INTRODUCTION
A
wholesaler, of course, is someone who supplies goods for shopkeepers
to
sell in their shops. He might have several
hundred shops throughout
the
country selling his goods. However, he
takes a very small profit
from
each sale compared with the retailer.
Because he's dealing in
such
large quantities, the wholesaler needs large premises to
contain
his warehouse and offices. His turnover
is normally measured
in
millions of pounds. You wouldn't expect
a part time businessman
to
be a wholesaler.
Books
are much more portable than many types of goods, so a book
wholesaler
doesn't have to have enormous warehouses.
The unit cost
is
also smaller than with many items, so the investment could be
smaller. However, the general rule applies: to be a book wholesaler
you'll
need custom built storage and office facilities and a large
amount
of capital to purchase opening stock.
There
are exceptions to every rule, of course.
In the West of England
a
married couple run a wholesale business, dealing in new paperbacks,
from
their own house. They buy books from
publishers at half the
recommended
retail price, then sell them to book shops and newsagents
for
two thirds of the retail price. So a
book which costs you $4.50 in
the
shops is bought from the publisher for $2.25 and sold to the
bookseller
for $3.00. The wholesalers get 75p
profit from this sale
out
of which they have to pay wages, travelling and so on. They have
to
sell a lot of books to make a living!
Later on in this manual
we'll
explain how they do it. But first we'll
look at a method of
wholesale
book selling which involves second hand paperbacks.
WHOLESALING
SECOND HAND PAPERBACKS
I'm
about to describe the easy way to become a book wholesaler. If
you're
looking for a low cost business to start, this could be it.
You
wouldn't need any specialised knowledge, and you wouldn't need
large
premises. You could operate from a
garden shed. There'd be
little
travelling involved (perhaps none at all) and you wouldn't need
a
great deal of money to start up. Best of
all, you'd actually take a
bigger
cut of the profits than the retailers you supply!
The
books you'd be wholesaling would be second hand paperback books.
If
you think this sounds an unlikely venture for you, I suggest you
read
to the end of this section. I intend to
demonstrate that this
is
a business which can be run by just about anyone, and which will,
once
it's achieved momentum, produce a steady flow of cash profits
throughout
the year. Contact with the general
public is minimal and
it's
a very suitable venture to run from home, since you won't have
streams
of customers walking in and out all day.
FINDING YOUR
MARKET
Most
wholesalers sell their goods to shops.
The couple we mentioned
on
the previous page drive over three counties showing samples of the
new
paperbacks to shop owners and managers and taking orders. Other
wholesalers
pay salesmen to call on the shops. Some
rely on advertising,
or
on mailing out highly coloured catalogues.
All these methods
are
expensive and I would not recommend that you adopt any of them
in
your own business.
In
fact I don't recommend that you sell your goods to shops at all.
This
is partly because there are comparatively few second hand
bookshops
around. Even in quite large towns you'd
be hard pressed
to
find more than a handful. The other
reason is that second hand
booksellers
work on very large profit margins and so pay only a
fraction
of what a book is really worth.
No,
we'll go for a quite different market.
In fact we'll go for
two
markets.
The
first market is those booksellers who don't operate from a shop.
There
are a very large number of these. Often
they are part time
businessmen
and women who enjoy a little profitable book dealing
at
weekends. They attend book fairs and
flea markets; even car
boot
sales.
The
second market is an even larger one: in
fact it probably
includes
ninety per cent of the population.
This
market consists of people who are trying to raise money. They
might
be trying to raise money for themselves or for some worthy
cause
such as a school, a church or a charity.
Such people frequently
rent
a market stall or space at a boot sale or flea market. They
sell
all kinds of odds and ends which they don't want, or which, in
the
case of a charity, have been donated.
However, there's a limit
to
the number of odds and ends you can get hold of. Usually they
manage
to hold one or two sales a year. If they
could obtain stock
free
of charge on a regular basis they'd have a lot more fund raising
sales.
You're
going to provide them with what they need: something to sell
to
make money for themselves or their cause which will cost them
NOTHING. They'll come to you for this service, not the
other way
around. And, despite the fact that it will be effectively
a free
service
to them, you're going to do rather nicely out of it yourself.
So
we've now identified your market.
People who want books to sell
at
a market stall or boot sale. Or people
that want SOMETHING to sell
at
these events but don't know what. Later
I'll tell you how to
locate
these people in your neighbourhood.
First let's concentrate
on
getting some stock together.
