Simon & Schuster Canada has announced that effective June 28, it will ship books, audios and calendars to Canadian accounts from the company's distribution facilities in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and that it will close its Canadian warehouse at the end of June. Georgetown Terminal Warehouse will act as third party logistics provider for the Canadian marketplace for all S&S titles and its distribution clients, including freight forwarding and returns processing services to S&S Canada. It will also maintain inventory on fast-moving titles.
The warehouse closure represents the loss of about 50 jobs. According to S&S Canada's marketing director Rosslyn Junke, GTW will be creating a number of new positions, as many as 15. "We have a fabulous warehouse," said Junke, "but managing stock and inventory in the North American supply chain is always a challenge." The move, she said, speaks to the fact that in Canada, S&S will focus on sales and marketing and will exit the shipping and fulfillment business. Sales and marketing "is an area where we've made changes in the past six months; our budgets there have increased."
The warehouse change will also give S&S Canada's accounts access to everything S&S distributes, Junke said, and give S&S Canada the ability to quickly fill orders for a fast-moving book. "Up to now, we have had to pick and choose titles to stock in the [Canadian] warehouse."
S&S took full ownership of the Canadian operation in November 2002 when it acquired its exclusive distributor, Distican.
