Month: March 2009

Quick News: Buying trends in small business

Posted on by chase

I was just handed a pretty interesting document courtesy of the School, Home and Office Products Association (SHOPA) that lists buying trends in the office supply arena. The numbers are from 2006, but they still make for an interesting read. One of the major things that impressed me was how little brand name mattered to the average office buyer, and also how little they were concerned about price matching. Take the following chart:

Print Cartridges and paper are the only two products that show a huge push for price comparisons, presumably because they are purchased the most often. That means that everything else in that graph is only occasionally thought of as being “worth” shopping around for the best price. Add into that the information found in this chart, which outlines the important attributes when selecting an office supply retailer:

And you can see the price is only third on the list of importance for most companies, with product availability and the company’s needs coming first. To me, this begs the question: “What if a company had almost limitless availability on a huge range of products, from paper, ink and the stuff I buy every day to the things I only buy once or twice a year, AND they offered a great price?” Seems to me like that would be the place you’d shop, right? Food for thought.

I’d personally love to see the updated numbers since 2006, when we’ve seen an explosion in online shopping and a general shying-away from big box retailers in ALL markets, not just office supplies. I imagine they’ll be pretty impressive.

Universities suffering from “Paper Cuts”

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In these troubled economic times, lots of universities are forced to cut spending wherever they can, and unfortunately office supplies are often first on the block. While it might seem like a few sheets of paper here or there don’t make much difference, new articles show the results of these cutbacks can be worse than originally anticipated. An article recently posted in The Central Florida Future, the University of Central Florida student paper, shows that cutbacks to office supplies are having a damaging effect on the way professors teach:

Humanities professor Debra Maukonen can no longer allow students to keep their tests as study tools because she has to collect them due to the recent cut in paper.

…

These changes are part of an effort to cut back on office supplies because of decreased budgets.

The lack of office supplies “makes it more difficult for instructors to do their jobs,” Maukonen said. “In the larger picture, it’s more than paper — it’s people.”

She said a smaller budget means just what students are seeing now: reduced faculty, staff and services; reduced course offerings; reduced face-to-face classes and more online classes; larger class sizes; and an higher student-teacher ratio.

“I know we are saving trees and money by going paperless, but I am seeing a difference in teaching,” Maukonen said.

The trend towards a paperless office has seen huge strides in recent years with the advancement of technology, and in certain places it works wonders for helping an office “go green” and cut back on costs. But it seems like in a university setting cutting the office supply budget is only hurting students.

At UCF, last year, office desk accessories, such as organizers and calculators, totaled around $164,500, and mailing supplies totaled about $34,000. This year, the totals dropped to about $83,800 and $11,900, respectively. Print, copy and fax supplies had the biggest budget for the two years. Last year, they cost the university about $182,800. That number was nearly cut in half for this year to about $94,600.

I think it’s important for universities to consider the impact of slashing budgets on the quality of education they can provide. Rather than unilaterally make huge sweeping cuts, institutions need to consider their options when picking an office supply retailer. Any self-respecting office supply dealer will offer bulk pricing on office supplies, as well as make special deals for educational and governmental institutions. It’s all a matter of shopping around for the best deal, and I can only hope that a university will exhaust all other options before making budget cuts that may harm students.

Big Box Watch: Office Supply stores hit hard by recession

Posted on by chase

Just browsing the big-box news and came across an article by Tribune Media Services columnist Andrew Leckey. While the bulk of an article relates to his personal encounter with a big-box retailer (describing it as “a ghost town”), he has some eye-opening facts at the end of the piece:

Financial results underscore a brutal economy and industry in transition:

— Staples’ net income dropped 14 percent in its fiscal fourth quarter ended Jan. 31. It suspended its store remodeling and is looking toward smaller stores.

— Office Depot is closing 112 under performing North American stores, reducing by half its new-store openings and closing six distribution centers. Including substantial charges, it had a $1.54 billion net loss in the fourth quarter.

— With charges, OfficeMax had a net loss of $396 million in its fourth quarter, suspended its quarterly dividend, eliminated jobs and delayed store remodeling.

The thing that I always notice when people are making these doom-and-gloom predictions for the office supply industry? They always seem to be referring to brick-and-mortar stores. First it was the big-box stores pushing out local enterprise, and now it’s those very same big-box stores crumbling in the bad economy. No one seems to mention that the new face of office supplies has been online retailing for quite a while now, and people looking to improve their office-supply experience only need to look as far as their computer.

This doesn’t help all those big-box retailers, of course, and I’m sad for the people who are losing money when office store stock crumbles. But for the average consumer needing office supplies, the future’s never been brighter.

Office supply model-making: shouldn’t you be working?