BUILDING UP YOUR
STOCK
The
hardest part of the venture will be getting a stock of decent
second
hand books together. I suggest you
concentrate on paperbacks:
they're
popular with stall holders because they stack easily in
boxes,
they're (comparatively) cheap and they look nice and colourful.
You'll
need somewhere to put them. A spare room
in your house
would
be ideal if you're lucky enough to have one.
Do remember
that
your customers will have to enter the room from time to time.
You
my prefer to use a shed in the garden - make sure it's dry and
weather
proof! If you don't have a room or shed
to spare, then
this
venture is not for you. You'll need to
store several thousand
books
and they won't fit in the cupboard under the stairs.
You
could, of course, cover your living room wall with shelves.
I
know at least one book dealer who has done so.
But this might
make
you unpopular in some quarters. And it
should be remembered
that
people will eventually be visiting you to inspect your stock.
Fit
your room or shed with shelving. Do this
as cheaply as
possible
- use what you've already got rather than spending money.
Don't
worry if it looks rough and ready - unless, of course, you've
actually
used the wall of your living room! As
long as it's strong
enough
to hold the books it'll do fine.
Now
to get hold of the stock. The only way
to start building up
a
stock of second hand books is to advertise.
You'll need to place
ads
in your local paper: "Cash Paid for
Paperbacks, Please
'phone
_____" would work and shouldn't be too expensive. However,
our
own experience suggests that you should run the ad for several
weeks:
4 - 6 at least. It seems to take this
length of time before
the
ad actually registers in readers' minds and stirs them into action.
This
ad will be your first major expense, costing perhaps $10 or $12
for
a six week run in a local free newspaper.
However, one six week
run
should, with luck, bring in enough stock to get you started.
After
that you'll probably find that no further advertising is
necessary;
people with books to sell will contact you directly.
When
I have an ad running, I keep a notebook by the 'phone specially
for
calls from people with books to sell.
When they ring, I find
out
what they have to sell and make an appointment to call and see
them. You may prefer to have them bring the books
to you, but this
has
two disadvantages: first, many people can't be bothered to do
this,
and you'll lose the chance of getting those books and secondly,
it
will result in people calling frequently - a source of great
interest
to your neighbours (if you're working
from home) which
could
prove a nuisance.
You'll
probably find it a bit embarrassing when you make your first
call
to buy stock: most people are nervous of haggling and bartering
unless
they're used to it. In fact, I suggest
that you don't haggle
at
all. Inspect the stock and access its
value to you. Then make a
firm
cash offer. If this is declined,
politely thank the seller and
leave. However, you should find, if you follow the
guide-lines
below,
that your offer is accepted four times out of five.
GO FOR QUALITY
It's
very important to be selective when you are buying books.
A
clean copy of a book by a popular author will sell for $1, while
a
tatty paperback by someone you've never heard of can't be given
away
(that's literally true: I've tried
to). So you'll only be
interested
in obtaining clean books by popular authors (CBPAs).
Time
spent on this selection procedure now will pay dividends later.
If
you're not a great reader of paperback fiction yourself, you may
be
unsure about who is a popular author.
Our manual "Big Profits
From
Second Hand Books" includes a section on this. Alternatively,
you
can do a little research yourself. Get a
Sunday paper which
lists
the top ten paperbacks and note the authors.
Visit W H Smiths
or
John Menzies and see which books they've selected for their
paperback
sections. Ask your friends what kind of
books they like
to
read. See which TV series have been
adapted from books.
Gradually
you'll build up a list of the authors who really do sell.
When
you have a potential seller's books in front of you, sort them
into
two categories: CBPAs and others. Now decide how much the CBPAs
would
be individually priced at. For reasons
which will become clear
later,
I suggest you have just three price categories:
$2, $1 and 50p.
How
do you decide which of these prices to take?
A useful guide is
the
new price which will be printed on the back cover of the book.
If
the book was published in the last ten years and the book is in
spanking
condition: almost good as new, then you price it as near to
half
the new price as you can get. For
example, a Stephen King horror
blockbuster,
originally priced at $3.99 could be marked at $2 and so on.
If
the book is not pristine but clean and sound, work on a selling
price
which is as near to one third of the original price as your
three
price categories allow. An Agatha
Christie which was new for
$2.50
would be $1 for example.
Again
I must emphasise that if the book is not clean and likely
to
sell easily then you value it at nothing.
Naturally,
you're doing all this calculating silently in your head.
The
prices you're working out are the SELLING prices, not the price
you're
going to pay for them. When you've added
up all the selling
prices,
divide by four. That's what you'll offer
for the books.
