Ingram Wholesale Services
As IPG members know, Ingram have been supplying the UK book trade for years. So, what’s new? Well, a few things. The most significant new development is that we are now stocking books alongside print on demand (POD) titles for wholesale supply to the UK book trade directly from our Milton Keynes warehouse.
Ingram’s three sources of wholesale supply
- A curated list of stocked titles in our UK warehouse
- Books supplied via our full-service distribution business, Ingram Publisher Services (IPS), which will follow launch
- POD titles, supported by Ingram’s Lightning Source®.
Publishers who enable their books for UK wholesale will be able to take advantage of these three sources of supply, offering fast delivery and clear availability messaging to the book trade. Orders received by 12 noon will dispatch the next working day and POD titles will always show as available and ‘in stock’.
Benefits for IPG members
Availability. This matters, as does the message presented to booksellers. We all know poor availability messaging and long lead times deter retailers from ordering titles. Ingram’s new wholesale services provide more direct, localised relationships with the UK book trade and improve both messaging and supply to booksellers.
More sales. With better availability and faster delivery, demand for Ingram-supplied titles increases, ultimately helping you sell more books.
Savings. Additionally, IPG members benefit from Ingram’s bespoke IPG offer that allows member publishers to set their titles up for free and waives the wholesale distribution costs for an entire year.
Coming soon: services to strengthen the supply chain
Consumer Direct Fulfilment (CDF). Ingram’s CDF service enables direct fulfilment of books to a bookseller’s end-customers—your readers. This service saves booksellers time and effort and makes it easy for readers to get the books they want as quickly as possible. It’s popular with North American retailers and with ongoing supply chain challenges, retailers in the UK are interested in this service as well.
Guaranteed Availability Programme (GAP). GAP helps publishers capture as many sales as possible by keeping books available. Physically stocked titles are set up for POD as a ‘stop gap,’ so if there is unexpected demand for a title, or supply chain issues, POD activates to keep the book available and physically stocked in Ingram’s warehouse. This model has proved invaluable to publishers selling into North America, keeping available many bestselling titles that would have otherwise gone out of stock.
Developing these types of services for further markets presents an opportunity for publishers to build a more robust supply chain, both in the UK and globally.
UK business name and suppliers
The full name of the business is Ingram Content Group Wholesale Services, and it is an extension of wholesale services already available in the US. Initially, Ingram’s UK buying team will purchase books from select UK publishers and distributors only. However, any title in Ingram’s POD system that is priced in GBP for wholesale distribution into the UK will be part of Ingram’s UK wholesale offer to retailers. These books will show as ‘in stock’ and will benefit from enhanced turnaround times of next-day shipping for both paperbacks and hardbacks.
Ingram’s global bookselling strategy
Ingram Wholesale Services is just another way of connecting great content with more retailers locally and efficiently. This approach is consistent with another Ingram program called Global Connect, where Ingram’s network of local third-party POD providers in countries like Germany, India, and China supply booksellers more quickly in those markets. Publishers produce the great content, Ingram’s network supply it as quickly and as close to the customer as possible. Strong availability messaging helps support local demand. Put simply, Ingram’s global strategy and vast network supplies your books to more booksellers, locally.
What does all this mean for IPG members?
In short, more opportunities to sell your great books! To get started, contact your Ingram Account Manager, or email us.
Andrew Bromley is senior global marketing manger at Ingram.