Bertram closes temporarily

In the UK, wholesaler Bertram has temporarily closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, reports the Bookseller.

Bertram Group CEO Raj Patel cited staff welfare as a primary concern, noting that the decision to close had been a week in the planning as more and more booksellers such as Waterstones announced they were closing.

‘While I had put in place measures to safeguard the spread of coronavirus across the seven different locations in which we operate including contactless deliveries with our logistics partners, the risk is proving too great,’ said Patel.

‘There wasn’t much floorspace for books and we just thought we were going to carry all this expectation that sometime we’re going to go back to normality. So it would be detrimental to carry on regardless of the economic situation and also for staff welfare.’

As previously reported, yesterday Gardners temporarily closed its print book operations, while smaller wholesalers Bookspeed and Central Books have also closed.

Category: International news