Sales Channels

National Wholesalers

The national wholesalers, Ingram and Baker & Taylor, are also serviced by IPG’s in-house staff. As with the national retail accounts, selling the national wholesale accounts requires many on-site visits, consistent contact, and very extensive preparation.

IPG subscribes to both Ingram’s and Baker & Taylor’s sales and stocking data and is able to analyze this data to anticipate demand and to ensure that sufficient stock is on hand from IPG’s client publishers.

Since IPG ships several truckloads of books to these customers every week, “just in time” shipments keep them well-stocked without running the risk of overstocking them and suffering heavy returns. This is one of the reasons why IPG’s returns have averaged less than 20 percent for many years, the lowest rate of returns of any distributor.