The independent book publisher Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf was founded in Berlin in 1994. The publishing program focuses on non-fiction books on the topics of music, film, sports and travel, including high-quality illustrated books and partly autographed biographies of well-known artists such as Bud Spencer, Nina Hagen and Udo Lindenberg, Dieter Hallervorden, Die Toten Hosen and many others. The backlist currently comprises over 500 tracks.

Many partners, complex processes, high effort

The publishing business is very complex. In order to be represented on all important sales channels of stationary and online book retailers, numerous partnerships with bar assortments, bookstores and printing companies, logistics and IT service providers are required. Different processes, conditions and data formats must be taken into account, which led to a high level of organizational effort with numerous stand-alone software solutions. Dissatisfaction with the situation prompted the publisher to reorganize itself and use Ninox to develop an individual software solution that can be tailored exactly to its own needs.

Individual all-in-one solution with Ninox

First, the publisher set up its own distribution warehouse outside Berlin. At the same time, he developed an administration solution with Ninox and adapted it again and again to the circumstances. With master data management, order processing, warehouse management and separate invoicing for private and commercial customers, it now covers all important areas. Logistics partners and the publisher's own private customer web shop were also integrated into the solution via API. In the case of limited editions, the numbers of the individual copies can also be managed. The customer can choose the desired one from the available numbers and receives exactly this copy, which is automatically removed from the inventory. Automatically generated pick and pack lists make it easy to compile shipments; package labels are also generated automatically.

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Key features

• Warehousing

• ordering system

• Invoice
  

The Ninox solution was largely created step by step by the publisher itself and is also further developed internally as required. An external developer was only occasionally brought in for a few very specific tasks, such as API integrations. The software covers the entire process of distribution to bookstores and private customers, from receipt of the order to shipping. Individual conditions are automatically taken into account when invoicing, the inventory of all titles is always up to date and is also compared with the web shop. For shipping, distance-optimized pick and packing lists as well as shipping labels are printed at the push of a button. All of this not only saves a lot of time, but also significantly reduces the error rate. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf uses Ninox Cloud, the Mac app and iPads in the warehouse.