Deliveries of Books and Booking in Deliveries to Central Books *
This page refers to book deliveries not magazine deliveries for magazine deliveries please click here.
Our address is 50 Freshwater Road, Chadwell Heath, RM8 1RX but some postal databases have us down as Unit 1, Heath Park Industrial Estate, Freshwater Rd, Dagenham RM8 1RX, this is exactly the same place at 50 Freshwater Road. Deliveries should be made to the Goods In warehouse to the left of the building rather than through the front door.
The warehouse is open for deliveries between 9am and 4.30pm Monday to Friday.
To find us please click here. The delivery bay is on the side of the building, deliveries should not be made to the front door. See "site map" at the bottom of this page that shows our visitors front door and our deliveries door.
If you are expecting to delivery 10 or more pallets at once we may ask the delivery to be made to our remote warehouse in Bradwell-on-Sea Southminster Essex. For these larger multi pallet deliveries please check where they should be sent in advance.
Delivering Stock to Central Books
Any delivery on pallets of more than 10 boxes must be booked in with our warehouse department by email bookingin@centralbooks.com or telephone + 44(0)20 8525 8831. When placing a booking please tell us which books are being delivered and how many of each, if possible please email us the delivery note. Please make sure that there is a delivery note with every delivery giving the number of packs (or boxes), the pack size and the total quantity delivered of each title. If boxes do contain mixed titles please give details of what is in each box. Health and Safety rules forbid the carrying of excessively heavy boxes. Please make sure that no box or pack weighs more than 15Kg, if this is the case we may charge for repacking the delivery.
For more details please down load our standard procedure document PDF
The ideal delivery comes in boxes, with a clear delivery note stating the quantity in each box, the number of boxes and the total stock delivered. Please see below about how your printer should pack books.
We recommend that books are delivered in boxes rather than in "shrink wrapped packets". Books in "shrink wrapped packets" are more likely to get damaged, the book covers are more likely to fade and in time shrink wrapped packets corrode. When they do corrode they fall apart when moved and books easily get dropped.
We much prefer to get deliveries on pallets and naturally we use forklifts to unload deliveries,but please do not deliver loose books on a pallet. If stock arrives loose on the pallet we may charge for boxing it up and we can not guarantee against stock damages.
As per our contracts it is for the publisher to arrange and pay for the delivery to our warehouse. If you are delivering from outside the UK please make sure you have covered all the delivery and customs costs to our warehouse.
Please note that when one of our staff signs for a delivery they are not signing for the contents of the delivery. If we find the delivery does not contain what is shown on the delivery note we will alert the publisher quickly. Sometimes arguments arise between printers, couriers and ourselves over what has been delivered. We will try to sign accurately for what we have received but if on inspecting the delivery after the courier has left we discover the delivery is incomplete we can not be held responsible for what has not been delivered.
Boxes
More and more customers we supply books to are insisting that boxes should be less then 15Kg. So please insist your printer make the maximum weight of a box 15Kg.
Pallets
Deliveries in excess of 10 boxes must be made on wooden pallets that are 100cm x 120cm (40in x 48in) four-way entry with full perimeter base.
Packs or boxes should be stacked in an interlocking manner and must not overhang the pallet. Pallets must not exceed 600kg in weight and must not exceed 150cm in height.
All pallets must be wrapped with clear film and strapped with plastic strapping. Pallets must be clearly labelled with details of the title(s), 13 digit ISBN, barcode, number of packs or boxes and total quantity.
Do's and Don'ts for Printers' Packets
We do not like receiving books that are in shrink wrapped packets rather than in boxes. The main reason is that it makes it much harder to care for your books. We can easily re-use or recycle cardboard, not so with shrink wrap plastic. We do understand that it can be practical and cheaper for publishers to go for shrink wrapping. Please understand that this leads to books getting damaged and we will not be able to compensate for these damaged books.
- We are happy to receive individually shrink wrapped books, this can help keep books clean but these should be individually wrapped and still be in boxes.
- If you expect your book to sit in our warehouse for more than 18 months do not have it sent to us in "shrink wrapped packets" get the printer to box it.
- If your book is an expensive large format book do not have it sent to us in "shrink wrapped packets" get the printer to box it.
- If your book is an annual that will be replaced each year "shrink wrapped packets" should be fine but they do occasionally collapse, causing damages.
- If you regularly have us send large quantities of your books to overseas and in particular US distributors do not have it sent to us in shrink wrapped packets, get your printer to box it. The US distributors will usually demand that we box up deliveries and you will end up paying even more.
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