Does anyone buy from office supplies catalogues?
Discussion
I'm on the mailing list for one or two office/warehouse supplies companies, one of which sends me a catalogue every month or so, plus the odd letter asking why I haven't shopped there in absolutely ages.
You know the kind of place I mean; they will sell you everything from PPE to safety signs, via trolleys, office furniture, storage crates, kitchen products, the lot.
Their prices are usually wildly uncompetitive. From the catalogue in front of me:
Health & Safety poster - £17 + VAT (Amazon - as little as £8 + VAT)
Loo bleach - £2.50 + VAT (maybe 70p in Tesco?)
Henry Hoover - £119 + VAT (£77.50 + VAT on Amazon)
We've been phoned by someone claiming to be our account manager to ask why we don't use them. I've replied "because you are hugely expensive".
His reply was that they will match any price if we ring them up. I responded "I don't want to have to phone round getting prices, I'll just buy from the internet/Tesco/wherever is cheapest".
I can only assume that their business model relies on staff of companies that have an account with them not wanting to go out and buy things then get petty cash back, i.e. when they need a new desk/loo bleach/bin they can just pick one out of the catalogue and it turns up. And I bet most of their customers don't try and bargain on price. Don't they care about cost? I also suspect if you shop with them enough you may get a discount across the board (?).
So, does anyone on here actually use catalogue companies like this? Someone must!
You know the kind of place I mean; they will sell you everything from PPE to safety signs, via trolleys, office furniture, storage crates, kitchen products, the lot.
Their prices are usually wildly uncompetitive. From the catalogue in front of me:
Health & Safety poster - £17 + VAT (Amazon - as little as £8 + VAT)
Loo bleach - £2.50 + VAT (maybe 70p in Tesco?)
Henry Hoover - £119 + VAT (£77.50 + VAT on Amazon)
We've been phoned by someone claiming to be our account manager to ask why we don't use them. I've replied "because you are hugely expensive".
His reply was that they will match any price if we ring them up. I responded "I don't want to have to phone round getting prices, I'll just buy from the internet/Tesco/wherever is cheapest".
I can only assume that their business model relies on staff of companies that have an account with them not wanting to go out and buy things then get petty cash back, i.e. when they need a new desk/loo bleach/bin they can just pick one out of the catalogue and it turns up. And I bet most of their customers don't try and bargain on price. Don't they care about cost? I also suspect if you shop with them enough you may get a discount across the board (?).
So, does anyone on here actually use catalogue companies like this? Someone must!
I get those catalogues, the one I see has the owner smiling on the front, you get a tin of coffee if your order reaches a certain value.
I've never used it.
Stationery and office supplies must be a very tough business.
I just get a ream of paper from Tesco, pens and pencils seem to be at the bottom of drawers and things like bleach or cleaning materials simply add a bit on to the weekly shop.
I've worked in offices where each week a list is sent round asking people what they want and it usually comes to £200 worth of stuff that people take home.
I've never used it.
Stationery and office supplies must be a very tough business.
I just get a ream of paper from Tesco, pens and pencils seem to be at the bottom of drawers and things like bleach or cleaning materials simply add a bit on to the weekly shop.
I've worked in offices where each week a list is sent round asking people what they want and it usually comes to £200 worth of stuff that people take home.
I used to get several of these catalogues, sometimes several different copies from the same company but with different product codes and different prices. We did buy quite a bit of stuff from some of them, but we're going back probably 4-5 years and it was harder at that point to beat the prices easily. For example I could drive to the local Makro (15 miles away) and get coffee and tea cheaper, but by the time I've taken into account petrol and time the difference wasn't worth it. Sometimes their loss-leader products would be worth getting, and we did end up on a "Premier Account" status with one of them, which resulted in lifetime guarantee on everything we bought, a useful thing as we bought all the new office chairs after our post-fire refurb, and every time one of them broke they sent us a new one. Grudingly, I have to add - they tried to say "it doesn't include chairs", but they hadn't said that when we bought them.
We did have our own personalised catalogue for a while, with our company name and details on. What we only found out after a few issues, though, was that the prices in the catalogue weren't firm for the whole time the catalogue was "current" - they had a clause that allowed them to charge us more "trade" than the catalogue was offering them to the customers at. Although the various notices (E&OE and 'prices subject to change without notice') were there, it was too much of a pain to take an order, phone the supplier to check the prices, then potentially phone the customer back (pre-internet common use) so we dropped it.
We did have our own personalised catalogue for a while, with our company name and details on. What we only found out after a few issues, though, was that the prices in the catalogue weren't firm for the whole time the catalogue was "current" - they had a clause that allowed them to charge us more "trade" than the catalogue was offering them to the customers at. Although the various notices (E&OE and 'prices subject to change without notice') were there, it was too much of a pain to take an order, phone the supplier to check the prices, then potentially phone the customer back (pre-internet common use) so we dropped it.
fridaypassion said:
YUsed to use Viking back in the day this is 10 years and more ago. Always ask them for their best prices on an order we used to get at least 20% off catalogue prices just for asking.
They always used to be very cheap for paper in small quantities (box of 5 reams) and I did get some HP printer cartridges from them the other day - surprisingly they were the cheapest for genuine carts.Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff