Partner Spotlight is a series designed to highlight the vendors that partner with ABA to offer discounted products, services, and business opportunities to ABA members. Each installment, we interview a different partner to learn more about their organization and why indie bookstores matter to them.
W.G. Ellerkamp is a family-owned retail packaging company that offers everything from custom printed bags, wrapping paper, boxes, and tissue paper. The company also carries designs created specifically for indie booksellers.
Bookselling This Week spoke with Jack Ellerkamp of W.G. Ellerkamp to learn more.
Bookselling This Week: Why don't you tell me a little about W.G. Ellerkamp and its origins? Your father originally started the company, right?
Jack Ellerkamp: My father had been in the retail packaging business since the 1970s. In the late ‘80s he started his own company here in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
After living and working in Boston and Hoboken, New Jersey, for about 6 years after college I joined Dad in 1993.
For the first 7 years, I lived in the Portland area, building our business in Maine. When Dad retired in 1999, we moved to Peterborough, and I took over running the business.
BTW: You've worked with ABA for a while now, and Ellerkamp produces a lot of ABA/IndieBound designs. Do you remember what prompted the company to partner with ABA and our members? Is there anything in particular that you love about working with booksellers?
JE: I received a phone call out of the blue in 2008 or 2009 from a graphic design house in South Carolina inquiring if we were interested in printing bags with slogans like “Eat Sleep Read” and “Peace Love Books.” I had no idea why they were reaching out to our little company in New Hampshire. After asking lots of questions, I learned that this was ABA-related.
At that time I did not know what ABA was — I thought it was the American Bar Association! I was provided the name of Meg Smith at ABA. I called and she explained what this was all about.
We agreed to print and warehouse two sizes of shopping bags and I was nervous. The economy was horrific at the time and I had no idea if booksellers would want to buy these bags. It turns out they did! From the moment that first order of 5,000 bags arrived, booksellers throughout the country have been eagerly buying them.
We started with two shopping bags (The Café and The Indie) and now we have a 28-page catalog of products exclusively for ABA booksellers!
Our relationship with ABA has transformed our company.
About 70% of our customers today are booksellers and I could not be happier! I have loved bookstores since I was a young boy. And more importantly, booksellers are good people and we love working with good people!
BTW: I'm sure many of our members already use your products — or they'll go take a look after reading this interview! — but what do you think sets you apart from other companies in your industry?
JE: What sets us apart is that we have an old school approach to doing business.
A human being answers the phone every time a customer calls; I think that is very important and customers appreciate it. We respond to emails, we return phone calls, we care about our customers’ experience!
I frequently say to our staff that I want every customer to enjoy working with us, to find doing business with us easy, to think of us as friends, just like we think of each of them.
On the product side, we are careful and selective about which manufacturers we work with because we want to offer excellent quality products to our bookselling friends.
Oh, and we also have the best line of gift-wrapping paper on the planet!
BTW: What are you reading right now? Do you have any book recommendations for us?
JE: I am leaving for London in a few hours for a 10-day vacation. I was visiting with a bookstore customer yesterday and I bought two books for the flight — Telephone by Percival Everett and On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves.
Every American who is concerned — and even those who are not! — about what is going on in our country right now should read The Oppermanns by Lion Feuchtwanger which was published in 1933. No explanation needed, just read it!
BTW: Is there anything else you'd like booksellers to know about your company?
JE: We absolutely love working with booksellers! I love my job and enjoy coming to work each day and that is a beautiful thing and I am grateful!
ABA members are eligible for 15% of gift wrap purchases, as well as a 25% discount on shipping. Visit the ABA Partners page for more details.