Almost
certainly there'll be a lot of books you don't want and if
the
seller doesn't like your price you can tell him this. However,
the
chances are that he'll accept your offer but will want you to
take
everything. If this is the case, take
the lot and give the waste
to
a jumble sale, or to a charity organisation which collects waste
paper.
After
a few weeks you should have a few thousand paperbacks in your
spare
room or shed. It's important that
they're not just plonked on
the
shelves in a haphazard fashion. You must
have some system of
classification. The following plan will ensure that you can
identify
the
price and category of any book at a glance.
ORGANISING YOUR
STOCK
First
you'll need lots of cardboard boxes. See
if a local
supermarket
can oblige - but make sure you get boxes which have
been
used to pack 'dry' goods. Cut the boxes
so that they're
slightly
deeper than the width of a paperback.
The idea is that
the
paperbacks will be stacked in the boxes spine uppermost and will
pack
tightly into the boxes.
You'll
also need several packets of little coloured discs. They
come
in sheets and can be obtained in various sizes from most
stationers. Get three different colours and get the
smallest size.
While
you're in the stationers, get a notebook.
Now
arrange the books into categories. You'll
have your own ideas
about
this, of course, but the following seem to work well: Detective,
Thriller,
General Fiction, Saga, Historical, Science Fiction,
Children's. Non fiction can also be categorised into
classes like
Cookery,
Health, Countryside and so on, but at first you'll probably
have
too few non fiction books to do this.
just pile them up in a
"Non
Fiction" heap.
Some
categories can be sub divided. If you've
got a lot of Mills &
Boon
romances these could have their own box for example, or you
could
have a box of Agatha Christie novels.
This
is a good time to give the books a dust, maybe even a wipe with
a
slightly damp cloth to remove any grubby marks.
Now
you put the books into boxes, so that each box contains books in
the
same category. As you do this, you price
the books. You do this
in
THREE ways. First, pencil the selling
price inside the book - on
the
first page after the cover. Next mark
the price in code in
the
BACK of the book. I'll leave you to work
out your own code:
something
along the lines of A = 50p; B = $1 and C = $2, would
work
well enough. Finally, you stick a little
coloured disc on
the
spine of the book. The colour will
indicate the price: e.g.
Red
= 50p, green = $1 and blue = $2.
When
you've filled the box up, stick a large notice on it indicating
the
category: Science Fiction, Romance ....... whatever. You can do
this
effectively with a black felt tip pen and coloured paper.
You'll
also fix a smaller piece o paper to the box indicating the
value
of the contents: e.g. 12 @ 50p, 15 @ $1, 7 @ $2. Total
value
$35. Finally give the box a number. Record this number in
the
notebook as follows:
BOX
VALUE
1. $35.00
Leave
plenty of room on the line so you can cross out the value and
replace
it with a new one as books are sold and replaced.
This
stage of the venture will be time consuming and tedious but it's
essential
to do this if you're wholesaling operation is to run
smoothly. The idea is to have all books neatly stacked
in boxes
on
your shelves, arranged according to category and with the prices
clearly
seen at a glance.
When
you've done this, it's time for some paperwork.
First you'll
need
to prepare some booking out sheets.
These will record the books
taken
by your customers together with their value.
A sheet of plain
A4
paper would do for each slip, or, if you prefer, you could have a
hard-back
exercise book and make each page a booking out sheet. A
sample
booking out sheet is shown on the next page, filled in with
some
imaginary figures and names.
:BOOKINGOUT
BOOKING
OUT SHEET
I
acknowledge receipt of the following quantities of paperback books,
supplied
by Mr F Smith on 20-10-90:
BOX
NUMBER VALUE
1 $ 35.00
2 $ 9.50
7 $ 45.50
12 $ 60.00
14 $ 112.50
19 $ 53.00
20 $ 75.00
22 $ 8.00
23 $ 84.50
24 $ 93.00
TOTAL VALUE $
576.00
Customers
Signature: J Jones
Customers
Address: 1 High Street, Mytown
You'll
also need some booking in sheets. These
will be used to
record
the books returned by you by customers.
A sample booking
in
sheet follows.
