Book Circle Capital
What does your company do?
Book Circle Capital is an independent bookshop that focuses on African Literature. We are passionate about developing a culture of reading and celebrating Africa's rich heritage through story telling. We have an extensive collection of books - fiction, non fiction, poetry and children's books by African authors telling African stories. We hold weekly events with authors enabling readers to engage directly with authors. These events are for children and adults.
What is your biggest success?
There are many achievements in the business over the year but one of the highlights include surviving Covid in 2020 and 2021, the business is mainly anchored around hosting regular events. This is where we get our cash flow. During lock down we could not meet. This was a huge strain to our finances. It required us to be agile. This is where we grew our online presence by building an online shop, hosting online book events and introducing our podcast conversations around book. Though this was challenging period it forced me to grow. The community of Melville, book lovers and publishers also showed us kindness by ordering books from us in bulk while also buying book vouchers to boost our cash flow. Another highlight is seeing children enjoy stories being read to them by authors just for fun, just for them to dream and to be transported to different worlds. Seeing the joy in their faces and knowing that they are inspired to pursue their dreams into the future. In becoming a bookseller I have also identified opportunities in the space by becoming an author. I have 3 published books, one being a bestseller, which are available in all 11 South African Languages.
What has been your biggest hurdle?
The biggest hurdle is driving weekly sales at a location that gets little to no feet traffic daily. 27 Boxes is a shopping centre made out of shipping containers in Melville Johannesburg. This is mainly a destination location that does not compel repeat customers. The tenant mix is haphazard with no strong plan from the centre owners. That is why as a business we are heavily anchored on events to drive weekly sales boost by customers. This has also driven me to find other sales opportunities outside of the physical retail location like pop up shop opportunities at like minded events like markets, cultural events, music concerts, schools, book fairs etc. This remains a weekly challenge while I am still trying to find an alternative location. The area where the business is based is very ideal as its flanked by The University of Johannesburg and Wits with academics that are the target market for the books we sell, but the specific retail location needs work. One of the major hurdles at the start of the business was having the whole shop flooded latter part 2017 at our original location in Maboneng. The landlord was not forthright about the state of the roof and when the summer rains came, the shop was flooded with books damaged and shelving. This was a tough time in the life of the shop but thank God we relocated to the current location in early 2018 and we have been there since.
