Book Depot Turns Up the Volume!

August 9, 2018

Book Depot has some exciting news to share which will be very impactful to all our customers! Over the past year, we have seen a constant rise in inbound product and opportunities continue to present themselves for acquiring even more product. In order to keep up with the increased volume of product that is arriving at our warehouse daily, Book Depot has made the momentous decision to keep the lights on a bit longer and add a second full shift to our operation. The second shift started late in the spring of 2018 and has added 40-plus full-time jobs to our warehouse staff!

The Facts

So why is this exciting news for all of our customers? Please let me explain and provide you with some data. The second shift currently has one main purpose, and that is to work through our inbound books and get them into our inventory faster. Our sort machine is now running 16 hours per day and we have staff working to put the books onto our shelves for the same amount of time so that you have an even larger selection of books to purchase from.

Here are some interesting numbers that will help to substantiate this increase in volume.

In the first three months of 2018, Book Depot was adding an average of 269,000 books per week into inventory. That number of books represented 9,331 unique titles, of which 2,800 were titles that had no existing stock (either a sold-out title that we had reacquired stock on or a completely brand-new title that we had never carried previously). Those are already impressive numbers, but wait for the latest stats!

In the past eight weeks since we have implemented our second shift, we are now adding on average 411,000 books per week into inventory, which represents 12,580 unique titles, and of those individual titles, 4,080 are titles with no existing stock. That represents:

• a 50% increase to our receiving capacity
• a 35% increase in the number of titles added
• a 45% increase to titles added that we have no existing inventory

So, what does all of this mean to you, our customers? There are actually a few areas that this increased volume will positively impact you.

Increased Purchasing Opportunities

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog entitled, Here Today and Gone Tomorrow. For all of you who are veteran bargain and remainder book buyers, you will understand this statement completely. The nature of our business is opportunity buying. Great titles become available at great prices and, as a buyer, you need to take advantage of those opportunities to help create the best assortment of bargain books that you can find. With the increase in our available product from our second shift, this will create even more of these great purchasing opportunities based on the additional number of titles we are adding on a daily basis.

Decreased Wait Times

For those of you who shop our New Arrivals often, you can see the pattern of the same publishers being sorted over and over again, almost by routine. The reason for this is because we have relationships with the publishers to take in their overstocks on a continual basis, so we might be getting a truckload from them every week or two. With the increase in our sort capacity, that will mean we will be able to get to these sorts sooner, which in turn means a shorter wait time before we sort your favorite or preferred publishers again.

More Books to Go Around

Another benefit we see from this increase in volume is that those desirable titles that sell out so quickly should either get restocked faster (if we get them again) and/or the quantity of those “hot” titles rise so more customers can “share the wealth.”

I hope you can see why Book Depot is excited for you, our customers, and the added opportunities that our second shift is creating for you. More product means more choices and better selection, which should also benefit your customers and/or institution. We continue to stand firmly behind our mission statement, which is that we want to save you time and money by offering the largest selection of high-margin books. This new change allows us to continue to improve upon that promise.

Rick Mechelse

Online Sales Manager

Book Depot