Ireland and NI trade 'scrambling' over Brexit delays as Christmas approaches

Members of the Irish and Northern Irish book trade are “scrambling” to deal with paper sourcing, increased costs and distribution delays, with one retailer warning the effects of Brexit could hit the Christmas market.

Brexit red tape, in particular customs charges, are continuing to beleaguer presses, some of which are seeing additional costs of up to £80 a delivery on delayed items. Freight and distribution issues, which are causing lengthy delays to outgoing physical deliveries and partly driven by the pandemic, continue to impact publishers and booksellers alike.

Irish booksellers are working more closely with publishers to “stay ahead” in the market, and forecast stock requirements. Heidi Murphy, head of books at Bookreach which supplies supermarkets including Tesco, said Brexit had been a “massive jolt” for Irish bookselling.
 
“It’s still too early to say what the long-term impact will be, some of the issues were, in a way, camouflaged by the challenges of the pandemic,” she said.
 
In the lead up to Brexit, her team kept in touch with publishers and distributors, which is now part of their “new way of working”.
 
“We are also in the lucky position that we have a warehouse and are able to follow the initial publisher advice of ordering key titles well in advance to avoid delays”, Murphy added. “Tariff free, of course, does not mean cost free, but as with the wider trade we just have to focus on what we can control.”

Alan Johnston, head of books at retail chain Bookstation, said the triple whammy of lorry driver shortages, paper sourcing issues and delays at ports means Ireland is “just one storm away from a perfect storm”. 
 
“Taking the increasing possibility of such issues into account earlier in the year, the focus has remained on tirelessly planning our book offering well ahead and forecasting our stock requirements to allow for a degree of chaos,” he said. 
 
“We recognised the need to work in even greater partnership with publishers in order to stay ahead. This year we are not just buying books, we are buying time and strengthening relationships and product knowledge are critical to understanding how to do that.”
 
Headquartered in Dublin, the book and stationery chain has 18 branches in Ireland, and Johnston is concerned his booksellers will experience “the converse reality of March 2020” when Covid-19 first hit. 
 
“At that moment there were many great books and no human presence in shops. The concern for a Brexit-impacted December 2021 is a lot of customers and a potential lack of books,” he added.
 
Ivan O’Brien, m.d. of Dublin-based O’Brien Press, is among publishers who have changed their shipping logistics in an effort to combat the “slow, more expensive, more complicated” process they are faced with. 
 
“All our export is via freight forwarders in Britain, so that’s all got slower and harder,” he said. “All transport from or through the UK is slower, more expensive and less predictable than before. We continue to route more and more of our printing to printers who bypass the land bridge and deliver directly to Ireland, and additional costs have reduced the amount of print we place in Britain.”
 
Amazon is due to open a distribution centre in the Irish capital later this autumn, and while this will mean more seamless logistics in getting books into Ireland, O’Brien is concerned the centre is “a double-edged sword”. “The lack of a corresponding Amazon.ie website means that faster and less expensive logistics to Ireland will not be matched by more exposure for local products to Irish customers,” he said. 
 
He remains optimistic the opening of a branch of Dubray Books in Cork next month will bolster booksellers, who are reporting strong sales of titles such as Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You (Faber) and Richard Osman’s second novel, The Man Who Died Twice (Viking).

“The country is in a positive frame of mind,” O’Brien said. “The main challenge could be dealing with success, given the shortage of book paper throughout Europe. Placing print for delivery in a ‘normal’ timeframe has gone out the window, and everybody is scrambling.”
 
Publishers in Northern Ireland are also feeling the pinch of extra costs attached to the customs paperwork for items delivered from the UK, as the country is still an entry point into the EU Customs Union.
 
Wesley Johnston, co-director of Colourpoint Creative and Blackstaff Press, said the bulk of the paperwork has fallen to printers, but the extra charges are often passed on to publishers. “It seems to be settling down to around an extra £80 per delivery when all is added up. We have a distribution centre in Dublin, too, and shipping direct from our [British] suppliers to the Dublin hub also incurs customs fees,” he told The Bookseller. “For the first time couriers have started invoicing us for customs fees they have encountered at Dublin port.”
 
Johnston said printers in Britain had been “very good and co-operative” but he is concerned the size of the Northern Irish market may mean companies decide it is “not worth the hassle of shipping”.
 
Presses are also experiencing longer wait times for books shipped from England, an issue that has been ongoing since autumn last year. “A pallet of finished books shipped from England would typically be with us in 48 hours. Now, with all the paperwork to do, it can be more like a week,” Johnston said. The delay affects book launches and the level of stock in shops — a problem that can be mitigated, expensively, by samples sent by expedited courier.
 
This has worsened in recent weeks due to the UK-wide issue of sourcing paper, extending print times for Northern Irish companies to up to three weeks, and for Great Britain printers more than a month. “This causes problems because we need to be able to time reprints so that stock is in place by the time the previous run sells out, and it is harder to get this right over longer timescales,” Johnston said.
 
Lisa Finch, international sales director at Profile confirmed the London-based independent is having additional problems getting books into Ireland, owing to “multiple issues at play”, exacerbated by customers stockpiling before the Christmas rush.
  
“The additional Brexit admin, especially since the tightening of rules from 1st July, has definitely added to the unpredictability in supply,” she told The Bookseller.
 
“Even with extended release schedules for Ireland we have still experienced delays and problems with getting our titles to Irish customers in good time. There is definitely the sense that customers are ordering early and in larger quantities to ensure they have stock for Christmas, which in turn makes managing inventory and reprints more difficult, further compounding the extra demand placed on printers and distributors.”