Logistics.....what a waste of fuel and everything!!
Six weeks ago, whilst still in the UK, my wife and I had all the books we needed for a full pallet to send back for our bookshop in Thailand.
Books about to leave the UK distribution centre Mum's garage...
Logistics, I know about, but it still fills me with a mix of wonderment and sadness when I consider that the books we are sending to Thailand were printed just across the sea in China and that they were shipped back to the UK to be sold. For us, not only a waste of fuels and resources, not to mention the expense but the time wasted!! How wonderful would it be without trade tariffs and borders and all the associated shit involved with geopolitical boundaries, distributors and associated hangers-on? How much of the world's resources could we save if we didn't need that wooden pallet that goes in a huge metal container that gets plonked on a giant ship that burns off thousands of tonnes of fossil fuels and excretes hundreds of tonnes of carbon as it makes its way around the world?
The wonderment comes from the complexity of worldwide logistics. All sea freight gets a waybill, and its reference is logged on a computer system. The system then works out the container it needs to be in (Many containers contain split loads from different customers), then it works out a route, and then it finds the necessary ships from the shipping company time tables.
Six weeks after leaving our UK distribution centre my mum's garage, the pallet arrived at our home in Bangkok. Just a small usual attempted rip-off by the Thai import agent and customs people but it finally got here intact.
Finally here! 1.6 cubic metres and 560kg of Peppa Pig and assorted other children's books.
If I were being consistent, I would add to my argument about waste that books needn't be printed at all but that's a step too far for me! Whilst some of my reading matter is online, I still much prefer the tactility of a book in my hands. At least paper is recyclable.
Using blockchain technology, the whole logistics thing could be run across a totally decentralised network and without borders, we could all order books on demand from the nearest printing centre. The books themselves could be saved on a huge decentralised database and the royalties paid upon order along with the associated printing costs directly to the printer. From creator to manufacturer to end user, seamlessly and with as little cost as possible.
Of course, no one would need bookshops too......or perhaps they would, and I'd have to keep stock as the very human habit of 'browsing' will be here for a long time yet!
What is the true cost of some kid in Bangkok reading their English Peppa Pig book?
@nathen007
Actually, that is a brilliant idea! Do you order from any of the wholesalers when you are here? I'm guessing Bertram's would be the most advanced, although they built a new warehouse not too long ago. I seem to remember it had the ability to expand (like those gas storage containers), when they needed it to. I expect your idea will happen little by little as one company and then another tries it, driven by trying to reduce costs, much the same as e-books production progressed.
I think people will still like bookshops but one of their major functions already seems to be as a showroom for books that are then bought through the Internet. Although I think last year was the first time paper book sales were higher than digital books, and there is a roaring trade in secondhand books.
We don't order from Bertram's as we're only a small business and to be honest, using Snazzle (in Leicester) and Red House and even bargains at Home Bargains and the Works we can buy in cheap enough to ship and sell here. We also using discount vouchers, collect points etc lol....
Most of our stuff is sold mail order. The only 'shop sales' we have are from parents of the kids we have over for Therapy or English classes. Sadly these days, books are always kept in plastic bags to protect them, in the proper bookshops too, at least with the foreign books.
We also buy a lot of S/H books in UK and love the fact they get recycled amongst users. This also happens here and the wife reads probably 10 Thai books a week! She is a hoarder though and although she puts them in our online S/H shop, she prices them NOT to sell lol!!
In the UK, it was very sad when Borders went out of business. I used to spend hours in a branch on a retail park just outside Leeds with a Starbucks in it. I bought a lot as well as using it as a library, but the clincher for me was they also sold a lot of World music and DVDs, I love French film noir as well as trying many other movies from all over the world. As for South American music, they had CD racks full!
Happy days. Times change. Not necessarily for the better or worse. Just different, but we adapt :-)
Yes, I miss Dillons for the same reasons, they used to have a massive bookshop and coffee shop here, over three floors, beautifl building. There's still Daunts in London, and Hatchards, I try and spend money there.
Priceless so long as they develop the accent and infamously dry British humour..
But, seriously it's quite ridiculous, anyway to subvert the whole maritime law and be more efficient and green simultaneously seems like a win win for everyone except the lords of shipping and receiving aka governments.
Reading is FUNDaMental
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LOL I have constant battles with my kids over accents!! In schools, I'd suggest the majority of the ESL teachers are from the US but most of the textbooks seem to be in English, in the higher end schools especially. The Thai schools use terrible, home produced English textbooks with which I spend many an hour correcting the answers and ringing up teachers to complain when my kids homework gets marked as incorrect when in fact it was either perfectly correct or the question was too ambiguous to answer properly.
As for the accents, and call me biased if you will, I teach phonics using a Yorkshire regional accent to the toddlers as we define the vowel sounds much better than either the standard English or US pronunciations. I love phonics, but have found kids get mixed up with a,e and u, especially when reversing the phonics to spell words from the sound alone. Dictating a few words to kids to write down is a great test of whether they are hearing the sounds correctly in their head and is much more difficult than reading phonically.
The problem with Thailand is kids are simply taught English to pass tests, not to communicate so the level is terrible. Add to the fact that Thai schools (except the few big international ones) only employ young attractive westerners for effect as opposed to actually teaching, the standards are very poor in a wide middle range of educational establishments. Funnily enough, the cheaper and free government schools who employ cheap labour from the Philippines are the best.
Filipinos have a beautiful, quite neutral accents. Americanish but with a little Brit in there and speak so clearly, as well as being much better educated.
I'd employ a Filipino ESL teacher (generalisation alert!) over one of the dim begpackers who are just out to make a quick quid any day of the week!
Yorkshire phonics, I'm going to have to look into it.
I'd imagine the Thai kids are taught English in the same manner I was taught Spanish in the states. We didn't have hot El Salvadorian teachers though, so I feel like I got the shaft there.
And I totally agree on the Filipino generalisations.. Begpackers are the worst especially the degree holding ones that are lured into the Thai schooling system.
Here in the Klang valley of Malaysia the English language is often the households first language. This is especially true with the Chinese and Indians, the Malays are generally speaking less fluent but just about everyone understands my travelers English. I've shed that now though and find myself code talking more often and losing the ability to speak American dialects.
Sometimes I surprise myself when things like "see first" or "kennot like theese one" come out of my mouth..😎
Right o I'm off to work on me Yorkshire Dick Van Dyke 😉
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Also most space in packages is air.
You could easily ship 2x of products with the same space..
But no they prefer to make bigger packages because then they make bigger profits.
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Wow! my head would explode reading the final paragraphs of your post. Simply Fascinating!
That application that you just proposed for the blockchain is wonderful. A whole ecosystem of acquisition, distribution and above all the most important: the reading of books.
I consider that this is one of the * rituals * of humanity that we must preserve. Currently, new generations do not use * real books *.
Nothing compares to the experience of opening a book.
Thank you for giving us this valuable information, appreciated @nathen007.
All Best, Piotr.
Yes, logistics has become a very complicated system. Aside from the physical resources involved, time and data management are also resources and systems often left without much improvement. Blockchain in the logistics space is set to change that!