:BOOKINGIN
BOOKING
IN SHEET
Books
returned by Mr J Jones, 22-10-90
Box
NO. At $2 At $1 At 50p
Value
1
3 10 10 $
21.00
2
0 0 8 $
4.00
7
3 9 7 $
18.50
12
8 12 20 $
38.00
14
12 25 20 $
59.00
19
6 16 30 $
43.00
20
0 30 11 $
35.50
22
0 0 4
$ 2.00
23
20 15 3 $
56.50
24
22 20 18 $
73.00
TOTAL:
$ 350.50
Signed: J Jones
F
Smith
Don't
concern yourself with the figures for the time being.
We'll
look at them in detail in the next section.
Now
you have the stock and the necessary paperwork is completed.
It's
time to find some customers.
FINDING
CUSTOMERS
You
must first decide exactly who your customers will be. I suggest
that
you start by concentrating on the amateur boot saler who wants
to
make some spare time cash. When you've
ploughed back your initial
profits
into buying more stock you can then look at professional
market
traders and, perhaps, bookshops. But I
think you'll find that
amateur
traders will bring in a very satisfactory income.
Now
you must decide on your principal selling points: those features
of
your business which will persuade customers to use your service.
In
this case you will have one extremely powerful feature - a unique
selling
proposition as it's called by the pundits.
It is this:
the
customer cannot possibly lose. This is
because you will not be
selling
the books to your customers. You will be
hiring them out
on
a sale or return basis. Hence the reason
for the booking out and
booking
in slips. The customer only pays for the
books he has sold.
And,
of course, he keeps a fair bit of the profit for himself.
Now
you must get hold of amateur traders and deliver your unique
selling
proposition to them. There are a number
of ways to do this.
The
easiest is to visit boot sales and talk to the traders.
Alternatively,
you could summarise your services on a printed leaflet
and
distribute them to boot salers.
A
less taxing but more expensive method would be to advertise your
service
in a local newspaper. Don't tell them
all about it in the
ad:
this would cost a lot of money. Simply
state that you have a no
risk
line of goods available to boot sale and small market traders
on
a sale or return basis, and give your telephone number. Explain
it
to them when they 'phone, or send them a hand-out.
A
good businessman often creates his own market.
Don't forget that
many
people who have never attended a boot sale in their lives might
be
tempted to do so with the right incentive.
For example clubs and
charities
wanting to raise money could make excellent use of your
services. Why not prepare a special handbill for
them? You could
use
the business opportunities section of your local paper to attract
people
who are looking for a spare time income.
Many individuals
would
jump at the chance of earning cash at boot sales and markets
if
only they could find something to sell.
Well, you're offering
just
that. And they only pay when they've
sold! Who could resist
such
an opportunity.
Hopefully,
a good many people will resist the opportunity, otherwise
you
wouldn't be able to cope. What you're
looking for initially is
just
a handful of regular, reliable customers.
DEALING WITH
CUSTOMERS
Your
customers will nearly all want to pick up stock on a Saturday,
so
that they can sell it on a Sunday boot sale.
It's an ideal
weekend
enterprise. When a customer arrives,
allow him to select
his
own books but don't let him interfere with the contents until
you've
filled in the booking out slip.
It
will, no doubt, have crossed your mind that it's possible for a
customer
to take the books and disappear into the wide blue yonder
for
ever. You'll need to take a few
precautions against this
possibility. Make sure you have the customer's name and
address.
If
it's a local person, so much the better.
Make sure he or she
signs
for the goods.
You
may wish to take a deposit, at least for the first dealing you
have
with a particular customer. It would not
be realistic to take
the
retail value of the books but you should have some safeguard
against
a crooked customer departing with unsold books and your
share
of the takings. Somewhere between $20
and $30 would be
appropriate,
depending on the value and amount of stock taken.
The
deposit should be taken in cash and you should give a receipt
for
it.
When
the books are returned, book them in as shown in the sample
booking-in
sheet. The system we advocating for
"at a glance"
valuation
should make this a quick and relatively painless task.
Take
the difference between the value of the books taken and the
value
of the books returned. This is the value
of books sold.
Incidentally,
it should be explained to customers BEFORE they
take
books that any book not returned in saleable condition will
be
assumed to be sold. They are entirely
responsible for loss
due
to theft or accidental damage. You may
even wish to get them
to
sign an agreement to this effect.
How
much does the customer keep? I suggest
40% of takings.
This
compares very favourably with the profit most shopkeepers make
on
the goods they sell. (Bookshops only
keep 35% of their takings,
out
of which they have to pay overheads). So
you should be paid 60%
of
the takings.
In
the example above, you can see that the difference between the
value
of books which Mr Jones took away from Mr Smith and the value
of
those returned was $225.50. (Mr Jones
had a good day: typical
takings
would be between $25 and $100, but it is perfectly possible
to
make much more at a really busy boot sale).
