I need 20 books for a book study next month. Please can you order these for us? Yes, but not for next month. To keep costs down, we bring our books in using sea freight. If we were to use the quicker airfreight option, it would double the cost. As we source most of our books from overseas, time of delivery is dependent upon what’s on the way and what still needs to be ordered. It does not pay shipping-wise to order too few books, so we must collate your order with others. If we don’t have enough to warrant an order, we ask you to be patient. Preferably plan ahead and give us 3 months’ notice for such orders.

Can we get a discount if we buy in bulk? This is most often asked in relation to economy paperback bibles, so I will use that as an example. We charge R60 for the NIV, CSB and NKJV economy paperbacks. The retail price is R99. The customer enjoys a 40% discount. We are giving you our best possible price as a matter of course to make these bibles affordable. Whether you buy 40 or 400, the price remains R60. We cannot discount further as we then are eating into our running costs.

I need both copies of Know Your God. Can I collect on Friday? No, you can’t because there is a copy at each branch, and I only go to Pretoria once a week to do a book swap. We cannot courier the needed book from our branch as this will result in our selling that book at a loss (local courier fee is R100). I take stock and book order through to Augustine every Tuesday morning and collect the stock we need for customers at the same time. It is explained in both How to Order page and the Terms and Conditions, that orders may take up to a week to process if we need to collect stock from our branch.

I don’t find Every Day Reading Plan by Ortlund on you web site. Can you please order it for me? No, sorry, I can’t. We do not source books that are not listed on our inventory. We offer a range of 7 500 titles and the work in managing this lot is enormous. We cannot take on more by doing special orders as well. We have to be good stewards of ourselves and our time as well as everything else entrusted to us. Follow-up question: But you buy books from this publisher anyway. Can’t you just add the book I need to your next order?  If we bought everything that this publisher offered, we would sink under the load! We buy a selection from our publishers and buying additional books requires additional outlay as well as additional work. It is our experience too, that customers change their minds. We order something specially for them, and then they tell us that they sourced it more quickly elsewhere. We have not offered this service for several years now.

If I buy a lot of books, do you waive the courier fee like Takealot does? No, we don’t. As our mark-ups are low, waiving the courier fee eats into our running costs.

Do you off pensioner/student discounts? The books are already discounted. There are no further discounts possible.

Why did you charge a courier fee for my backorder? I placed one order and expect to pay for one courier fee. Amazon does not charge a courier fee for delivery of the backorder if they were unable to supply part of my order.  We are not Amazon. We do not charge retail prices, so we do not have lots of spare funds available to be able to offer free courier services. We can hold your order until the backorder arrives so that all can be sent together. If you choose to have the available books sent now, then another courier fee will be charged when the backorder arrives.

Why do I have to wait so long for my backorder? The ship has been delayed again. This is out of my hands. Or it could be that we had enough books at the time of our previous order and then someone bought us out. What you need will only come with the next order, which will only be placed when the current order lands or when I have built a sufficiently big enough order for that publisher.

Is your web site live? No. The web site is updated very night. Thus, the day’s sales and new stock items will only reflect after midnight. It could happen that you buy and item online, not knowing that we sold out during the day. This becomes a problem if you have paid. To avoid this, rather choose EFT for payment (Direct bank transfer on our order form), especially if you are choosing an item where there is only one left!

Does the web site represent the stock in your shop? Yes, but it represents the stock of BOTH shops. If you wish to pop in and collect an item, please call and check that we have that item at your collection branch of choice.

Do you courier overseas? Generally, not – it costs too much. The courier cost for SADC countries runs to hundreds and anything further runs to thousands.

What do you do? We offer you good books at very reasonable prices and serve you as quickly and efficiently as we can. When you change your mind, we cut open your parcel to add another book. We deliver your gift books to 3^rd parties. When you need something quickly, we do our best to meet your needs. We love you and pray for you, specifically that the Holy Spirit will enable real spiritual growth because of the literature you receive. We apologise when we make mistakes and strive to do better next time. We hold ourselves accountable to the Lord for the way that we operate. May he enable us to do all things well to the glory of his name.