Local stationery brand aims to dominate the market

Johannesburg - Education, all around the world, is considered the pathway to success. For one to have formal and decent employment, they are required to hold some form of qualification in line with their work.

But the conversation around the hardships that many young people, especially those in disadvantaged black communities, face on their way to getting proper and quality education is almost non-existent.

Many of these underprivileged youngsters lack basic school necessities such as food and stationery, among other essential materials.

The lack of these basics may negatively impact the learner. Reflecting on his personal experience of how using low-quality stationery affected his school performance and self-esteem, Levi Mnguni, founder and CEO of Thuto Stationery, speaks about how he intends to use his brand to break the cycle of the negative impact of not having adequate school material.

“My venture into the stationery business stems from my personal experience. Growing up in the small village of Ga-Matimpule in Mpumalanga, I saw how being in school with the lowest quality stationery affected my school work.

“I would sometimes miss important parts of my lessons, because I was busy outside dealing with a broken pencil or dealing with a pen that had just released its ink on the only white shirt I had.

“Such challenges that one experiences during a school career can ultimately be of disadvantage to one in being able to acquire important lessons. Maybe this is why I struggled with certain things later,” said Mnguni.

As his way of giving back to the community, Mnguni identified seven schools in Gauteng, North West and Mpumalanga to which his organisation will continuously donate stationery to assist parents.

The Pretoria-based businessman established his stationery manufacturing company, post-hard lockdown in 2020, after identifying a shortage of local businesses in the market.

Mnguni could identify the market gap because of his vast experience in the stationery supply sector. Before launching Thuto Stationery, Mnguni founded CompuBooks, a bookstore in Pretoria that specialises in supplying universities and students with school supplies and laptops.

He started the business in 2016 from the boot of his car.

“We don’t have enough young black roleplayers in the industry. Most of the black companies are at the end of the value chain. Companies that are up there in the chain, the majority of them are not South African.

“I started asking myself, what direct impact could these companies have on South Africa? I saw the need to come up with something that we can identify with, a product that can speak to us as locals citizens, a product that can inspire hope and can really speak to the possibilities that lie within the country’s economy,” he said.

Mnguni said months into the birth of his brand, he had the pressure to meet the demand and admitted to having missed a few steps at first. This compromised the quality of his product, but he quickly went back to the drawing board.

“We worked on the research for about three months, and before we knew it, South Africans knew what we were working on, and they wanted our product. They wanted it now and started rushing our process and production.

“Much as that gave us a lift, it also revealed that certain things need to be given enough time. It isn’t just a matter of wanting my product to be on the shelves now, but the quality of the product speaks volumes.

“This is one of the things that I respect most about my well-known competitors. They do not compromise on their quality,” Mnguni said.

The optimistic Mnguni said that after going back to the drawing board, he learnt that things take time.

Therefore, he had to invest more in research and understanding the various materials that go into making his products to ensure that he produces quality goods that his consumers can appreciate and embrace.

To ensure that their products were unique, Mnguni said he and his team worked tirelessly to ensure that their branding was easy on South African consumers' eyes.

He said they added an African touch to their branding to achieve this. The company went as far as going on the ground to speak to end-users and get their views on what they wanted in such a product.

He said that set his company apart from his global competitors who sell their products in South Africa, because they do not engage people on the ground. He realised that many parents complained about the expenses of buying books and having to add book covers on top of those hefty amounts.

Mnguni said to make this process less tedious, they designed their books in a way that they only require plastic covers. Mnguni’s stationery is available at platforms such as CNA, Takealot, Shoprite and Checkers, and at their online store.

He said he wanted to make the brand even more accessible to local communities and save parents the long trips and queues that they usually have to stand in during their stationery shopping at the start of an academic year.

He said the company was currently working on a deal to try and get local spaza shops to sell its products.