“Necessity breeds innovation.” That well-worn phrase became marching orders during the COVID-19 pandemic as publishers and booksellers scrambled to respond to ever-changing market conditions and a strained supply chain. Learn from a panel of pros across the supply chain, including logistics, metadata, customer relations, and marketing — what they did to adapt and what they will be incorporating into their workflows going forward. Jamie Broadhurst discusses Raincoast Books. Link to video presentation: https://youtu.be/t03YfhqE95Q Presented April 7, 2021 by BookNet Canada with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

1. Tech Forum 2021
The complex job of keeping it simple.

2. Who is Raincoast?
A Canadian owned member of the big six.

3. And we are many things to many different types of customers: bookstores, gift stores
and a wholesaler for both.

4. During the first six months of lockdown Raincoast launched an Indie Bank
and direct to consumer shipping, and then…

5. …in cooperation with Department of Heritage and the More Canada group,
we created a new way to run channel and title specific discount promotions.
Replacing promo codes to parameters that apply extra discount .

6. The program went from to from proof of concept to accepting orders in three weeks
--- after a hundred hours of programming, talking with customers and briefing
twenty five reps. In the three months that followed; we delivered 30,000 Canadian
authored , Canadian published books and over $150,000 of extra margin to
Canadian independent retailers and libraries.

7. And coming in 2021; new ways to categorize and market toys, gift and puzzle
products