Tag Archives: batch.co.uk

Salvation at Hand for St Andrew Press? Kirk Proposes Deal with Hymns Ancient and Modern

Posted on August 31, 2010 by | 2 Comments

SALVATION may be at hand for St Andrew Press, the Church of Scotland’s publishing division, in the shape of Hymns Ancient and Modern (HM&A), which took on publishing responsibilities for the Church of England only last year.

St Andrew Press was faced with the threat of closure earlier this year as part of a controversial cost-cutting exercise by the Kirk which led to John Brown, brother of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, stepping down in protest from his position as a lay member of the Kirk’s Publishing Committee when redundancies left the Press with just one member of staff to oversee operations.

According to the official Kirk announcement, three bids were considered for St Andrew Press and the Mission and Discipleship Council, which is responsible for the Press, felt that the bid from HM&A was “the best option” with a final decision due to be made by the Council of Assembly. The Revd Mark Johnstone, Convener of the Mission and Discipleship Council, described it as “a win win situation for the Church as we get to retain our valuable St Andrew Press brand, increase our market reach and raise money for the Church, all at no cost to us.”

Perhaps he is right, if that’s what winning is about. The press release makes no mention of what a handover of operations to HM&A might cost the sole surviving member of staff or what the implications might be for booksellers in terms of trade representation: at present St Andrew Press is represented by the SPCK-led Christian Publishers Representatives (CPR) team.

If — as seems likely — the deal with HM&A goes through then St Andrew Press would seem set to become part of the growing Norwich Books & Music distribution portfolio alongside Church House Publishing and Darton Longmann & Todd, amongst others. Whilst it will remain possible to place orders via the PubEasy network, it will no longer be possible to pay invoices or process returns via batch.co.uk as NB&M have yet to sign up to batch.

If you, beloved reader, are a batch.co.uk user, perhaps now would be a good time to contact NB&M and gently encourage them to join.

Reports Elsewhere (most recent first)

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Posted in Christian Publishers, News

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Service, promotion and commitment: IVP’s new trade partnership scheme

Posted on May 27, 2010 by | Leave a comment
IVP e-Bookmark May 2010

IVP e-Bookmark May 2010

IVP’s latest trade bulletin, e-Bookmark, introduces their updated trade partnership scheme, launched at the Christian Resources Together Retailers and Suppliers Retreat earlier this month, along with details of several new promotions and new/forthcoming titles.

The buzzwords for the new scheme are service, promotion and commitment, and from my perspective as a retailer I have to say that (apart from a brief hiccup back in 2007/08) there’s never been any doubt about IVP’s ability to deliver in all three areas.

Like many other publishers, IVP do run their own online shop — but unlike Kingsway, IVP don’t undermine their retail partners by selling below their own RRP, and any promotions they run online are also available to retailers, fully supported by a range of POS materials: flyers, posters and shelf-talkers, for instance.

IVP Partnership: Strengthening ministry together

IVP Partnership - download the flyer (pdf, 3.4MB)

With a growing portfolio of publishers alongside their own titles, no minimum order requirement, free carriage on all shipments and next-day delivery on orders placed before 12 noon, IVP — as I’ve said before — provide a vital link in the evangelical supply chain.

There’s definite room for improvement, however, as IVP still do not provide an online stock check and ordering service and have yet to join batch.co.uk (@batch_services) for online invoice processing and payments.

My message to IVP, then, is thank you for all that you are doing to work together with us as retailers — we really are “stronger together – weaker apart.” But please don’t stop where you are now; and please remember there’s no need to reinvent the wheel by creating your own online trade ordering and/or payment services: just join Pubeasy.com and batch.co.uk.

If you’d like to see IVP on PubEasy and batch, please let them know.

IVP’s partnership scheme is, of course, just one of several out there being offered by our many and various suppliers: Lion Hudson have their Alliance and Candle Scheme, Kingsway and Evangelical Press both run stockist schemes, and STL are currently fine-tuning their new retail partnership. If you could only sign up for one, which would it be, and why? And which, dare I ask, would you avoid — and why?

What’s the problem with Kingsway?

If you’re unfamiliar with the problems with Kingsway, see this post and its comments thread from last week: Kingsway, Cross Rhythms and the cost of Christian music: are retailers being priced out of the market?

If you think Kingsway’s practice of offering “discounts” by comparing their own prices to their own RRPs is immoral, please let them know too.

