Unusual market of school materialsworries retailers

For small traders downtown Bujumbura, the business of school supplies has unexpectedly lost its lure these days. This is due to a sluggish demand paired with high prices at the wholesalers’.

Stands of back-to-school supplies in Le Palais des Arts hall

Sellingschool equipment in the inner city of Bujumbura is unusually less profitable so far in this period of back-to- school preparations. One week before the start of the new school year, the points of sale are almost empty ofbuyers. “Clients used to be many during the period just before the school start. I don’t know why it is happening this way”, one seller says. “It’s hard to make any sale here. There are no buyers. Sometimes I am obliged to give away my articles at a very low price just to havelunch or a ticket to go back home”, says one student doing the jobinthe Palais des Arts hall.As a high school student, he started the small businesshoping to get his school equipment from prospective profit.

The shortage of buyers coupled with an increase in wholesale prices of school materials makes sellers suffer. The increase usually impacts clients. But now, notebook sellers, for example,are affected. They are faced with the high wholesale prices of those notebooks and the low prices at which they have to sell their goods to adjust to the market. Many retailers met downtown Bujumbura complain that they hardly make profit. One retailer says: “We can’t think of making profit as we used to in the past years. We have to seek the least profit to be able to make the least sale”.

Nevertheless, sellers hope the situation will change. One vendor who seems unworried by the situation says: “Children must go to school. I will wait till the school starts. I am sure clients will come”. “Maybe it’s because the results of national exams were published too late. I hope buyers will come”, speculates another.

The wholesale price of a box of dozens of notebooks hasincreased from BIF 98,000 to BIF120, 000this year. The price of primary school uniform has increased of BIF 1000. Virtually the prices of allschool equipment have been affected: mathematics toolkit, rulers, pens, pencils and the like.

The rising of school supplies prices is not isolated. It is part of a systematic soaring of prices that has hit the Burundian economy in the last few months following foreign currency shortage.