Is your office supplies company really that competitive?

Posted on Nov 11 2010 - 12:16pm by Peter Millikin


If you’re a large user of office supplies then you will be met with hundreds of companies willing to negotiate hard on price to win your business.

In the 90’s the pricing matrix for supplying stationery was a lot simpler than methods used today, but then the savings achieved were nowhere near as high as they are in 2013!

Back in the 80 and 90’s if you wanted to save money on office supplies you negotiated a percentage off the dealer catalogue and that was about it. There was no monitoring or computer software involved in getting you a better deal.

Today’s computers and software programs enable suppliers to provide customers with detailed reports on their monthly purchasing habits, which can help buyers see where they might be able to make bigger savings in the future. This data also provides the dealer with information on how much it costs to run the stationery account.

The saving the supplier might be able to make could be on simple things like product replacements, swapping branded for non-branded office supplies. This should save your company money too! This will only be the case if the office supplies dealer passes on the savings to you and doesn’t just keep the savings to himself to bump up his own profits.

If you’re a facilities or a procurement manager and you would like to provide readers on our site with any buying tips or methods to watch out for when buying office products then we would love to hear from you. You can either use the contact form which can be found at the top of the website or drop an email directly to info@whatstationers.co.uk

Can you help readers of the site save money on any of the category areas below?

Archiving & Data Storage
Consolidation
Cost Consultants
E-Auction
E-Commerce
Energy Saving Tips
Environmental Products
IT & Consumables
Marketing Print
Office Furniture
Photocopiers
Printing
Stationery
Supply Chain Management
Telephone & Mobile Phones
Tender Process
Transport & Warehouse Storage
Vending Machines
Water Coolers

If I can help people save I can help suppliers grow. Please share it with your friends and followers by using the social buttons!

Read about the Author

Peter has received many accreditation's including many from the Times Online. As founder of You Could Save (2005) and What Stationers (2007) Peter regularly helps consumers and national organisation ‘save money’. He believes that the only successful way to bring people together online is to provide an open marketplace where people can all work together in a friendly, unbiased environment.

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