Posted on by chase

It’s Friday, and as the work day and week draw to a close I find myself thinking about anything other than work itself. In this spirit, I found a post from Make magazine’s blog that collected all of their submissions that dealt with…ahem, non-standard uses for office supplies. I have to admit it takes me back; almost all of my office jobs have involved creating things out of office supplies at one point or another. I personally think this kind of three-dimensional doodling is essential for keeping workplace creativity and energy levels up (or at least that’s what I told my bosses), so take some of these ideas and run with them!

Office supply Mario Kart courtesy of Donald Kennedy, who hosts all kinds of impressive creations on Flickr as well as his personal page, KodyKoala. Made from binder clips, colored paper clips, and loose change. Those feet look pretty official, though. I think there’s a GI Joe amputee stumping around somewhere without his boots.

A couple of variations on the theme of the Starship Enterprise. The first one came from Instructables and has a saucer made from blank DVDs, a thick Sharpie body and binder clip arms attaching the ink pen engines. The smaller one is made from paperclips, small binder clips and a wall clip that actually detaches for extra realism! Well, not realism I guess. You know what I mean.

These sci-fi papercraft projects are pretty great, and require nothing more than some heavy paper or card stock and some white glue. It’s basically a matter of printing and following directions, and you end up with a cool, incredibly cheap cubicle decoration for the price of a printed sheet of paper. For more ideas, just run a Google search for “papercraft.” You’ll be amazed at the variety of stuff that will come up.

Last but not least, this incredible Star Wars Tie Fighter made from stray Starbucks materials. This model is completely made of paper cups, heat sleeves, coffee boxes, drink carriers and stir sticks. Pretty astounding work from Wired magazine photographer Dan Winters.

Check the Make Magazine post to see more examples of fine office supply creations, and feel free to email me your own at chase@ontimesupplies.com and I’ll be sure to feature them in later posts.

Big Box Watch: Office Depot Encouraging Employees to Lie?

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When I set my various news programs to send me alerts relating to Office Depot, I had no idea just how deep the rabbit hole would go. Originally I want to keep tabs on the ongoing investigations into their alleged misconduct over government sales (which I also just learned extends to the GSA, the Defense Department and other high-level federal contracts), but I keep finding more and more horror stories from employees about the way the company does business. By way of LaptopMag’s blog:

“I have had various managers (including my store manager) insinuate, if not flat-out tell me, not to sell items to customers if they aren’t going to get any attachments … The managers would much rather us sell 3 laptops, a PPP, TDS, and case than a hundred laptops with nothing.”

The PPP mentioned there is the Product Protection Plan, an add-on warranty offered by Office Depot, and TDS is “Tech Depot Service”, an Office Depot-supplied tech support program. Since the likelihood of these services being actually “cashed in” is low, they’re a popular way for big-box retailers to pad their profit margins.

Selling a product that may not have a lot of value isn’t a crime, though; people have the right to buy or not buy whatever they want. However, misleading or misinforming people about what you’re offering them is not only bad business, the FTC has stated it violates federal law. Once again, it comes back to doing business with a company you trust. When you can plug your local company’s name into Google and come up with dozens of results featuring “fraud”, “lying”, “theft” and “criminal investigation”, it’s probably time to look elsewhere.

Meanwhile, check out LaptopMag’s series of articles. The first one they did about Office Depot Employees lying about notebook stock sparked an internal Office Depot memo and caused many employees to come forward to be quoted in the current article, which alleges changing price tags with photoshopped duplicates, “folding in” the price of warranties and other add-ons into clearance items, and more. It’s amazing that all this is going on in the face of their other criminal investigation. Kind of makes you glad you can shop online, eh?

How-To: Select a new Office Chair

Posted on by chase

After writing my article on ordering a replacement caster for my office chair, I realized that when all was said and done I would have rather ordered a replacement CHAIR for my office chair. This thing came from a big-box store as a stopgap measure to replace a nice leather chair I had inherited but eventually fell apart. What was supposed to last me a few weeks has turned into a few years, and today when I leaned back and a screw fell out of the bottom of the chair, I knew it was time to go shopping.

That’s when I realized I know nothing about office chairs. I mean, sure, I know you sit in them and they keep you off the floor and they’re a handy place to hang your coat, but other than that I had no idea what went into selecting one. I tended to just walk into the store and sit on things until I found one I liked and wasn’t too expensive. I decided to educate myself on the subject a little more and I’m here to pass my findings on to you.

Three options that all came up during a search for “office chairs.”
I think I notice some differences.

I figured my first step should be to call around to some leading manufacturers of chairs and find out what they recommend. The best info I got came from Hon, one of the top names in office furniture and all around swell folks. Between a helpful customer service call and a free .PDF they sent me called “how to buy office furniture”, I’ve compiled a list of their recommendations.