Hence Mr Smith,
the
proprietor takes $135.30 and Mr Jones keeps $90.20. Since Mr
Jones
has had to find only the entry fee to the market - anything
between
three and eight pound - he should be happy.
And Mr Smith
is
certainly happy. He's made some money
and someone else has done
the
work!
Not
true, of course. Mr Smith has done quite
a lot of work in
setting
up and organising the operation. And it
doesn't stop when
he
pockets his cash. He must now re-sort
the returned books.
Fill
gaps made by the books which sold and record the new value
of
each box. If he's got four or five
customers over a weekend
then
he'll probably spend a couple of evenings getting everything
shipshape
for the next weekend. And he must still
keep up the
perpetual
hunt for fresh stock.
It's
certainly not money for doing nothing.
On the other hand the
rewards
could be considerable. Just think what
it would mean if
every
market, boot sale and flea market within a twenty mile radius
had
someone selling your books!
HOW TO WHOLESALE
NEW PAPERBACKS
In
the introduction to this guide I told you about the couple who
run
a wholesale book business from their home in the West of
England
- we'll call them Joan and Peter. This
is a perfectly viable
business
proposition (Joan and Peter have been doing this for close
on
twenty years) ..... provided you have three essential ingredients:
capital,
know-how and the capacity to work very hard indeed. Most
of
this section will deal with the know-how part.
The hard work is
up
to you. But first a word about capital.
RAISING THE
CAPITAL
A
new book wholesale business is quite different from the low cost
operation
described in the first section of this manual.
You cannot
start
on a 'shoestring'.
One
thing you should definitely NOT do is borrow all the money you
need
to start business. This is a recipe for ruin. However, with
a
new paperback operation, you'll almost certainly need to borrow a
proportion
of your opening capital. Most bank
managers will listen
sympathetically
to a loan request if you can match them pound for
pound. So if you need $50,000 to start, you'll be
expected to have
$25,000
tucked away yourself.
How
do you raise $25,000? One approach would
be to operate the
first
business described in this manual for a few years and save
every
penny of profit. It takes iron will and
determination to
resist
the temptation of spending your hard won profits on the things
which
make life bearable, but this you must do if you want to raise
capital. And you'll be amazed how fast the money grows
if you salt
away
every penny in a savings account paying a reasonable rate of
interest.
If
you have possessions you could sell, then this would speed up
the
capital raising stage. But do be
cautious about this. If you
later
decide that a new paperback business is not for you, you'll
regret
parting with your antique table, your cherished car or your
collection
of rare records!
The
idea of using a small business to pay for a larger one is by far
the
best approach. It makes the fund-raising
period enjoyable and
gives
you valuable experience of running a business.
And if you
operate
the second hand paperback business described in Part One,
you'll
gain useful knowledge about popular reading tastes which will
stand
you in good stead when you move into the big time.
FINDING PREMISES
A
garden shed or a spare room is not adequate for your new paperback
wholesale
business. You'll need proper
warehousing.
The
first requirement of any storage building is that it must be
bone
dry. A damp atmosphere will ruin books
in a very short time.
It
should not be too hot: paperback covers
curl up at the edges if
they
get warm. Preferably your building will
include a separate
office
which can be heated to a comfortable working temperature,
leaving
the actual storage space cool (but not cold).
You'll
need good access for vehicles. Most
books will arrive by
carrier
service and their large vans will have to pull up and unload.
You'll
want to easily load and unload your own car or van.
Small
factory units such as can be found on industrial estates are
ideal,
but not always cheap. If this type of
location appeals to
you
and you don't mind which area you'll be running your business
in,
you could always consider moving to a development area where
there
are price incentives for new businesses renting industrial
premises.
Another
possibility would be to build a suitable storage shed on
your
own land: you'd need to consult with the
local council, of
course. If you live in a residential area it's
unlikely that they
would
sanction the erection of a large brick warehouse on your lawn.
A
reasonably-sized garage would be very suitable, provided it was
dry.
If
you spend some time combing through the business property section
of
your local papers, you should be able to make a shortlist of
suitable
premises.
When
making your decision, remember that the premises are only used
for
storage. You won't be a retail shop, so
there's no advantage
to
be gained by renting or buying a property in the main shopping
area
of a town. You'd not only be paying
through the nose for the
location
- you'd also have problems with restrictions on deliveries.
Choose
a property on the outskirts of town, or even in a rural
location.
