We were running an LDS Online Bookstore for about a year without Deseret Book as a wholesale supplier. The previous owners didn’t want to make an investment in Deseret Book Titles. Deseret Book as a supplier is very hard to get approval for any type of wholesale account. They want to make sure that there are enough Stakes and Wards in an area to make sure the store will have sufficiant business. They do credit checks and competition checks. It’s really kind of a pain. There is no other supplier out there who makes things quite so difficult. For awhile I wondered if it would be worth the effort.
The whole process took about three months. They had to have a special comitee meeting because they had never given an account to an Online Store before. They had only given accounts to stores that they though would succeed and were brick and mortar stores. So, with special stipulations our account was opened. Since then Deseret Book has been much better to work with.
The people that are employed at their warehouse and their wholesale ordering center are the best. They call anytime they see there might be a problem and they kindly put up with any errors we make. They are quick and efficiant. The whole approval process and red tape was unbelievable. It felt like I was asking for citizenship in another country. But, after things were set up there was no problem at all.
The results have been not only being able to carry more product in our store, but being able to carry some of the “Top LDS Book Titles”. Deseret Book really does carry some of the best book titles for the LDS Market. Anything they carry, we now can carry. It makes competition in this market a little easier. We are working now to get more of their LDS Book titles on the site. If there’s one you want and you can’t see it, let us know.