Operate within your budget. As much as I hate to be a stickler for price, this is one piece of advice I can agree with. While your chair budget should be high for a personal chair (the price is worth the comfort if you’re going to be sitting in it all day, every day), you still need to set one. The sheer amount of different chairs will stagger you if you go shopping by features before setting a price point. So narrow it down to a healthy price range, and then start looking at options.

Consider your Position. After you’ve decided on a price point, consider how often the chair is going to be used, and in what context. The amount of use a chair will see should definitely determine its type, and the Hon buying guide has some tips for this scenario:

1. Employees who sit six to eight hours a day performing multiple tasks should have high-performance task chairs with ergonomic controls that let the user adjust the chair to suit his or her body size and work style. Many chairs now use passive ergonomic adjustments that maintain a comfortable configuration as the user moves. (More on ergonomics later.)

2. People who use computers should have adjustable armrests to maintain a comfortable position at the keyboard. The chair’s tilt feature should allow users to look at the computer screen at a comfortable angle no matter how much they lean forward or back.

3. Executives may not need all the performance features as they spend less time sitting down, but may require leather or more high-tech materials to project a strong, professional image.

They go on to mention that a chair should have a solid warranty on parts and fabric, and to keep in mind that something like a waiting room chair or conference room chair should be treated differently than a “work chair”, since those are meant to be sat in by many people for short amounts of time, not one person for long durations. On that note:

Think ergonomically. You’re going to be sitting in this chair for a long time, so you need to know that you can adjust it to fit your ergonomic needs. In case you didn’t know, ergonomics is the study of suiting the work environment to fit the worker, in order to maximize human potential. It is often used as a stand-in for “comfort” when talking about the workplace. I plan on doing a whole post on ergonomics at some point, so for now we’ll take it to mean adjusting your chair to maximize comfort, reduce stress, and generate a comfortable work environment.

To begin, make sure your chair has all the adjustment options you think you might need. The Hon rep told me one of the reasons to start with price is that any chair that’s worth buying is going to have enough of these options that anyone will be able to customize it to fit their needs. After seeing some of their options charts, I believe it:

Okay. Up, down, back, forward. I can dig it. That’s what chairs should do, right? Seems pretty cut-and-dry…oh, wait. What’s that?


For a more detailed explanation of all these features,
check out the Chair Buying guide at On Time Supplies.

This is science at work, people. There’s a reason why ergonomics is big business, and why it’s important to take care of yourself by using the wealth of options available to you. Bad posture and poor ergonomics can lead to repetitive stress injury, chronic back pain, eyestrain and more. By making sure your chair has even a fraction of these adjustment options, you’re well on your way to customizing your workspace in a way that fits you.

A great resource I found is Ergotron, which has an ergonomic calculator  that tells me that I’ve got my desk set up all wrong. A couple of small tweaks and I can feel it working already, though I’m nowhere near perfection. Hopefully my new chair, whatever it ends up being, will help fix all that.

In conclusion, let’s sum up by saying there are three things to consider when buying a chair: comfort, quality, and price, and they all inter-relate while you are shopping. Set a price point that’s within your budget, and look for a high-quality chair from a reliable dealer that has features that allow you to adjust it to fit your comfort. Any retailer worth their salt should offer a buying guide for the chairs they sell, and don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call them (or the chair manufacturer) with any questions. We’re all here to help.

Big Box Watch: Berkeley joins in Office Depot allegations

Posted on by chase

Continuing the drama surrounding Office Depot’s alleged misconduct in dealing with state and local governments, the Director of Finance for the City of Berkeley, Robert Hicks, says the Office Depot company has overcharged the city by as much as a quarter of a million dollars during the course of a three-year, $550,000-a-year contract to provide miscellaneous office supplies and recycled copy paper to the city. According to the Berkeley Daily Planet:

Hicks’ revelation supported the allegations first made to the City Council last October by Diane Griffin, president of Radston’s Office Plus supply store of Hercules and a member of the board of directors of the Nation-al Office Products Alliance (NOPA).

According to the conclusion of an analysis of more than 100 pages of the Office Depot-City of Berkeley contract provided to the city by Griffin, Office Depot charged the normal retail price on 135 of what it called “core” office supplies, but promised a 55 percent discount to the city for items not on the “core item” list. Griffin says that in fact, Berkeley received only a 39.7 percent discount on those non-core items, the basis for her estimate of the $250,000 overcharge.

Hicks has also stated that his office will look into the dealings with Office Depot outside of the contract mentioned above, and that the actual amount of alleged overcharge may reach even more than $250,000. Diane Griffin herself said she believes the Office Depot overcharges on its City of Berkeley contract are accumulating at a rate of $8,000 a month.

