It is very important that booklists are submitted before 31 October 2014, to ensure that we have all your required textbooks in stock for the start of the first semester of 2015.
Reasons for this include:
- We need to confirm availability of the titles with the publishers (We check if the books are still in print, if there is sufficient stock, and the prices - especially for imported books.)
- It is important to liaise with the lecturers on price and availability. Many books are ordered from overseas, and we need adequate time to receive the books to our warehouse in Cape Town and then to despatch them to our various branches.
- Overseas publishers’ stock is ordered by sea freight to keep costs down and to offer titles at a competitive price. UK publishers such as Cengage, Pearson, McGraw-Hill, John Wiley, Elsevier and Palgrave are supplied via their UK warehouses provided they have sufficient stock available at the time of ordering.
- Should UK publishers have stock available, it takes 2-3 weeks to reach South Africa. If not, stock is ordered from the USA which takes on average about 4-6 weeks provided they have stock available.
- Overseas stock is offloaded at Cape Town harbour, which occasionally experiences unforeseen delays due to bad weather.
- Providing us with a prescribed booklist enable us to assemble a database and sales history to ensure improved ordering and stockholding, which enables us to improve our service to you and the students.
- We do not order in stock without booklists. Not providing us with a booklist results in us only ordering textbooks once the semester has started, which causes delays and inconvenience to students and lecturers.
Thank you for assisting us in ordering textbooks on time by submitting your booklist before the end of October.
If you are not familiar with the practice of submitting booklists, please contact your nearest Van Schaik Bookstore or send us an email to marketing@vanschaik.com and we will assist you.