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Posted in Bookshop Ramblings, Christian Suppliers

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Christian Suppliers Update: Alban Books, Kingsway, Norwich Books & Music and Scripture Union

Posted on February 27, 2010 by | 3 Comments

Despite the new STL UK’s best efforts to become a one stop shop for retailers, it seems that not all publishers want to play ball. The latest to jump ship is Scripture Union, who have now signed up Marston Book Services as their trade distributor. Distribution moves from STL to Marston with effect from Monday, 1st March 2010, although STL will continue to stock Scripture Union product as a wholesaler: full announcement below, courtesy of  Michael Welch.

It’s a more sensible move, it must be said, than Kingsway‘s attempt to manage their own distribution: a number of retailers have reported various problems with Kingsway, including delays, shortages and incorrect discounts. Hopefully we’ll begin to see some improvements soon now that they have James Batterbee (former branch manager at Wesley Owen, Croydon) on board as Customer Services Manager.

Kingsway say that trade orders are currently being turned around within 72 hours, carriage-free until the end of March; the aim, I believe, is 24 hour turnaround. Authentic UK product — acquired from the old STL — should be available next week. The company have also taken on UK distribution for Joseph Prince, Moody and Navpress and are reportedly planning — a little prematurely, perhaps, given the recent collapse of STL’s global ambitions? — to expand operations into the USA: UK Christian Music Giant, Kingsway, Establishes North American Presence. You can find Kingsway’s USA owners on twitter @David_C_Cook and on facebook; Kingsway appear on facebook as Mission Worship.

In the meantime, Alban Books — UK distributors (also with Marston) for a number of USA publishers including Abingdon Press, Augsburg-Fortress, Eerdmans and Westminster John Knox, to name but some — have announced that following Kate Dennis’s departure last year, they’ve decided that a full-time Sales Rep is no longer necessary and are switching to a telesales system, expected to launch mid-March this year. Any concerns or comments may be addressed to Nigel Parkinson, Sales Manager: contact details here. You can also find Alban Books on facebook.

Finally for now, Norwich Books & Music (distributors for SCM, Canterbury Press, Church House Publishing, Darton Longman & Todd and HarperCollins Religious, amongst others) have upped their game to match IVP and are now offering 24-hour delivery service as standard to the UK book trade, with same day despatch for orders placed by 12 noon and no small order surcharge. With comprehensive online search and ordering across Norwich’s entire list available via PubEasy.com, this in fact gives Norwich a distinct edge on IVP, whose trade list is only available as pdf downloads.

All we need next is for Marston, Norwich and IVP to get their invoicing systems up to speed with batch.co.uk…

Related Posts (most recent first)

Editor’s note: email addresses in the following announcement have been split as a spam prevention measure.

IMPORTANT TRADE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM SCRIPTURE UNION

Scripture Union is pleased to announce the appointment of Marston Book Services as its distributor.

Distribution provision will move from STL-D to Marston Book Services as of the 1st March 2010

All orders for Scripture Union titles including dated resource should be directed to Marston from the 1st March. Orders can be placed using your existing Marston trading account.

All orders for the April-June dated quarter and/or Submerge March-April should also be placed with Marston after this date – including top-up orders. If you have a SU dated standing order with STL-D we ask that you cancel and transfer it to Marston ASAP thereafter.

All returns for credit including dated should be sent to Marston Book Services. Any other claim – for damage goods, mix see/safe order etc should be returned to STL-D.

All orders and customer enquiries should be sent to:

Marston Book Services Ltd
160 Milton Park
P O Box 269
Abingdon
Oxon OX14 4SD
Tel: 01235 465576
Fax: 01235 465555
Email Orders: trade.orders AT marston.co.uk
Enquiries: trade.enquiry AT marston.co.uk

Any queries regarding this change please contact Scripture Union’s retail support – telephone Tracy on 01908 856182
fax 01908 856030
email retailsupport AT scriptureunion.org.uk

STL-D will continue to offer our wide range of titles as a wholesaler.

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Posted in Announcements, Book Trade Ramblings, Christian Publishers, Christian Suppliers, Musings..., News, STL

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Marston Book Services and e4books: Making a Mockery of Industry Standards

Posted on July 1, 2009 by | 8 Comments

Update, 17 May 2010: from batch via twitter, 14/5/2010:

Batch welcomes a new distributor: it’s Marston Book Services and they will go live from June 1st. Nice to have you on board guys!

e4books > Accreditation

e4books > Accreditation

On Monday 29th June 2009, BIC (Book Industry Communications) announced that Marston Book Services had achieved e4books accreditation:

Marston Book Services is the latest company to become e4books accredited, bringing the total number of accredited companies for 2009 up to 91. Almost all of the significant UK distributors have now been successful in gaining the award, which sets challenging targets for levels of automation in supply chain e-commerce, and has become a benchmark for the industry.

