Take Note! Rapid Replenishment Offers Available From Publishers This Holiday Season

Several publishers are once again offering expedited shipping to indie bookstores this holiday season and, in some cases, beyond. 

Rapid replenishment offers for the holidays are currently available from Penguin Random House, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Sourcebooks. Booksellers can visit the ABA Book Buyer’s Handbook for full details, or check out the contents of each offer here:

Penguin Random House

For many independent booksellers across the U.S., the earliest sign of the coming year-end holidays is not The Nutcracker over the sound system — but the announcement that the annual Penguin Random House Two-Day Transit Program has begun. The 2019-2020 initiative, announced by Jaci Updike, president, U.S. Sales, Penguin Random House, extends through March 2, 2020.

This year, the eighth for the ever-evolving and expanding program, Penguin Random House has accelerated its start to begin a full month earlier, kicking off the pre-holiday season in September. Weather and transport conditions permitting, the company will ship orders out of its Westminster, Maryland, and Crawfordsville, Indiana, operations centers for its Penguin Random House-affiliated publishers’ physical-format titles, received from indies by 3:00 p.m. ET Monday-Friday, to arrive at the bookseller in two days or less.

Both centers have weekend shifts on duty to expedite Monday arrivals for orders received Friday and Saturday. Spanning six months, the expedited-shipping event is also the largest in the industry, as it encompasses every frontlist and backlist title from the imprints of the Knopf Doubleday, Penguin Publishing Groups, Random House, Random House Children’s Books, Penguin Young Readers, Penguin Random House Audio divisions, and DK Publishing — as well as all the clients of Penguin Random House Publisher Services. 

Macmillan

Macmillan Publishers announced that it has implement expedited shipping for independent bookstores. Under this program, shipments to ship-to locations within the continental United States that have standard ground shipping times of three business days or greater from the Gordonsville warehouse will be made by two-day air.

To be eligible, orders must be on a returnable basis, equal or exceed an invoice value of $100, and be placed electronically directly with Macmillan or through your Macmillan sales representative. Expedited shipping will not apply to out-of-stock items or in circumstances that make expedited shipping beyond reasonable control. For those ship-to locations that are typically reached within two days or less under standard ground shipping methods, no changes to their current daily ship schedule will be made.

New release orders will be dispatched as per Macmillan’s normal schedule to provide availability in time for publication date. Author event orders; B2B orders; orders placed via phone, fax, mail; and/or other orders requiring special handling or processing time will not be expedited.

For questions, please contact your Macmillan sales representative.

HarperCollins

HarperCollins’ Holiday Express Shipping program for independent bookstores in the United States began on Monday, October 28, 2019, and will run through Friday, January 10, 2020. This program ensures that all qualifying orders received by 3:00 p.m. ET will ship out the next business day and will be expedited so that in most cases they will be delivered in two business days, provided books are in stock and the account is in good credit standing.

All reorders of HarperCollins and Harlequin titles are eligible for this program. New title laydowns will continue to ship by the established on-sale date for each title. Regular order minimums apply. Accounts should process their orders in the same way they always have —  no special instructions are needed. All orders placed during this time frame will receive the special handling noted above.

If you have any questions, please contact your HarperCollins sales representative.

Hachette

As we move towards the end of the year, Hachette wants to remind booksellers of the continuation of its “Rapid Replenishment Mondays.” All replenishment orders received on Mondays by 3:00 p.m. ET will be entered, picked, packed and shipped to arrive no later than Friday of the same week, except for weeks containing a holiday, weather and transportation conditions permitting. This includes orders received into the Hachette system via electronic ordering platforms like PubEasy, Brandwise, Edelweiss, PubNet, etc.

This offer applies to available titles from all Hachette Book Group published lines as well as participating distributed publishers who offer “free freight” terms. This offer does not include NYP titles, which would follow Hachette Book Group’s on sales date release process. This program is specifically for independent retailers within the contiguous 48 states. Accounts must be in good credit standing to participate and normal small pack and freight rules will apply. Note that LTL orders are excluded from accelerated shipping.

Please contact your HBG sales representative with questions. 

Sourcebooks

Sourcebooks is offering a rapid replenishment program for independent bookstores across the country, starting November 6 and continuing through December 19. Orders for in-stock Sourcebooks titles received from indie bookstores by 11:00 a.m. Central time Monday through Friday will ship no later than the following business day, weather and transportation conditions permitting, and will arrive at booksellers’ doors within two days. Orders received after the cutoff time on Friday and over the weekend will be shipped on Monday.

Booksellers should process their orders in the same way they always have; all orders received through December 19 will receive the special handling.

Questions about the program should be directed to Chuck Deane via e-mail or to the store’s local sales representative.

Other publishers that are offering holiday rapid replenishment programs are invited to let Bookselling This Week know; new additions will appear in our next update.