Baker & Taylor doesn't sell directly to the public. They sell to
stores, libraries, and govt. agencies. The link that you cite,
I believe is oriented to owners of retail stores, though it is
confusing:
baker-taylor.com
Here's what their web page has to say:
Baker & Taylor, named as one of Forbes Magazine's Top 500 Private
Companies for the past three years, is a privately held information and
entertainment services company. Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. and
operating worldwide, it distributes a wide range of products, including
books, video, audio, software, and related services to retail stores and
libraries.
Here's a well-written background article, about a year old, on
Baker and Taylor, and on the technology and logistics investement
required to make it succeed:
exeterwms.com
Lead in paragraph:
Baker & Taylor writes the book on real-time distribution.
Written by Randall Blevens and Bill Wise
Readers who visit their local bookstore probably think little of the vast
distribution networks that move the thousands of books from publishers
to retailers. To meet customer demands and their own business goals,
wholesale distributors must balance logistics, customer service, and
product distribution. Considering the number of titles available and the
number of retailers served, this is no easy task.
Apparently, one of B&T's sidelines was to ship direct to public
libraries and to handle their online catalog. This apparently
didn't work too well in some cases: there's some news on B&T's
site about a "Federal Whistle Blowing" case filed by the Hawaii
public library system, but subsequently withdrawn. Interesting
idea, though: ship direct and outsource the online electronic
cataloging effort.
I looked through the various 10-Q's and other reports, but not
all of them, however, I can't find any statement regarding the
actual number of shares of AMZN owned by Baker & Taylor. The
"insiders sales" link says that Baker & Taylor is a "beneficial
owner of more than 10%" of AMZN's shares, which would put their
share at above 5 mil. shares.
This is a little strange, because the schedule 14A, the proxy
statement filed in March, for the shareholders meeting in late
May at:
www4.edgar-online.com
lists "each person or entity
known by the Company to beneficially own more than 5% of the Common Stock", and I don't see (1) an entry for Baker & Taylor,
or (2) an entry for greater than 10%, that wasn't for a director
of for the VC, Kleiner Perkins. It is very possible that B&T
received its options after this filing in March, or simply that
the insider database is incorrect in its listing of B&T as a
greater than 10% holder of the stock.
Final point, Ingram Books is listed as the major supplier to
Amazon (accounting for 60% of Amazon's sales, per the AMZN 10Q).
Wonder if Ingram got a sweetheart stock option deal as well? |