The more I dig into these Office Depot allegations, the more bewildered I am by their apparent conduct. They go and offer people a ridiculous contract that no one could possibly match, and then not only charge way more than they promised but also, in some cases, far more than retail price. There’s a lesson to be learned here: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Report: SMBs look to reduce office supply costs

Posted on by chase

According to a report from Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) have reported that they are turning to all sorts of cost-cutting measures in the wake of the current economic crisis. Thankfully for all those worried about their jobs, the report has shown that businesses have been able to significantly reduce their costs by trimming the often high price of printing and office supplies:

Reducing office supplies and printing costs is simpler to implement than other cost reductions, and the benefits can be immediate since all employees can play a part in reducing this line-item expense, the report found. The findings were released in an AMI study titled ‘Printing During the Downturn: How the Recession Has Created A Significant Printing Opportunity.

Due to their greater touch points and exposure, Medium Businesses (companies with 100 to 999 employees) are likely to be more negatively affected by the downturn and have initiated more cost cutting plans compared to Small Businesses (companies with 1 to 99 employees),” said New York-based AMI analyst Melissa Chong. “In a recent internal study, 77 percent of U.S. MBs and 47 percent of U.S. SBs, respectfully acknowledged that their company has taken measures to reduce office supplies and printing costs.”

While some see this as bad news for vendors of printing and office supplies, I can’t help but think of it as a solid opportunity for a small or medium business to form a relationship with a low-cost online vendor of office supplies. Through a combination of bulk ordering products to get the most value for their money and receiving helpful service to make sure the supplies and equipment they do have are being used effectively and efficiently, a small indpendent retailer can offer the small business more in the way of cost-saving measures than a huge conglomerate or a big-box retailer.

Once again, it all comes down to value vs. price. A lot of companies are only focused on getting the lowest price on office products, and that’s understandable considering the current economic climate. However, once companies start realizing that the most important thing for a small business is to receive the most possible value for every dollar they do spend, I think we’ll see a massive shift toward value-driven companies that provide a level of service and commitment that is usually not thought of as “standard” in such a profit-driven industry. I’m proud to be a part of just such a company.

Big Box Watch: Florida Office Depot Investigation Update

Posted on by chase

As many of you may or may not know, Office Depot has been under investigation since last year for allegedly using bait-and-switch tactics in their dealings with state and local government contracts. The investigation is based upon the accusation that Office Depot would offer a low price during their initial contract bid, and end up selling high-priced alternatives when it came time to deliver. There are also accusation of over-billing and general misconduct. Georgia, California, Nebraska, Florida and North Carolina have all launched independent investigations, with some states canceling contracts state-wide until a decision is reached.

Today, officials in Tampa made the following announcement in regards to their internal audit, courtesy of the Palm Beach Post:

An audit of Hillsborough County’s office supply purchases from Office Depot has found little evidence of overbilling.A review of more than 15,000 county transactions with Office Depot during the past several months found few instances in which the county was overbilled for items ranging from staplers to paper clips, county audit director Dan Pohto told county commissioners.

Commissioners declined to pursue further investigation of the contract. Pohto’s office was asked to review the contract after news reports in several states raised questions about whether Office Depot was overbilling its government clients.

This strikes me as more than a little odd. The state is calling off its investigation because they “only” found “a few” instances of overbilling? To me it would seem that once is enough to make me question my dealings with a company, and “a few” would certainly be a few too many. Fool me once, shame on you, and so on.

Regardless, it’s an interesting look into the mindset of the big-box office supply retailer. With an online office supply company,  manufacturers are able to set the lowest price they can to give the most value to the consumer, and the retailer is able to pass the savings on by keeping overhead low and back-stock at a minimum, as well as not having to worry about the logistics of renting and running storefronts and so on.

The big-box retailer, on the other hand, is almost by necessity focused solely on the bottom line. If profits drop, they have a board of directors, investors, managers and CEOs to answer to. They need to squeeze all the money out of the customer that they can, and it’s no real surprise that some of them might resort to less-than-honest tactics to do so, especially in this economy. To be honest, I’m surprised this is the first we’ve heard of it, and hopefully the amount of digging going into this case will expose any other fraudulent practices that may be being perpetrated by other companies.

Have you been bamboozled by a big-box retailer? Have a customer service nightmare story you want to share? Email it to me at chase@ontimesupplies.com and I’ll be sure to post it here. In the meantime, do your research, get to know your vendor, and make your purchases from a responsible retailer who cares more about getting you the best value than getting your last nickel.

How-To: Choose the perfect battery

Posted on by chase

how-to-choose-the-perfect-battery

For your high-output devices, there’s a chance that your regular bargain-bin batteries aren’t cutting it any more. I know I’ve bought AA batteries from the dollar store thinking I’m getting a great deal, only to have them not even be recognized by my digital camera. A lot of cheap-o batteries don’t even have enough juice in them straight out of the box to power a lot of today’s high-end electronics, but luckily there are plenty of affordable alternatives. Continue reading →