company is so closely linked to education and it already has a strong presence across the country’s university and college network.
“Growth opportunities are limited,” says Erasmus. “There’s 26 official public institutions of higher education in South Africa. We’ve got 65 shops, some of our stores are on campus and there might be three or four campuses so we have outlets across all of the locations. Because of this, we need to look to Africa in order to grow. We do have an offering into sub-Saharan Africa through our online service but right now that’s not big business.
“We have two stores in Namibia, one in Botswana and four in Swaziland. In 2006 we opened our first store in Namibia but since then we’ve only opened in Botswana and Swaziland so the idea to expand in Africa is still underway. We’ve commissioned new market research recently but that’s as far as we’ve gone; we haven’t made any firm decisions on any country.”
But growing in Africa is not as simple as it might seem. While many companies make the move across the border, there are many tales of failure alongside the much-publicised success stories. Because of this, Van Schaik takes a measured approach to cross border expansion.
“Before we open a shop in an African country we do extensive market research. We use external research companies and we visit the countries to build up contacts. We look at the opportunities regarding availability of funding. It’s no use going to a country, opening a shop and people don’t buy products. If there’s no need for academic books and there’s not a culture of buying then it’s useless opening a shop.
“We look at is there a culture of book use, is there a culture of adoption at academic institutions, is there proper funding available. We look at this size of the institution, where is the concentration of students, can we bring the relevant product to the country cost-effectively. You have to tread very carefully as getting stock on time through the ports and airports can become very difficult,” explains Erasmus.
“We’ve been looking at Africa for many years and it can sometimes take many years to open a shop. We were talking to the University of Swaziland for many years and finally last year the opportunity came up and we opened four stores there. Obviously, everybody wants to be in Nigeria where there are huge population numbers but that isn’t always the best choice in terms of selling academic books.
“You need connectivity; you have to look at market size, ease of doing business, regulatory requirements, local shareholders, import duties, taxes; so you have to be very careful and take all of these things into consideration,” he says.
READING THE ECONOMY
Another significant factor that is impacting on everyone’s growth and expansion just now is the economy. We’ve reported many stories of how it has hit some companies hard and how others have managed to not only survive but thrive in these tough times. Erasmus explains that while Van Schaik has been exposed to macro problems that are somewhat out of its control, it has used its large footprint to dilute the effect on the business.
“The last three years have been tough from a sales and profit perspective,” he says. “We’ve been growing as we’ve opened more stores and entered new countries but in the local market is very tough. The ‘fees must fall’ campaign gave us problems; two of our stores were destroyed in the unrest and had to be completely rebuilt. Our new stores in Botswana and Swaziland did help us make up for the losses we had in those stores during the unrest.
“The problem in SA and Africa is the volatility of the currencies. Five years ago, the Rand was at 10 to the British Pound. Last year it hit 24 to the Pound. It’s a terrible devaluation and the price we pay for books has more than doubled purely because of the currency weakness. Many developing economies are in the same situation.
“We cover ourselves with regard to the exchange rate. We cannot expose our business to foreign exchange currencies that we have no control over. It becomes very complex and stock control becomes hard,” he adds.
With the economic situation in South Africa looking uncertain in the near future, with many commentators calling it ‘stable’ at best, it’s understandable that markets might fluctuate and, particularly with printed books, people might start looking elsewhere to find information but Erasmus says that ultimately, students will always have to pay for the elite knowledge that will help them through their course.
“The top expert knowledge in any field is still paid for as someone has to go to the effort to write a text book, edit it, market it and package it in the form of a book or eBook,” he says.
Importantly, Van Schaik is not just a bookstore. At locations around the country, and through the excellent website, the company stocks lifestyle-oriented items, general books, laptop computers, tablets, eBooks, software and is continuously expanding the product range. Notably, the aforementioned rise of technology does not seem to be killing off the printed text book.
“Electronics, especially tablets, have grown tremendously in the last few years.
“We haven’t seen the explosion in eBooks in South Africa; it’s not close to 1% of our total turnover,” the MD explains. “There’s many reason for this including connectivity, technology, power and price. Even in the US and the UK eBooks haven’t taken off in the way that people thought they would. In the fiction market, this format is more popular but that’s a totally different market.”
While Van Schaik does offer some fiction and non-educational titles, it’s not a market that the company will be focussing on or targeting in the future. “There are established players in that market and our shops are on campus. We provide study material and sometimes students won’t even spend their money on the books they need so what are the chances they will spend money on a fiction book. We do offer some products in our stores but it’s less than 2% of our market,” says Erasmus.
Over the past few years the South African government has been asking higher education to play a fundamentally greater role in the development of the country. Today, the demand for higher education is higher than ever. In 2011, almost one million people enrolled at a university or technikon, this is compared to under 500,000 in 1994. Africa has the fastest growing middle class in the world meaning more disposable income and in SA the middle class grew by around 250% between 2004 and 2012. All of these stats are good news for Van Schaik and as a ‘highly respected company with acceptable business ethics and morals’, it looks like we can expect further success from this important organisation.
“We see ourselves as playing an important role in supplying academic material in remote areas of our country. We believe we contribute towards education and the spreading of quality education in Africa. We open stores in remote locations; in the past we’ve opened stores in containers with air-con, sometimes we’ll have a 3x3m shop, some of our stores are 1000m2 but we do try to get outthere and we believe we have a higher purpose than just making profit.,” concludes Erasmus.