Saunders Book Company is a Division of Saunders Office and School Supplies Limited © 2012
The book business as we know it today started with John Saunders in 1963, as an off shoot of his dad's stationary and office equipment store. Jack Saunders originally started with a photography shop and studio in 1945 after returning from the war.
John started with a small workspace at the back of the store by taking selections of books out to the local schools for them to have a look at and then place orders.
The catalyst to future successes came when John made an arrangement with a few larger publishers in Toronto, to stock quantities of titles, which allowed him to take selections of books into the schools.
John, at that point, was a one-man show doing all of the selling, stock ordering, deliveries, and invoicing, etc. The space was quickly outgrown and staff were hired. In 1966, an old house at 48 Ste. Marie Street was purchased and the book division moved there.
The business continued to grow and the company was moved to 199 Campbell St. This location is now completely devoted to a call center for Smart Apple Media, Knowbuddy Marketing and Windfall Books and encompasses 7,200 square feet.
In 1970, we were a wholesaler selling library books from many distributors and to schools and public libraries. We had 3 sales people and 7 or 8 people in the office. We were covering counties close to home as well as Northern Ontario, but we continued to go farther and farther a field. We grew to be one of the larger Canadian wholesalers with a presence right across the country. In 1985, after several years of trying, John made the change from wholesaler to exclusive publisher's agent.
The first publisher that we became an agent for was Gareth Stevens, who John met at a book fair in Frankfurt and later made an agreement with. This was a significant deal for both John and Gareth. This was our first agency from which the rest followed and for Gareth he had yet to print his first book. As we continued to grow we caught the attention of other U.S. publishers.
We then signed with Rourke Publishing, Creative Education and Rosen Publishing. At this point it was much easier to acquire new lines. We currently represent over 20 U.S., U.K., Canadian and Australian publishers.
With the addition of all these lines, John decided to start Knowbuddy Resources in 1993. Knowbuddy started out as a direct mail preview company but soon the books were sold by our sales representatives and by telemarketing with the formation of Knowbuddy Marketing.
In 1990, we purchased a grocery store building of 10,000 square feet in Heathcote as a warehouse which allowed us to expand our telemarketing division, originally headed up by Lynne Doughty. Lynne has been the driving force ever since. We had outgrown our current warehouse and were unable to take on any new lines until we expanded.
We started telemarketing in Canada in 1988. Through our association with Creative Education and Tom Peterson, we started entering the U.S. market in 1991 which has continued to grow.
In 1988 another major development occurred. We started to computerize our business through the efforts of Gord Kerr working on a part-time basis from Carleton Place. Gord now works full-time plus and his efforts have helped us to grow and prosper.
In 1998, we purchased the current office and warehouse building at 27, 29 Stewart Road. In 2002, we added 5,000 square feet to house a new telemarketing company Lookout Books, managed by Debbie Chatwin (Saunders). We have in total at Stewart Road 15,000 square feet of warehouse and 8,000 square feet of offices. In 2003 James Saunders started J.Appleseed serving Canadian classrooms with paperbacks geared toward leveled non-fiction reading. This company continues to grow both through telemarketing and direct sales.
Currently, along with, Gord and Lynne the other managers who make us tick are Judy Purdy, our General Manager; James Saunders, V.P. of Direct Sales; Dennis Jackel, our Warehouse Manager; Carol Saunders who is our Director of Marketing, Sean Pearson, Manager of Preview Sales at Stewart Rd.; and Ian Kerr Business Systems Manager.
In 2001, we rented 3,000 square feet of space in Toronto on Martin Grove Road (near the airport) as a showroom.
In 2004, we purchased 80 Sandford Fleming, which is a commercial building with 2,400 square feet office space and 6,400 square feet warehouse space. Currently our warehousing for Canadian telemarketing is done there.
In 2008 we expanded our publishing program with 300 paperback titles under the Saunders Book Company imprint. The imprint continues to grow each year.. In 2010 our electronic presence was expanded by adding website support for all telemarketing divisions. In 2011 we will continue this progression by launching new versions of saundersbook.ca and jappleseed.ca. In addition, new cataloguing software will give us the capability to offer free downloadable MARC records to all of our customers beginning August 2011. Several digital products will be offered as of September 2011 through Saunders Book Company as we continue to explore the possibilities of this growing market.
