Edinburgh book wholesaler hails ‘milestone’ opening for 50% expansion

An Edinburgh-based book wholesaler has opened a new chapter after the launch of an expanded warehouse facility.

The enlarged space grows Bookspeed’s storage capacity from some 21,000 square feet to almost 33,000 sq ft.

The facility can now hold as many as 400,000 books to supply retailers across the UK and Ireland. The expansion has been delivered to serve the company’s ambitions to grow, building on a service that already ships out some 2.6 million books a year to 3,000 or so trade customers.

The enlarged space grows Edinburgh-based Bookspeed’s storage capacity from some 21,000 square feet to almost 33,000 sq ft.

Bookspeed was founded in Edinburgh in 1986 by Annie Rhodes and Kingsley Dawson with a vision to create a next-day wholesale service for books. Customers include the National Trust, Oliver Bonas, Moonpig and the Natural History Museum, as well as hundreds of independent retailers, museums, galleries, garden centres and visitor attractions.

Managing director Lewis Dawson said: “We’ve come a long way since the business was founded in a small retail unit in Stockbridge, Edinburgh almost 40 years ago. This milestone marks an exciting chapter for us and is the result of decades of hard work building a strong community of retail customers who understand the value of books.

“It’s our mission to get more books out into the world and our warehouse expansion not only improves our operation significantly, but it supports our ambitions to serve even more retail customers and their different complexities in an ever-changing retail landscape,” he added.