With
suitable premises found and a lease negotiated, you can now
think
about fitting out your warehouse. The
main requirement will
be
shelving. Metal 'angle iron' is the best
system. It's cheap
and
easy to erect, and, while it's not much to look at, allows a
very
large number o books to be stored in a comparatively small
space. This type of shelving can often be picked up
cheaply at
auctions
of bankrupt stock or army surplus equipment.
Check
'Exchange
& Mart' where such auctions are usually advertised.
Very
little other equipment will be needed.
You could, if you
wished,
spend money on word processors, computers, photocopiers
and
so on. But there's absolutely no need
for all this. Joan and
Peter
write their letter and invoices by hand with a biro and never
seem
to need a photocopier.
I
do, however, recommend that you obtain a decent electric
typewriter
(you'll see why shortly). You should be
able to pick
one
up quite cheaply second hand, since most people are trading
in
their machines for word processors. A
second hand filing cabinet
would
be useful, as would an old table or desk for you to work at.
A
larger table or bench for sorting, packing and unpacking books
is
absolutely essential.
Don't
spend more than a few pounds on office equipment. Forget
what
it looks like. You don't need to impress
anyone. Your capital
is
earmarked for one thing and one thing only:
STOCK. Let's see
how
you set about getting hold of it.
FINDING STOCK
You're
looking for books and books are produced by publishers.
So
your next step is to contact publishers.
There are very few
paperback
publishers in this country. Most of them
are subsidiaries
of
the large hardback publishers and mergers and take-overs are
common. To make it more complicated, most publishers
have different
imprints
for their various types of paperback.
For example Penguin
Books
call their children's paperbacks "Puffin Books" and some of
their
non fiction "Pelican Books".
Imprints are continually
changing
as well. However, at the time of
writing, the following
are
the major imprints used by British Paperback Publishers:
Penguin
(Puffin and Pelican), Pan, Grafton, Corgi, Methuen, NEL
(New
English Library), Arrow, Sphere, Futura, Coronet, Headline,
Granada.
No
addresses have been given for the reasons given above. To find
their
addresses you refer to a publication called "British Books
in
Print". This is available on microfiche
at the larger Public
Library
Departments. "BBIP" includes a
list of all UK Publishers,
together
with the address and telephone number of their trade
departments.
You
will almost certainly find that several firms have the same
address
or the trade department. This might be
because they have
a
common ownership or two separate firms might use the same
distribution
and warehousing company. The book world
is a complex
organism.
Having
located your potential suppliers, you need to contact
them. This should be done via a neatly typed letter
(hence the
electric
typewriter) on your own quality printed letterhead.
It's
essential to convey a professional image to your suppliers,
so
spend money on some really good business stationery.
It
would be wise to register for VAT before ordering your
stationery. A successful wholesale business will easily
turn
over
the $22,500 minimum for VAT registration, and you'll need
to
do it eventually. If you can put your
VAT number on your
stationery
at the outset it will add that touch of professionalism
to
your correspondence. Readers will be
reassured that they're
dealing
with a bona fide businessman.
Spend
some time planning your letter to the publishers. It is
not
enough to simply state your intention to wholesale books and
ask
for maximum discount. Publishers will
want to be convinced
that
you have a really viable business plan before supplying you
with
goods on credit. They'll want to know
about your proposed
market,
your likely turnover, your credit worthiness and so on.
They'll
want trade references, bank references, accountant
s
references .....none of which you'll have at the outset.
You
will have studied your proposed market, of course. The next
section
of the guide deals with that in detail.
Your likely
turnover
will be a guess until you start to trade.
Your credit
worthiness
can only be established by actually proving you are
worthy
of credit by paying bills on the nail.
On the face of it,
it
would seem that you have very little to offer.
Fortunately,
one feature of your letter will make the publishers
warm
to your proposition. This will be the
bit where you state
that
you are prepared to pay cash in advance for books, until your
market
and turnover are more predictable. This
is why you need
so
much opening capital, of course. Without
this you are unlikely
to
get any publisher to take any notice of you.
You can offer
bankers
references and character references to support your
application,
but it will be the payment in advance which wins
the
day!
Finish
the letter by asking what wholesale trade terms can be
obtained,
and say that you would welcome a visit from their
representative.
There
are several possible responses to your letter.
One is that
the
publisher may not wish to deal with you.
There's very little
you
can do about this. And it's not
absolutely essential to carry
all
publishers books. Furthermore, once
you've established yourself,
the
chances are that the publishers who turn you down in the first
place
will be eager to trade.