I’d like to offer Marston my congratulations on a long overdue step in the right direction. Instead, however, I find myself looking at my own e4books Accreditation Certificate and wondering what, exactly, it’s worth: has the time come to feed it to the shredder?

For those who are unfamiliar with the e4books project, it’s a scheme that was set up by BIC just over 5 years ago (remember eDay?) “with the aim of increasing the use of e-commerce transactions with trading partners in the book industry supply chain.” Rough translation: encouraging people to do more business electronically instead of shuffling sheets of paper.

The aim of e4books accreditation, as I understood it, was to give recognition to those companies which were making significant progress in their implementation of ecommerce and paperless procedures, thus giving companies such as Marston, which have yet to implement online invoice processing for booksellers, an impetus to bring their systems up to speed.

The UK book trade industry standard online payment system is batch.co.uk, a Booksellers Association initiative. It’s an incredibly simple system to use that eliminates the need for booksellers to issue dozens of cheques to dozens of different suppliers, and saves those suppliers in turn having to deal with hundreds of separate cheques, not only reducing admin work but also — and much more importantly in the long term — reducing our industry’s impact upon the environment by reducing paper consumption and use of postal services.

Back in 2006 the LST Bookshop became one of the first two independent booksellers to gain e4books accreditation (an honour I shared with Yorkshire Books). I had something of a fight on my hands at the time because several of my major suppliers, including Marston Book Services, simply did not — and despite repeated requests from myself and many others still do not — allow me to pay my invoices via batch.co.uk.

I applaud Marston’s use of PubEasy for online order processing; I do not dispute Marston’s excellence when it comes to prompt despatch and accurate fulfilment: on these aspects of the business, I have nothing but praise.

But on an ecommerce front this is only one side of the story: granting Marston Book Services e4books accredited status without requiring them to comply with the other side of the story — disregarding an essential part of the standards specified under BIC’s own guidelines for suppliers, “the sending of a high volume of electronic invoices and credit notes to a significant number of trading partners” — undermines those standards and makes a mockery of the entire e4books scheme.

Making a mockery of e4books accreditation

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Posted in Book Trade Ramblings, News, Services

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What’s happening at STL? BA CBG to Carlisle, blog updates coming soon and invoices – aaaargh!

Posted on April 28, 2009 by | 8 Comments

Today sees the the BA Christian Booksellers Group gathering at STL HQ in Carlisle for its AGM tomorow. The timing, regrettably, is such that I can’t be there, but I take this opportunity to wish all who do attend a very worthwhile meeting: I look forward to hearing what transpires. Who will make up our new committee? What will STL have to say for themselves?

Yesterday I tweeted Steve Mitchell (@SCRMitchell) — head honcho at Wesley Owen and a member of the STL blog team — to find what’s happening with their blog, which hasn’t been updated since the Message from Keith Danby was posted a few weeks ago. Steve tells me that we can expect some updates after today’s and tomorrow’s meetings and assures me that the issues being raised in the comments will be addressed: watch that space.

I was also up until midnight beating my head against the brick wall of STL’s incompetence, attempting to reconcile my invoices with their latest statement and their postings at batch.co.uk: the phrase “dog’s breakfast” barely begins to cover it. It took me approximately 20 minutes to whizz through all my other suppliers invoices; then almost 3 hours to work through STL’s, and I was still left with over £500 of unreconciled invoices and credit notes.

The problem is exacerbated by STL’s failure to make use of the batch claims system. For those who don’t use batch, allow me to explain: batch has a very straightforward way of dealing with invoicing errors. You call up the invoice onscreen, identify the problem item, select a reason for your claim (wrong item supplied, incorrect carriage charge, wrong discount etc) and hey, presto: that item is magically removed from your invoice total, allowing you to pay the remaining balance whilst your supplier deals with the claim.

STL, on the other hand, insist on doing their own thing, raising a separate credit note whenever they screw up and then reinvoicing. Sometimes the credit notes cross reference the original invoice; sometimes they don’t. As I said: dog’s breakfast.

This is not a criticism of those wonderful folk in STL’s customer services department who are continually working their socks off, who remain unfailingly polite as they attempt to pick up the pieces in the midst of the ongoing chaos. Janette Ivison and Michael Swan in particular deserve recognition for their good humoured and efficient responses whenever I raise a query: my thanks to both of them and to those working with them. The problem is that the queries I constantly find myself raising should not be necessary in the first place.

Today, I shall attempt to reconcile the rest of my STL invoices and credit notes. It may or may not work, but it will almost certainly take most of the day. I am close to despair and seriously considering boycotting STL as a supplier.

It’s become clear that I am not alone in feeling like this: STL, be aware.

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Posted in Book Trade Ramblings, Bookshop Ramblings, Christian Suppliers

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