Batch completes US Big Five 'grand slam' as international expansion ramps up

Batch has announced a new period of expansion following landmark US deals with Hachette and Simon & Schuster. The considerable growth across America comes 25 years after its founding by the Booksellers Association, of which it remains a group company alongside National Book Tokens. 

The supply chain tech company said that a new partnership with Simon & Schuster by Batch’s American arm, Batch for Books, has completed the company’s "grand slam" of Big Five US publishers, following its integration with Hachette Book Group, which was announced earlier this year.

Founded in 2000, Batch (Booksellers Association Transaction Clearing House) succeeded the former manual clearing operation run by National Book Tokens and took on its remit of streamlining payment processes – and consolidating communications  – between bookshops and suppliers to save both booksellers and publishers valuable time, administrative resource and operational cost.

Batch transitioned the manual cheque-based payments operation into a technological solution and "became a solution provider".  The company diversified and refined its offering to bookshops in response to the evolving needs of booksellers, accelerating nature of technological advancement and global changes to supply chains. Batch launched in America in 2020 and is now used in over 450 bookshops across the US.

Izzy Carlile, MD of Batch, said: “At Batch we pride ourselves on putting booksellers and their unique needs at the centre of all we do. Running a bookshop has never been easy and it’s not getting any easier. Therefore, we’re delighted that across the UK and Ireland – and now in the US and other locations around the world, as well – we’re seeing more booksellers, supported by more suppliers and publishers, using Batch services to lighten the administrative load.”

BA MD Meryl Halls added: “We always strive to help bookshops and booksellers by celebrating them to consumers, advocating them to governments and supporting them pastorally and operationally. Since its foundation, Batch has been at the strategic heart of the latter and a key long-term investment by the BA in fortifying and strengthening operationally bookshops of all shapes and sizes, both presently and in the future, and now – increasingly – across the globe and in the US.”