In its sixth year, the Penguin Random House Two-Day Transit program begins again today and will run for five months, until March 2. Under the popular program, orders for PRH physical titles received from independent booksellers by 3 p.m. Eastern, Monday-Friday, will ship no later than the following business day--weather and transport conditions permitting--for arrival at the bookstores within two days. The company's Westminster, Md., and Crawfordsville, Ind., operations centers have weekend shifts in place to enable orders received on Fridays and Saturdays to be shipped Monday.
The program includes all frontlist and backlist books from the imprints of the Crown and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Groups, Random House, Penguin Publishing Group, Random House Children's Books, Penguin Young Readers and Penguin Random House Audio--as well as those from Penguin Random House Publisher Services' many clients.
Random House began the program in 2011 as a two-month experiment and has since expanded its duration and, in 2015, added Penguin and distribution clients.
Jaci Updike, president, Penguin Random House Sales Group, commented: "Our speedy supply chain, coupled with state-of-the-art sales analytics, help us keep our most popular titles in stock throughout the holidays, and provides important support to independent bricks-and-mortar bookstores at a critical time of year. Our goal is keeping our books and authors front-and-center throughout the busiest shopping weeks of the year."
Annette Danek, senior v-p, fulfillment, Penguin Random House, added: "We love this time of year. My colleagues in Westminster and Crawfordsville, in partnership with the home office, are always seeking new ways to enhance our service to indie bookstores. Innovative technology allows us to get books from our dock to their door faster than ever before."
