A Note to Our Friends in the UK and EU about Brexit and Our Supply Chain

I feel absurdly "corporate" having to write this notice. I will repeat it in my newsletter.

This note applies to all our our friends in the European Union and, to a lesser extent, the UK.

If the British Parliament does nothing, Britain will "crash out" of the EU on March 31st. As a result, our printers and shippers will be governed (to the best of our knowledge) by the trade rules of the World Trade Organisation.

Of course, any agreements or individual rules or laws by any affected nation will supersede the WTO rules. Right now, we are proceeding as if there will be no change and that Britain will Brexit with a crash.

To the best of our knowledge, here's how Brexit will affect book purchases from Small Biz Thoughts and SMB Books (www.smbbooks.com):


If you are in the UK:

- If you order directly from us, we will print books in England and ship them within England. We do not know how shipping prices will be affected, but book delivery will continue as normal. Expect delays at least through the end of April.

- If you order from Amazon or other online stores: You should see no changes, although there may be delays as Amazon and others determine their supply chain changes. Our best guess is that book delivery will continue as normal.  Expect delays at least through the end of April.


If you are in the rest of the EU:

- If you order directly from us, we will print books in Germany and ship them within the EU. We do not know how shipping prices will be affected, but book delivery will continue as normal. Expect delays at least through the end of April.

- If you order from Amazon or other online stores: You should see no changes, although there may be delays as Amazon and others determine their supply chain changes. Our best guess is that book delivery will continue as normal. Expect delays at least through the end of April.


Supply Chain Note

Wherever books are printed, our attempt will always be to minimize taxes and import fees. Having said that, paper, ink, glue, and other materials related to book production may cross international boundaries more than once in the production of books.

As a result, the cost of production will be affected. Supply chains may move, affecting costs again. In the best case scenario, we expect the changes to come in waves as various pieces of the supply chain figure out the best processes for supplying quality merchandise at a reasonable price.

We are in the odd position of having no control over any piece of the production except the final cost. So . . .

We Are Freezing Prices

We will probably lose money on certain purchases during the transition to a more stable business environment, but we simply cannot change prices every week in response to whatever is going on in the market. 

Therefore, we are freezing prices on all books in the EU and UK until everything settles down. I expect this will be at least four or five months. 

Once we believe things have settled down and we know what our new cost of production and shipping will be, we will adjust prices. In a perfect world, they will stay the same. But I certainly can't promise that.

Note also that we have no control over Amazon's pricing or shipping policies. Freezing our pricing at the print level affects one piece of their pricing model. Everything else is in just as much flux as the rest of the supply chain.

Consider an E-Book

Whether it's Kindle, Audible, or a PDF from our web site, please consider an electronic version of the book. While some taxes for online purchase might change, the product will remain exactly the same, and delivery will continue to be instantaneous.

As always, I thank you for your support over the years. This is just another little bump along the way.

If I can ever be of assistance, please let me know.

Cheers to all!

- Karl W. Palachuk

- President, Great Little Book Publishing Co., Inc. 

   dba Small Biz Thoughts

:-)