GeoCenter - a leading German distributor and wholesaler for tourist publications
Maps - City plans - Guidebooks - Atlases - Hiking - Biking - Camping - new media

• Our customers: more than 4000 bookshops in Germany and other European countries.

• Our assortment of goods: 15000 titles permanently in stock covering all countries of the world.

• Our business partners: more than 100 independent national and international publishers.

Company: GeoCenter - Touristik Medienservice GmbH Stuttgart
                  (Distribution Centre) – T & M (Sales)

• Comprehensive range of services in book & map distribution and sales rendered from one single source for both of our partners, the bookshops and publishers.

• Full publisher services: sales, storage/warehousing, distribution,  accounting and payment collection.

• 100 years tradition as a specialist in maps and guidebooks and advisory customer service for the booktrade

• Internationally experienced as a partner of long standing of leading tourist-cartographic publishers world-wide. Opening up for interesting guidebooks, maps and related products from abroad as a specialized importer.

• Up-to-date logistics and EDP in cooperation with KNO-Verlagsauslieferung Stuttgart

• T & M  sales department – highly esteemed by the bookshops with it’s customer service team and 12 expert representatives travelling in Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

• GeoCenter’s service for the booktrade: GeoKatalog 1/Touristik – the comprehensive reference work for tourist publisher’s products, published annually in a revised edition. The catalogue is geographically classified and contains numerous indexes showing the sheet distribution of the publishers’ map series.

• Service for geoscientific-cartographic map specialists: GeoKatalog 2/Geosciences in English, the reference work for available geoscientific-cartographic products world-wide (topography, geology, soil, climate, vegetation, national atlases and other thematic topics).

Services

• Sales
• Order processing
• Storage/Warehousing
• Delivery Services
• Import – Export
• Accounting and payment collection
• Returns Services
• Ancillary Services
• Logistic services for webshops

Sales

• Team of 12 sales representatives with excellent product and market knowledge travel in Germany and Luxembourg, on publisher’s demand also in Switzerland

• The customer-focussed team, working in the office, ensures competent customer advisory service, telephone answering, order processing, query management and gives advertisement support to the booktrade

• Sales controlling and key account management

Order Processing

• Our teams handle orders received by all channels the bookshops prefer to use
• Same-day order entry
• Flexible terms and conditions of supply applicable on our invoices
• One invoice for combined orders in GeoCenter’s name
• Order monitoring and delivery prioritising as per customer’s demand
• Entry and administration of backorders, on-time output of invoices and delivery of backordered titles on availability.

Storage/Warehousing

• Storage in the KNO-Verlagsauslieferung facilities in Stuttgart (pallet warehouse, racked space) and in the GeoCenter facilities (pallets)

• Receiving of products from printer or publisher with accurate physical control

• Our publisher dedicated team is tailored to the publisher’s individual requirements to ensure that their needs are fully met. Individual contact for our partners.

• Reliable administration and control system of stock on commission basis

• Annual stocktaking (permanent inventory) for the publishers (no closing off)

Delivery services

• As a rule, shipments are ready for the carrier’s picking up (according to bookseller’s choice) within 24 hours after receipt of order

• On customer’s demand, same-day delivery by post of orders received by 11.00 a.m.

• We combine customer’s orders received at the same day for various publisher products and send the titles in one shipment on one invoice (exception: titles with special sizes, e.g. flat maps in a roll)

• We handle single, mixed and bulk orders with optimum speed, high efficiency and  accuracy.

• Great importance is attached to the maximization of the availability of titles and to the timely fulfilment.

• Backorders of new titles can be combined for shipment to the customers in a regular time rhythm according to the usual booktrade practice, or according to the publishers’ wishes.

• On demand we arrange for creating a particular invoice rhythm, e.g. by entering invoices at a fixed date (e.g. once a week: every wednesday, or so), or when a certain limit of value has been achieved.

• Monthly statistics can be made available

Import – Export

• For special travel destinations and topics we import titles from many well-known foreign publishers.

• Our foreign publisher dedicated team members have responsibility for specific regions of the world, have specialist knowledge on delivery requirements and liaise closely with the foreign publishers.    

• Handling and dispatch of export orders to numerous foreign wholesalers and bookshops specialized in tourist guidebooks and maps.

• The customer-focussed team members are fully trained in all aspects of exportation from document to customs requirements.

Accounts payable and Payment collection

• In order to maximise the strength of collection of accounts payable we operate a single consolidated ledger for all publishers.

• On behalf of the publishers we will take the decision regarding stopped accounts and credit limits while the publishers have full flexibility to trade at their own risk when accounts are over their limit.

Returns Service

• Centralized returns department
• Receiving and processing of authorized returns according to the publishers’ instructions
• We prefer customer friendly and simplified returns policy whereever possible

Ancillary Services

• We offer to send out catalogues, review copies, promotional material and advertising medium by order of the publishers.

• GeoCenter’s comprehensive range of ancillary services includes also bar-coding, re-pricing, stickering, shrink-wrapping and many other services.

Logistic services for webshops

• Publishers who would like to transfer their internet map and book orders to GeoCenter for execution, can use our distribution services on commission basis.