An e-mail we received yesterday is below. It is another unfortunate manifestation of a trend which, as mentioned before, is affecting everyone in the industry, and in this case Capital Books has been one of the few bookshops run by people with a good knowledge of and real interest in books.
The NZ Government's decision in 2010 to make the rate of GST (VAT/Sales Tax) on books the second highest in the world after Denmark was a big blow to the book business, but it isn't the only factor.
We have often pointed this issue out to retailers in NZ/A and suggested the obvious thing to do is stock local titles which people can't get cheaper from online retailers in other countries, but do they listen?
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25 July 2014
Dear Supplier
It is with great sorrow that we have decided to close Capital Books at the end of August 2014.
As you will no doubt realize, we, like yourselves, have found trading conditions very difficult over the last few years. Regretfully neither we, nor our financial advisors can see this improving in the future. The impact of people buying online, particularly offshore and thus avoiding GST, has been significant.
In addition we have both had significant health issues and this has caused us to refocus. At this stage we are not sure what our ‘life after Capital Books’ will comprise but hopefully a little more leisure time and a lot less stress.
It is our intention to start our ‘Close down’ sale on 28/7/14 – we anticipate that the sale of our existing stock and outstanding debtors will allow us to meet all our creditor liabilities.
We ask that you cancel any backorders that cannot be supplied before the end of August.
Following the commencement of the sale we may contact some suppliers about returning SoR stock.
We would like to thank you all for your support and occasional forbearance over the last 18 years of trading together. We wish you, your staff and company all the best for the future.
Yours sincerely
Tim and Glenda Skinner
Directors
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