As of this week we have officially taken over Linden Crescent Marketing’s book distribution business.
There has been a lot of work already to get to our present state, and special thanks are due to Tony Baker for his support and help with the transfer, and to Tim for all the hard work he’s been putting in to get the storeroom ready.
There’s been a mass of administrative activity to set up new bank accounts, accounts with suppliers and customers. We’ve had to set up a new accounting and stock management system (the one we use for our retail business didn’t provide all the features we needed to run Bittern Books) and I’ve started using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to keep track of all our customers, suppliers and contacts.
Tony has provided us with heaps of data downloaded from his systems and we’ve had to import that and try to make sense of the sales history, and what guidance it gives to our product selection for the future.
In addition we’ve had to build a new storeroom in one of our existing outbuildings (once the leak in the roof was fixed!) and set up shelving for the books.
This week I have spending a lot of time with Tony stock checking all the books, packing them up and transporting them back to our premises. We now have most of them here, but still in boxes.
So, a busy weekend ahead, unpacking boxes and organising the books on shelves so we stand a chance of finding what we’re looking for. I also have to import all the book data into our inventory system so we can use it for orders and invoicing. Lots to do, but all very exciting!
