Alliance Distribution Services: ‘We firmly believe that everyone should have access to reading’

In the lead-up to the 2025 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIAs), Books+Publishing is in conversation with the event’s major sponsors about the status of the industry, what excites them about the future, and what they have to offer publishers, booksellers and readers. Riikka Dunn, distribution director at ADS, spoke with the publication.

This segment is supported by the event sponsors. 

Alliance Distribution Services is a warehouse and delivery organisation. For those unfamiliar, can you describe what that means? 

We partner with multiple publishers to receive, warehouse, pick and pack their stock for distribution to bookselling customers across Australia and New Zealand. We take pride in our expertise in the book supply chain. Our team is full of enthusiastic people with a wide range of knowledge, spanning global freight forwarding, efficient warehousing and the entire customer journey, all the way through to credit control.  

Tell us an interesting fact that book industry folks don’t know about your company. 

One thing that often surprises our visitors is that we do not segregate titles by publisher in our process. If you were to ask our picking team which book belongs to which publisher, they probably couldn’t tell you! Publisher titles are mixed in the warehouse and in the picking module to ensure that faster moving titles are closest to hand and quickly packed into boxes for shipment. Each title receives the same time, care and attention to ensure it reaches customers in the most efficient and reliable way 

Distribution is often overlooked as part of the book sector. What do you wish more people understood about the contribution of distributors in the literary ecosystem? 

Interest in the distribution sector has grown over the last few years, likely due to the Covid years, which highlighted the importance of having a solid supply chain. As a distributor focused on the publishing industry, we are committed to making incremental improvements to meet changing market needs.  

In my view, data and information are key to ensuring the supply chain works and that we can fulfil our promise to customers. This data spans from title master data and shipping information to efficient ordering flows across various systems, all the way to returns data.  

Without accurate, transparent information, all our work becomes much harder.  

ADS has signed up to the global Science Based Targets initiative. How do you balance your commitment to sustainability with the practicalities of the energy requirements of distribution? 

We firmly believe that sustainable business is good business, and this ideology runs through our entire organisation. We track and report our current operational impact to our parent company and are always seeking ways to reduce our environmental impact.  

This starts with the basics of our operations, particularly in recycling our waste (returns, overstocks and consumable materials). Currently, 99% of the waste we produce is diverted from landfill, thanks to the commitment of our entire team to recycle properly. We are also continually exploring new avenues for better recycling practices and solutions in the market.  

Freight represents the biggest environmental impact in our operations. Australia is a vast country, distant from much of the world, and New Zealand is even further, making it challenging to reduce the carbon footprint in this area. To address this, we encourage our publishing partners to consolidate their inbound freight to Australia as much as possible, minimising the number of containers shipped to Australia. We also consolidate as many orders as possible into the fewest cartons when shipping books out, reducing the number of shipments leaving ADS. 

ADS has also addressed modern slavery, a topic that hasn’t received a lot of attention in the industry. Can you speak to what that means, and the stance ADS and its parent companies have taken? 

Our stance is clear: we are committed on acting fairly and ethically when we do business. This means that we strongly condemn any form of modern slavery. While the topic may not seem pressing in Australia, it is crucial that every part of the supply chain works together to ensure the same commitment. For us, this means that both the Hachette Australia and the global Hachette teams uphold this commitment and actively ensure our suppliers either sign our modern slavery statement, or have one of their own.  

Literacy rates are a growing concern at the moment, with conversations around how to get books into the hands of potential readers. As an organisation that quite literally delivers books, what do you think about when considering accessibility? 

We are actively engaged in our local community, partnering with Coast Shelters to support community members in need. Book donations allow Coast Shelters to provide books to individuals who cannot afford them and may not have access to library services.  

We firmly believe that everyone should have access to reading and a good book is sometimes exactly what one needs to be whisked away to a new world. 

If you could change one thing about the industry at a systemic level, what would it be? 

Easier said than done, but I would love to change the returns system. The SOR [sell or return] model has served the industry for many years, and given that this is an art form, I absolutely understand the risk that booksellers take when buying stock. However, the impact of returns is significant, and the cost to the industry is not minor. We are actively exploring different solutions for handling returns as a distributor; however, to make a meaningful impact in this space, a systematic change in the industry is needed. Stronger partnerships between publishers and retailers to more accurately forecast consumer demand would be helpful. 

The Australian Book Industry Awards are presented for achievements in bringing Australian books to readers. This year marks the event’s 25th anniversary.

Books+Publishing is the Australian book industry’s number-one source for news, opinions, pre-publication reviews, jobs, and advertisements.

Category: ABIA