The U.K. wholesaler Gardners is fielding its strongest team yet at BEA as it promotes its new U.S. shipping service.
The service offers same-day shipping, with deliveries to account customers via UPS. Customers in the East will get their books in four to six working days, while the estimated wait in the center of the country is five to seven working days, and in the West, seven to nine working days. Gardners is also offering an air freight and postal service for deliveries direct to booksellers’ customers.
Gardners has tailored this service to the needs of American booksellers who may not have their own shipping arrangements for imports.
The wholesaler aims to let U.S. customers learn how easily U.K.-published books can be acquired. “We hope that booksellers will promote this service to their customers as a fast and reliable way of getting the books they want,” Christine Cawley, international sales manager, explains. Gardners offers a range of more than 400,000 titles in stock at any one time, from a catalogue of 4.5 million. Its warehouse also holds more than 100,000 DVDs, music CDs, and vinyl titles, as well as gift and stationery products. In addition to print, Gardners has more than 750,000 digital titles, and will deliver them to the U.S. when rights deals allow.
Export markets including the U.S. are an increasingly important part of Gardners’s business, now accounting for about 30% of its turnover. The wholesaler has had a presence at BEA for a number of years, and has taken its own booth since 2010. —Nicholas Clee
