Booksellers hit by two-month delays as Christmas supply chain disruption bites

Ongoing disruption in the supply chain is forcing booksellers to stockpile more than usual in the lead up to Christmas with delays of up to two months on some titles.

Numerous books are not reaching shops by publication date and slower delivery times are becoming the norm. Some booksellers are concerned the inconsistent deliveries will see customers seek books from elsewhere online. The delays come amid a background of shortages of paper and HGV drivers, alongside rising shipping costs, with warnings that big retailers such Amazon "scooping up" huge numbers of titles could leave indies struggling.

Despite the difficulties, most indies told The Bookseller they remain optimistic in the run up to Christmas, with many praising their “invaluable” reps and “loyal customers” for their support. 

Sanchita Basu de Sarkar, owner of the Children’s Bookshop Muswell Hill, north London, said there had been a number of new titles that had arrived late. She said: "On investigating, it looks like they went to Amazon rather than the bookshops, which can prove frustrating — but our reps have been invaluable, really looking after us and ringfencing the stock, so almost everything has been sortable."

De Sarkar anticipated the delays and ordered the shop’s lead titles in higher quantities than usual, to avoid disappointed customers.

Sue Lake, director of White Rose Bookshop & Cafe in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, said things had “definitely taken a turn for the worse” since September.  She explained: “[We’ve had] orders lost in transit, which then turn up having been ordered again, split deliveries, and signed copy orders not turning up at all. A very high profile title which we had ordered was completely missed by the publisher and caused us a significant loss of sales in the past week."

Lake is concerned the haphazard nature of deliveries will have a negative impact on the relationships she has built with customers. She said: “It's a difficult conversation to have with your loyal customers when they have ordered with us as opposed to online. As the public return to physical spaces to shop, there has never been a more important time for us to deliver excellent customer service. If we let them down now, they are likely to revert to online ordering.”

Lake is among traders who would like to see a cap on return ordering over a certain amount, from publishers and distributors.  “Excluding event stock, there is a good argument for making large orders ‘firm sale’ to discourage over ordering and stockpiling and allow the whole trade to benefit from bestsellers,” she said. 

The Booksellers Association (BA) is continuing to urge the public to "shop local" and early in the lead up to Christmas — both to support the high street and to secure their titles. “Reports of booksellers being impacted by supply chain issues are very concerning, particularly in the vital sales period in the months leading up to Christmas,” BA m.d. Meryl Halls said. “Bookshop Day and Super Thursday have demonstrated in the past weeks the public’s enthusiasm for returning to bookshops, and it is key that delays in the supply chain don’t restrict booksellers from being able to provide readers with the books they are looking for this festive season.”

As she prepares for her first Christmas in her Islington-based book and wine shop BookBar, Chrissy Ryan has noticed many of her orders are not available for publication date with slower delivery times expected. “It's challenging to manage, particularly during our first Christmas, but there are so many brilliant books out this year, I'm confident we'll have something for every avid or aspiring reader.

“I'm mostly ordering directly from Gardners at the moment in order to keep up the delivery frequency, but I've just placed some big Christmas orders to ensure we have stock if anything goes wrong.”

Tomás Kenny, owner of Kennys Bookshop in Galway, Ireland, said over the past few months the store has also frequently been without new releases on publication date which has led to “annoyed” customers looking to Amazon instead. 

“We received a delivery from the UK on 9th November which was shipped to us in late September. Pre-Brexit and Covid that would have been with us in three to four days, but now it took seven weeks. It is not the case that every delivery is like this. But the real problem for us now is the inconsistency. We used to know exactly how long deliveries would take. Now some will take a few days, some will take weeks, and some will even take months. So we have no certainty to provide customers who ask for delivery times, and it makes it really difficult to manage our stock.  

“The problem with paper shortages and these delivery delays means that shops are trying their best to stockpile, which in turn means books are going out of print quicker. Of course this exacerbates the problem, as the books are often going out of print before we’ve even [received] our initial order."

Despite this, Kenny and his team are feeling “really encouraged” ahead of the festive period. He said: “While the supply chain problems are frustrating, we have mitigated as best we can by making sure our stock rooms are filled to overflowing so we can restock the shop as quickly as possible. And there are still lots of customers coming in to the shop – so we hope to see Christmas being busy.”

A spokesperson for Blackwell's said this year feels “more challenging” in terms of anticipating demand, as stock is “a bit tighter in places”. 

Meanwhile, Waterstones said its shops  were “well stocked" for Christmas as its staff have also ordered more than usual and the chain is working with publishers to maintain availability. A spokesperson said: “Of course, as is the case every year, some individual titles may sell unexpectedly well and need to be reprinted — and this year reprints may take longer, especially for colour printed titles from overseas. 

“Our advice, as with every year, is that customers who are set upon a particular title are best advised to buy it early. We will have very full shops on Christmas Eve but inevitably a few titles will be missing, and this year, perhaps, a few more than is usual.”