Meet Otatara Bookshop, part of EIT Taradale Campus

One of a kind booksellers are often the gems in our industry and Otatara Bookshop is one of those with a very special character. It has had a variety of “homes” around the Eastern Institute of Technology, and a very prominent one for the past 14 years, situated in a building off the roundabout as you enter the campus.

EIT, originally the Hawke’s Bay Community College when it was founded in 1975, has had an on-campus bookshop since quite early in its history.

Two years later, a small group of tutors put in $200 each to start a bookshop that would give students a good deal on their texts and stationery. Run as the Otatara Trust, it became a sizeable undertaking and any profits from the shop were channelled into student scholarships.

Otatara Pa is the reserve behind EIT and Otatara was also the name of the original homestead on the site, hence the bookshop’s name which has been retained over the years.

Later the trust structure became impractical, and EIT itself took over ownership in 2005 – but the same principle of affordable textbook supply for students remains in place.

IMAGE: Penny (left) and Audrey run the Otatara Bookshop.

Audrey Geddis started with Otatara Bookshop in 1995, initially part time, then full time. She became store manager in 2006 after the then manager retired – there can’t be too many bookshop managers who report to a Director of Corporate Services!

EIT’s courses and degrees cover nursing, sport and health science, arts and social science, applied sciences (including wine science), Te Manga Maori, early childhood education, business and computing, trades and technology, tourism and hospitality, art and design studies.

IMAGE: Otatara Bookshop stocks everything that students need.

Otatara Bookshop covers all text requirements, student stationery and corporate stationery for EIT. Though the location is officially Taradale, it is around two kms from the shopping centre, so it also stocks small ranges of fiction, gifts and lots of greeting cards.

Audrey is a wily negotiator on stationery prices.

“You have to fight for some of them,” she says. “We don’t make the mark-ups usual for bookstores and maintain that we are here for the students and I negotiate on that basis.”

She buys as much stock as possible when the ‘back to school’ promotional discounts are on offer. “I would buy more to get the good prices but we just don’t have the storage.” The bookshop size is only 150 sq m, so the lack of storage space is understandable.

IMAGE: Penny (left) and Audrey the smiling stationery price assassin

The bookshop sees lots of reps and keeps on top of new product. Some ordering is also done online.

The other full-time bookseller is text buyer Penny Geddis, who began as a part timer in 2000 – she originally came in to help with stocktake.

Penny had been doing all the usual post grad jobs after her BA from Massey in English Lit and Media studies; receptionist, telemarketer and working in student loans. But the gal just can’t help adding qualifications: an NZIM certificate in small business management from EIT and now she is currently finishing a diploma in creative writing from Whitireia.

Notice the similarity in surnames? Penny was hired by the previous manager as a retail assistant and her job grew to be full time. She became the store’s text buyer in 2006. So Otatara Bookshop is now a mother/daughter act that works really well – possibly because they have separate domains!

IMAGE: Students are one of the key markets for Otatara Bookshop.

Audrey is in charge, and the authority, on all things stationery. Penny was trained by the previous manager who taught her everything she knew about text books, to which she’s added her own attributes of analysing statistics on stock movement and a great memory for books and their covers.

Their work habits are different too - Audrey likes to get in an hour or so before the store opens to do paperwork while she is undisturbed. Penny stays after the shop has closed, dealing with orders and other chores.

There are a lot of email orders for Otatara’s wine science text and supporting books – students are discovering they have the cheapest prices!

Business students are also aware of a good deal and are the store’s biggest email order shoppers.

Penny is passionate about fiction and greeting cards, so she also does the buying for that area. Assisting Audrey and Penny is part timer Shirley Mitchell, and casuals Adrienne Frank and Jadene Heatherwick.

You will also find a great range of pens at Otatara: Penny has ‘a serious addiction’ and swears by her Pilot Jetstream, Audrey prefers a Pilot V7. “There are often cheers of delight when we convince a customer to purchase ‘our’ pen,” says Audrey.

The Otatara Bookshop building was “inherited” but is colourful with a forest green and blue walls. The ambience is cosy and well ordered, but it is pretty unlike a flashed up, brighly lit, main street store. Though with text prices cheaper than elsewhere, what is there to complain about?

But an expansion of bookshop effort might be asked of the Otatara team in the future: EIT and Gisborne’s Tairawhiti Polytechnic merged in January this year. Currently the institutions are in a delivery of change-over mode. Otatara Bookshop is already providing Tairawhiti students with their texts by internet mail order, and online web ordering should be available in 2012.

Article written by Jillian Ewart, writer for The Read