A
more likely response is that your offer to pay cash in advance
is
accepted and trade terms are offered subject to a minimum order.
This
might simply be expressed bas a total retail value, or it might
include
a requirement to buy a minimum number of each title. The
publishers
trade list will be included and an order form.
You can
start
ordering your opening stock.
Another
possibility is that you will receive a telephone call from
the
publisher's representative, asking for an appointment. This
is
the best option since reps are usually keen to move stock, and
will
often arrange credit for you from the word go.
A
word about credit terms. If you are
fortunate enough to be
granted
these right from the start, you'll have a chance to sell
some
of your stock before you need to pay the bills.
Monthly
credit
is normal in the book trade, which means that a bill dated
in,
say, September, will be payable on or before 31st October.
If
the timing is right you can get almost two months free credit.
It's
vital for your good name, to pay your bills promptly. On
the
other hand, don't pay them before the due date.
It won't
improve
your standing, and will keep your money in your own account
for
as long as possible.
If
you are not awarded credit terms right away, then it would be
reasonable
to ask for them after trading on a cash in advance
basis
for a couple of months.
Back
to the books. What kind of books should
you order. Before
answering
this question, you should have a very clear idea of
your
proposed market. What kinds of shops
will you be selling
your
books to? Will they be newsagents
requiring a few best sellers,
or
bookshops looking for a wider range of stock?
In the months
of
planning this project, you should take time touring your proposed
area
and investigating likely markets. Spend
time browsing in
shops
and noting their stock, see what the customer's are asking
for,
watch out for the dog-eared titles that have clearly been in
the
shop for a long time.
Your
final choice may be divided into three classes.
First
will be the standard titles. These are
books which always
sell,
year after year. They include authors
such as Agatha
Christie,
Catherine Cookson, Frederick Forsyth, Dick Francis,
Stephen
King, James Herbert, James Herriot, Miss Read ...... the
list
is a long one, and new names are added as time goes by.
You'll
need plenty of standard titles whatever your proposed
market.
Second
will be current best sellers. These can
be found by
inspecting
the top ten charts in the Sunday newspapers.
They
are
continually changing and you'll need to be continually abreast
of
them. Incidentally, the publishers you
deal with will work
hard
to convince you that all their new titles are destined for
the
top ten charts. You might be swayed by
their arguments to the
extent
of ordering several hundred copies of a new and untested
book. Don't!
Let others do the experimenting.
Stick to the top
ten,
or top twenty best selling paperbacks and you'll be alright.
Third
class is the more specialist type of book, which is selected
to
appeal to particular shops in your chosen market. For example,
if
you wish to supply book shops, you'll need a broader range of
titles,
and these should include the classics (Dickens, Hards,
Thackery,
Austen, Brontes and so on), modern classics ( H E Bates,
Evelyn
Waugh etc.), quality modern fiction in the 'classier'
imprints,
non fiction (biography, politics, science, travel etc.).
You
may decide to sell books to health food shops, where a
selection
of books on organic food, vegetarian cookery and health
topics
would be appropriate.
What
quantities should you order? Before
deciding this matter
you
should make sure that you get 'see safe' terms.
'See safe'
is
the book trade term for 'sale or return'.
It usually applies
only
to credit account customers, so the sooner you can get an
account
the better. It works like this. You order
load of books
and
pay for them by the due date. After a
couple of months you
decide
that certain ones of these books will never sell. Box them
up
and send them back to the publisher - or give them to the rep
when
he calls. The value of the returned
books will be deducted
from
your next invoice.
There's
usually a limit to the amount of books you are allowed to
return,
perhaps five or ten per cent. But it's a
great help and
does
encourage you to be a little more adventurous when ordering.
If
you can't get 'see safe' right away, you'll probably be all
right
when you become a credit account customer: in which case the
books
which you ordered originally and couldn't sell can then be
returned.
The
number of books your order will depend on the number of shops
you'll
be selling to. Of course this will be an
unknown quantity
when
you place your first orders. You will,
however, have made a
list
of likely customers in your chosen area.
You have to start
somewhere,
so assume that one shop out of five agrees to deal with
you
from the start. Naturally, you'll hoe
for more shops to join
your
customer list as times goes by and your reputation grows, but
start
by being pessimistic. Pessimism is a
useful attribute in
business!
