I'm largely speculating, however I suspect the situation would be slightly improved in the US/Europe. Some of the distributors are local branches of international publishers/distributors. Hachette for example do have real-time stock management and ordering, and I think even an API. I inquired about this with the local arm of Hachette that we order through, and they didn't really know what I was talking about. I assume they use it internally, but there's nothing exposed.

With the big distributors, I think the situation may be improved elsewhere in the world. However, given we're after social emotional development themed books, we do tend to branch out and order from smaller boutique publishers. I imagine their operations would be similar worldwide.