Of course Saunders is a family company starting with John's Dad Jack and Mother Bessie. It currently includes Debbie Chatwin, son Sean Pearson, nephew James Saunders, and wife Carol Saunders. There are 11 grandchildren…. so who knows what the future may bring.
Beyond direct family, Saunders has always been run like a big family and hopefully most of the time happy and we hope it remains this way well into the future.
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Saunders Book Company knows how important your privacy is to you. Our relationship with you is founded on trust and we are committed to maintaining that trust.
For these reasons, we have created the following privacy policy (the "Privacy Policy"). It confirms our dedication to protecting your privacy and maintaining the trust you have placed in Saunders Book Company. This Privacy Policy is your assurance that the Management, Sales, Accounting, Warehouse and other employees of Saunders Book Company and its subsidiaries and affiliates will maintain the confidentiality and privacy of any personal information that you have entrusted to us.
From January 1, 2004, all businesses engaged in commercial activities must comply with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information, which it incorporates. The Act gives you rights concerning the privacy of your personal information.
Actually, very little. Most of the information we collect relates to institutions to which we market our products and services. In most cases, our customers and clientele are identified to us only with publicly available business-related addresses and other associated information. In the rare case where personal information has been volunteered to us by an individual, we may use that information for the proper operation of Saunders Book Company, including but not limited to record keeping, statistics, accounting, customer newsletters, and maintaining internal communications.
Saunders Book Company does not use personal information for purposes other than those for which it was originally collected. We retain personal information only for as long as it is needed and only for the fulfillment of the purposes for which it was originally collected.
Saunders Book Company does not trade, sell, or otherwise disclose its customer lists or any other personal information to third parties. Third parties engaged to provide services to Saunders Book Company (such as accounting or information technology ("IT") firms or printing companies) may periodically have access to your personal information. Saunders Book Company only engages the services of such third parties which themselves have a privacy policy which adheres to the provisions of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the Canadian Standards Association Model Code for the Protection of Personal Information.
Saunders Book Company takes all reasonable precautions to ensure that your personal information is kept safe from loss, unauthorized access or unauthorized disclosure. Among the steps taken to protect your information are:
You may ask for access to any personal information we hold about you.
You should be aware that email is not a 100% secure medium, and you should be aware of this when contacting us to send personal or confidential information.
Since Saunders Book Company regularly review all of their policies and procedures, we may change our Privacy Policy from time to time. An up-to-date copy of this Policy can be found on our Company Web site at www.saundersbooks.ca.
If you apply to Saunders Book Company for a job, we need to consider your personal information, as part of our review process. We normally retain information from candidates after a decision has been made, unless you ask us not to retain the information. If we offer you a job, which you accept, the information will be retained in accordance with our privacy procedures for employee records.
Our organization has designated an official who is responsible for receiving and responding to all information requests regarding our Privacy Policy or about your personal information under our care and control. If you have any questions, or wish to access your personal information, please contact our official, Judy Purdy:
All prices and dollar amounts are in Canadian dollars.
Orders over $400.00 will receive a 15% discount. Orders over $750.00 will receive a 20% discount. Orders over $1500.00 will receive a 25% discount. You may combine any of our agency lines or catalogues to accumulate an order total to qualify for discounts. Discounts apply to books only.
Orders under $100.00 will be accepted with a purchase order or with your Visa or MasterCard details.
Net 30 days.
You may use your Visa or MasterCard number to order books personally or for your school or library.
We provide card kits, MARC records and full processing. Please see the Cataloguing tab for complete information and specifications and add the cataloguing options to your order upon checkout.
Orders under $100.00 (after discount) will be charged a flat fee of $10.00. Orders over $100.00 (after discount) will be charged 9% of your order total. Orders exceeding $1000.00 (after discount), will be charged 3% of order total. Currently we only ship to addresses in Canada, no U.S. or International orders will be accepted.
We carry a large inventory and promise high fill rates.
Returns are accepted under the following conditions:
Copyright 2011 Saunders Office and School Supplies Ltd.
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