Libri
| Libri GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | September 1, 1928 |
| Seat |
Hamburg Germany
|
| Number of employees | about 800 |
| Branch | Intermediate book trade ( bar assortment ) |
| Website | www.libri.de |
The Libri GmbH , formerly Georg Lingenbrink GmbH & Co. KG , one mainly is between bookstores operating Barsortiments - and logistics companies , the wholesale functions and logistics services offering.
The company was founded in 1928 by Georg Lingenbrink in Hamburg , where the management and administration with around 200 employees are still based today. The naming is a contraction of the family name to the brand name with the Latin word for books: Libri . The company is majority owned by the Herz entrepreneurial family ( Tchibo ).
The Libri catalog comprises around 10 million titles, of which around 1 million items are in stock (as of July 2018).
Company history
The company was founded by Georg Lingenbrink in Hamburg on September 1, 1928, when he and his wife took over the wholesale bookstore Karl-Franz Nohr in the street Stadthausbrücke 23/25. In 1931 Lingenbrink hired the first employee and in 1932 he moved his company to Alten Wall 56/58, where a storage area of 400 square meters was available. In 1936 Lingenbrink doubled its storage space by moving to Hohen Bleichen 40/42 and for the first time delivered beyond the city limits.
The bombing raid on Hamburg on July 24, 1943 completely destroyed the warehouse and business premises. Lingenbrink moved to his wife's family in Gernsbach in the Black Forest. Here he opened an alternative business in the large hall of the Gasthof Zum Auerhahn (district of Schänen), which began operations in late summer 1943. From Gernsbach, Lingenbrink and his family tried to supply their customers in and around Hamburg.
In 1945 Lingenbrink returned to Hamburg and resumed business in the residential building at An der Alster 12. On February 6, 1947, Lingenbrink entered the publishing delivery business when he founded the Hamburger Kommissionsbuchhandlung (HAKO). In 1948 Georg Lingenbrink moved to Mönckebergstraße 11 and from that year the export business began.
The sons founded a new business in Rastatt on January 1, 1946, which was active as a bar assortment and also in distribution to the publishing house. This company was closed again in 1955.
In 1952 the decision was made to build a new building, Libri House 1 at Amelungstrasse 3–5. In 1953 Libri introduced the book trolley service; before that, books were still delivered by bike, train and post. Since then, deliveries have been made by car / truck. This resulted in the Libri service (assortment commission agent), which combined the bookseller orders and the bar assortment orders and delivered both together to the booksellers.
In 1960 Libri House 2 was built on Amelungstrasse and in the same year Charles and Kurt became personally liable partners alongside their father. From then on, the abbreviation Libri appeared in the company's logo. Charles and Kurt took over their father's business after his death in 1962.
In 1968 the branch in Mainzer Landstrasse 147 in Frankfurt am Main was moved into. As a result, Libri went from a predominantly regional middleman to a nationwide provider of bar assortment and publishing services. Here, too, the decision to build a new building in Frankfurt-Preungesheim on August-Schanz-Strasse was soon made. A high-bay warehouse with a storage area of 20,000 m² was put into operation in 1973.
Since 1993 Libri has been part of the portfolio of the Herz entrepreneurial family affiliated with Tchibo (majority owned by the brothers Michael and Wolfgang Herz ; from 1993 as a subsidiary of Athena IP Vermögensverwaltung, since 2006 as a subsidiary of TOPP Holding, which also includes Blume 2000 ).
In 2000, Libri relocated the operational area to Bad Hersfeld . A modern small parts warehouse with today 20 km of conveyor technology ensures a picking performance of up to 730,000 books per day.
In 2002 Libri's publishing delivery subsidiary, Libri Distributions GmbH, was sold to Vereinigte Verlagsausgabe (VVA - Arvato Media GmbH), an Arvato AG company in the Bertelsmann Group .
The group of companies also includes: Booxpress GmbH (formerly Libri-Dienst), Bad Hersfeld, Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt, a 20% stake in Buchzentrum AG, Olten, Switzerland, the operative part of the Swiss Book Center cooperative, and a stake since 2012 i. H. v. 51% in the former competitor Barsortiment Könemann Vertriebs GmbH , based in Hamburg and with a branch in Hagen.
