Philip King: University of Canterbury Bookshops’ leader has business acumen

Philip King, University Bookshop (UBS) Canterbury, is a trade legend for his entrepreneurial flair.

Which is no doubt why the University of Canterbury bookshop has an active promotional program, and why its city satellite store at Christchurch Hospital does 70 percent of its business in general bookselling.

King (pictured) was a young teacher in Tokoroa when he opened his first bookshop, continuing to teach for the first year while his wife Linda ran the store; then there was a role swap and he left teaching to mind the store while his wife worked as a nurse.

His next bookselling move was to buy Coopers in Otahuhu, South Auckland which he built up over the five years from 1980-85.

A move to the South Island saw the start of a serious bookselling operation, the first store being Philip King Bookseller at Linwood Mall. King was involved in the Nationwide chain (later to evolve as PaperPlus) and was a buyer for stationery and books, though his own store was always more concentrated on books.

Stores in Dunedin’s Golden Centre, Riccarton’s Bush Inn and the Big Fresh Shopping Centre in Christchurch followed, and also a city store in Hereford Street: five big stores of 400 sq m each, a staff of 100 including part-timers and a head office above the city store.

Over this time, King also contributed much to the trade, as a Booksellers New Zealand councillor for 12 years, four of them as Chair. His business sense and direct attitude were respected and admired.

Guy Fawkes Day 1993 was explosive for his business. Philip King Bookseller stores had had a loose association with the London Bookshop group, and when London was sold to the then Graeme Hart-owned Whitcoulls, Philip King’s stores were also bought out by Hart, as they had South Island locations that complemented London’s mainly North Island stores. Neither party was privy to their individual sale arrangements with Hart at that time.

So, 1994 was time out and overseas travel. King’s next ambition was to establish a vineyard, but instead he bought a run-down sheep and cattle farm, 915 hectares, near to where he lived in Governor’s Bay (near Lyttelton.) Farmer Philip, together with his wife Sarah Lovell-Smith, planted trees, landscaped the property and rebuilt farm sheds and buildings.

In the process he created an area that every two years becomes the site of Sculpture on the Peninsula, a major Canterbury art event and charity fundraiser.

King’s return to bookselling began with a month long contract in 2002. He was asked to write a report on UBS Canterbury operations for Ian Draper, the MD of Whitcoulls and 50% shareholder of UBS together with University Students Canterbury Association. “I could see the staff rolling their eyes as I strategised a new marketing plan, thinking ‘let’s get this over and he’ll be gone soon,’” says King. In fact he stayed on, restructuring and refurbishing the store.

WH Smith, at that time Whitcoulls owners, wanted to quit all joint- ventures in New Zealand. Paper Plus bought Books and More from Whitcoulls and entered a partnership with New Zealand Post. The University bookstores fell into this category, so King and the University of Canterbury Students Association became 50 percent shareholders of the UBS Canterbury store. UBS Board contracted King to continue to run the business.

King has brought all his hard headed management skills and entrepreneurial instincts to the task. And it is a big job – the campus bookstore (King calls it the ‘mothership’) alone is 900 sq m. ‘Little brother’, the Christchurch Hospital located store, was once set up to deliver texts to medical students, but these days the turnover is 70 percent general books and 30 percent texts. Its proximity to the city attracts a clientele from the business area.

In contrast, the mothership stock breakdown is 50/50 text and general books. They actively seek general business, despite the difficulties of finding a vacant place among the 17 parking spaces near the bookstore. To encourage a wider audience, they regularly run book launches and other events ‘with good wine and good hand made food’ at 5.30pm when parking is available. They actively promote UBS as a non-mall environment.

Talking to King, you can see the business acumen when he describes the governance of UBS stores. Board meetings are regular, and a full set of accounts is prepared each month. As the text book sales period of three to five months is when they trade positively, the aim is to be adept at managing the cash flow and be cash flow positive for the year.

To put that in perspective: King says they trade well at Christmas because of their reputation, stock holding in general books and the availability of parking in December. “But we can sell as much in one day of the peak textbook season as the whole of the December month.”

One area in which King did drag his toes was the development of a UBS Canterbury web presence. “I used to say that when Amazon opens a bookshop we will have a website.” So when did he give in? “Oh, about four years ago.”

UBS has 13 full time staff and 10 part timers they call on. Three staff members are full time dealing with enquiries and special orders, another spends her entire working time coordinating with academic staff to confirm upcoming text selection (tact required).

[Philip King, book-buyer Anna Fergusson, and Vicki Williams, UBS Canterbury's longest-serving employee]

King’s management contract is for eight months of the year, but he has the backup of ‘colleague, friend and great bookseller’ Gillian Newman who is his deputy and then manager in his absence. However it is Gillian Newman who is AWOL at the time of The Read’s interview, taking some months off to travel, starting with the Hay-on-Wye Book Festival.

Philip King is also partner with Brian Phillips in Phillips and King Publishing, self proclaimed as New Zealand smallest publishing house. They specialise in reprints of Canterbury local history titles, ‘resisting fiction despite temptation’. They have published four titles so far and plan two new books for next year.

King’s current concerns for the future of the bookselling industry in New Zealand are that we will have the same attrition of bookshops, both chains and independents, as experienced in the UK and USA. He fears that the excessive prices we pay for books – quoting  that Wolf Hall at UK 4.95 in UK should realistically be around $10-$15 here, yet the price is NZ $29.99. Oxford texts are often four to five times the equivalent of their UK prices. He predicts the ultimate demise of retail pricing on book jackets.

This price differential King sees as a bigger immediate threat to New Zealand’s book trade rather than digital book sales.

The digital, and indeed whole book market, is entering a different era. There is huge competition for peoples’ discretionary leisure time, says King, and this is still the major threat to increasing sales. “We will learn to live with the digital age and adopt the new technologies,” he says. “But why download a book or buy a hard copy, when you are not sure you’ll have time to read it?”