If
you have located 200 likely looking shops in your area, you
will
therefore imagine 40 customers. For
standard titles get one
copy
per shop. Paperbacks usually come
"shrink wrapped" in tens,
twenties
or fifties. With really popular standard
authors like
Agatha
Christie, you can often buy a shrink wrapped pack containing
ten
or twenty mixed titles.
For
current best sellers increase to two or three per shop. If
this
sounds a little conservative, let me assure you that people
do
not queue up in hundreds to buy a book, however popular. Any
shopkeeper
would rather sell three and be asked for another than
sell
three and have one left over. In any
case, you'll be paying
frequent
visits to your customers so they can always be topped up.
The
quantity of specialist stock to buy will be a matter for your
own
judgement. However, the rules of thumb
proposed above will
probably
work reasonably well in this case as well.
Having
placed your initial order, you'll probably have to wait two
or
three weeks for the books to arrive.
When they do there's one
small
job to do before going out to sell them.
Place a discrete
pencil
mark inside the back cover of each book.
The mark could be
your
initials, or some other mark which has meaning to you. This
will
serve to identify the book as having been supplied by you.
This
done, it's time to go out and sell.
ON THE ROAD
It's
now just a matter of loading your books into the car or van,
and
driving from town to town finding customers.
This is the stage
where
a thick skin will be required, since many potential customers
will
refuse to deal with you - politely or otherwise. This is a
reaction
which, salesmen quickly become used to : they know only
to
well they will get nine 'nos' for every one 'yes'.
As
you walk around the towns keep an eye open for new shops opening.
New
businesses are often looking for suppliers, and if you catch them
at
the right time, you may be able to attract a large opening-stock
order.
The
only way to get a customer is to walk into the shop and ask.
It's
a waste of time writing or telephoning.
You must meet your
client
face to face. Pick a time when the shop
isn't too busy, and
the
manager or proprietor has time to speak to you.
Tell him that
you're
a wholesaler of books. You give standard
discount (one third)
and
offer see-safe terms. Would he like to
give you a try? Quickly
point
out that you're not seeking to usurp his regular suppliers,
merely
to offer a "top up" service.
The chances are that he's out
of
a few best sellers, or wouldn't mind a bare shelf filled with
popular
standards.
If
he says no, that's the end of it. For
the time being at least.
Thank
him for his time, shake his hand, smile and depart. In a
couple
of months you'll go back and try again.
Then again.
Eventually
he'll be so impressed with your persistence that he'll give
you
an order.
If
he says yes, then bring in your books.
Now there are two ways of
doing
this, both of which are used quite successfully by wholesalers.
You
can either show a large selection of your stock and leave the
books
your customer selects together with the invoice. Or you can
bring
just one copy of ech book you are selling, and take an order,
returning
later in the week with the actual books.
giveeachProbably
you'll favour the second method, since this provides
your
customer with an instant supply of stock:
this may be the
very
reason he agreed to deal with you.
Having
supplied the books, you'll need to make out an invoice (bill).
This
is how you do it. Place the books in
piles according to their
retail
price. Then take out your invoice book,
which is a duplicate
book
available from any stationer. The pages
are numbered, so you
can
readily identify each invoice.
Let's
assume that you've sold six books with a face value of $3.50,
ten
with a value of $2.99, three at $4.99 and ten at $4.50. Your
invoice
would look like this:
:INVOICE
DATE
TO: (Customers name and address)
FROM:
( Your name and address)
SUPPLY
OF BOOKS:
6 @ 3.50 21.00
10 @ 2.99 29.90
3 @ 4.99 14.97
10 @ 4.50 45.00
SUB TOTAL
110.87
LESS DISCOUNT 33.33% 36.96
FINAL TOTAL 73.91
Payment
will fall due at the end of the following month. However,
you
may prefer to operate a credit system whereby you collect the
money
due to you during one of your regular visits.
You may, fo
r
example, call once every two weeks, and on the second visit in a
month,
collect payment for supplies made during the previous month.
You
will, of course, be expected to take returns.
Before accepting
a
return you'll glance at the back of the book to see that your mark
is
there. If it isn't don't reject the book
out of hand. You might
be
able to place it with one of your other customers, or you might be
able
to include it with your own returns to that publisher. If there
is
any way at all you can dispose of the book without cost to
yourself,
accept it. This will build up your
goodwill considerably.
You
will sometimes have problems getting your money, usually because
the
shop is going through a sticky patch.
The way you deal with this
is
very much a personal matter between you and your customer, so no
advice
will be offered here.
That's
about it. May you be successful in your
chosen enterprise.
No comments:
Post a Comment