In the group of companies, Libri and BoD create synergies and set up a state-of-the-art print-on-demand center at the Bad Hersfeld location, which will be fully integrated into the bar range logistics from 2020.
activities
The core business is the function of the bar range , the book collection is carried out by the wholly owned Libri subsidiary Booxpress . The bar range and its services claim u. a. also Amazon.com and Thalia for their internet distance selling: partly only the wholesale function , partly additional logistics services such as packaging and mailing to the end customer.
Merchandise management system
Since 1994 Libri has been offering its own merchandise management system with a merchandise management system (WWS). For the current version Libri JWWS , Libri hosts a central Java application server including an Oracle database in a central data center.
For the communication between Libri and its customers, EDI is used as far as possible , and most of the logistics processes are mapped in such a way that they meet the requirements of EDIFACT / EANCOM .
Since October 2007, business customers of the bookstores can also obtain electronic specialist and non-fiction books ( e-books ) as PDF files via this platform.
eBook.de (formerly Libri.de)
In 1997, Libri launched the website libri.de to address end customers as part of a partnership model with brick-and-mortar bookshops .
In 2000 Libri founded Libri.de Internet GmbH as a subsidiary for this specialized division . This has been offering downloads of e-books since 2008 and was significantly involved in the distribution of the Sony Reader in German-speaking countries . In October 2012, Libri.de Internet GmbH was renamed eBook.de NET GmbH and the online shop libri.de became eBook.de. He has been a member of the Tolino Alliance since October 2014 .
In July 2015, Hugendubel took over the majority of eBook.de and continues to operate the brand under the umbrella of Hugendubel Digital GmbH & Co. KG. The previous eBook.de owner Libri is now concentrating exclusively on the role of technology and logistics partner.
Books on Demand
In June 1999 the US American Computerworld Smithsonian Award recognized Libri as the winner in the Manufacturing category for developing the book-on-demand process .
In 2001 the sister company BoD GmbH (Books on Demand) was established , which as a service publisher prints almost every book at low cost for the author. A quality check is not carried out, the books are produced individually in the PoD process after receipt of the order. This increases the production costs for the book, but keeps the risk for the author / publisher manageable (no storage costs, no capital commitment).
eCommerce
Libri gives its customers the option of running their own white label shop . With a CMS the shop of bookstores can be designed independently. End customers can find their favorite bookstore via buchhandlung.de. The customers of the white label shop include a. Dussmann the KulturKaufhaus in Berlin.
Market position
The main competitors are the market leaders Koch, Neff and Volckmar based in Erfurt and Umbreit in Bietigheim-Bissingen. By taking over the former fourth-placed Könemann in Hagen, Libri was able to expand its second position in the German intermediate book trade in 2012.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Company information , accessed on July 16, 2018.
- ^ Inga Heuer, Markus Conrad: 75 years of moving books. The book on Libri . Self-published, Georg Lingenbrink GmbH & Co., Hamburg 2003, DNB 971787808 .
- ↑ Könemann stops order picking in Hagen . buchreport.de, August 17, 2012, accessed October 30, 2012.
- ↑ heise online: Libri.de becomes eBook.de .
- ↑ 2014 - eBook.de> Press> Press releases .
- ↑ 2015 - eBook.de> Press> Press releases .
- ↑ Computerworld Honors Award Recipients 1989-2004 . ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. cwhonors.org, accessed September 23, 2015.
- ↑ Matthias Schrader: Libri.de: a successful example of multi-level distribution models on the internet . In: Jörg Link, Daniela Tiedtke (Ed.): Successful practical examples in online marketing . 1st edition Springer, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-540-66275-8 , pp. 227-241, here p. 241.
- ↑ Your online shop with an individual look and feel with Libri.Shopline. In: Libri GmbH. Retrieved on July 25, 2019 (German).
- ^ Dussmann das KulturKaufhaus - online shop. Retrieved July 25, 2019 .
- ↑ Program overview . Retrieved July 25, 2019 .
