business success in association with
Online retailing proves a real page turner
Already running a number of recycling businesses, it was in 2005 that businessman Taskeen Ahmed and his family decided to tackle the problem of what to do with unwanted books, writes Alison Dewar
The venture began with selling a few dozen copies stored on a couple of shelves, a project which has now grown into a £12 million turnover business selling some four million items online a year, including CDs and DVDs.
“Everyone has an emotional connection to books, no-one wants to see them thrown away and, with the knowledge they contain, it almost seems wrong,“ said Ahmed. “We looked at a range of options and experimented to see if they would sell online.
“It’s amazing what some people throw away, some books have never been looked at, while others are almost new. Through our recycling business, we’ve always been advocates of sustainability and for us, this is the ultimate in the recycling hierarchy. Taking something that someone else doesn’t need and finding a new home for it.“
Over the course of the first two years, it expanded to take on more and more warehouse space until it consolidated into one main facility, a 100,000 sq ft warehouse in Wallingford, where the business now employs around 150 full-time and part-time staff.
As well as providing shelf space for its own stock, the warehouse also provides storage, fulfilment and mailing house services to a wide variety of external clients in both the retail and non-retail sectors.
Unwanted books and other items are collected from public libraries, charity shops and directly from the public, before being quality checked and offered online for sale worldwide.
A number of online retailing divisions – some may be familiar with the name Awesome Books – are now at the heart of the business, all operating under the Wrap Distribution banner and selling used items through around 30 different online sales platforms, including Amazon and Ebay.
The system ensures that books stay affordable, for example, for less than £3 titles can be delivered to your door – and that’s not just dusty old tomes that no-one wants to read, but well-known ’classics’ such as Harry Potter titles and the Da Vinci Code.
Taskeen Ahmed
The advent of e-readers has failed to make a dent in sales and Ahmed says research shows that e-readers can actually complement physical book sales, while his business model ensures that very often it’s cheaper to buy a second-hand used copy of a book than it is to download one.
With UK and US sales still the strongest part of the market, Wrap Distribution exports books to between 40-50 countries every day, with Scandinavia, Germany, France and India among the most popular destinations.
Book sales in developing countries are also on the rise, although Ahmed says different cultures mean the emphasis tends to be on buying educational type children’s books rather than fiction for adults.
A recent addition to the family of businesses has been
www.sellitback.com, a newly-launched website which, as the name suggests, allows people to go online, type in an ISBN number and find out how much a book, CD or DVD is worth. Behind the scenes, an IT operation looks at popularity and stock levels before calculating the item’s value and offering to buy and resell it.
Wrap Distribution’s relationship with Barclays came after Ahmed decided to review both the
Barclays is a trading name of Barclays Bank PLC and its subsidiaries. Barclays Bank PLC is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority (Financial Services Register No 122702). Registered in England. Registered number is 1026167 with registered office at 1 Churchill Place, London E14 5HP. March 2014.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – SEPTEMBER 2014
operation of day-to-day banking facilities and find a finance powerhouse which could support its longer term strategic objectives and help grow the business.
“We wanted to ensure that our divisions remained in a strategic position to allow them to operate and grow independently,“ he said. “In Andrew Sharman we found a relationship manager who was willing to listen and who understood what we were trying to say.
“Barclays was able to get behind our strategic intent and find a way of putting together a package that worked at a day-to-day level and ensured our longer-term imperatives were met.“
In particular, he was impressed by Barclays’ capability to meet its international banking requirements, something that was essential given the company’s need to be able to operate in a large number of different currencies worldwide.
“They had a good understanding of our international banking requirements and were able to finance a range of different facilities for us, from property to straightforward operations and working capital,“ he concluded.
At the same time, Barclays provided refinancing for a property company within the group.
Looking to the future, Ahmed is keen to develop the “direct from the public“ route as he sees this as the best way to encourage people to understand that even if they no longer have a use for something, it can still have a value and doesn’t have to be thrown away.
Details:
Taskeen Ahmed 01491-821033
tahmed@wrapdistribution.com www.wrapdistribution.com
Andrew Sharman 07867-352873
andrew.sharman@
barclays.com www.barclays.com/corporatebanking
The views expressed in this article are the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Barclays Bank PLC Group nor should they be taken as statements of policy or intent of the Barclays Bank PLC Group. The Barclays Bank PLC Group takes no responsibility for the veracity of information contained in the third part guides or articles and no warranties or undertakings of any kind, whether express or implied, regarding the accuracy or completeness of the information given. The Barclays Bank PLC Group takes no liability for the impact of any decisions made based on information contained and views expressed.
www.businessmag.co.uk
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