How Do You Order Your Office Supplies?
Order Office Supplies Pie Chart
This one goes out to you office managers out there…
How do you order your office supplies?
How do you organize to know what you need and when you need it?
The More Vendors = The Bigger Headache
Do you have a go to vendor that you use for your pens, and another vendor for your pens & paper, and yet another vendor for your custom business apparel, and YET ANOTHER vendor for your ink and toner cartridges?
Doesn’t it seem just a little silly to have all these different vendors .. to keep track of it all could get rather annoying. Plus you have to deal with different people at each of the vendors.. which means you’re going to be a small fish to them and thus not get the same treatment that a larger client would get…
You Guessed It… There Is An Easier Way
The buzz word here is purchasing procurement management.
In short, that means having one vendor that orders everything for you.
The benefits?.. easy:
- One person to call who understands all your needs
- Lower costs (per product and overall)
- Streamlined (faster) ordering + receiving
- One ordering system to learn
- Control spending on office supplies
- You get the point…
It’s basically a way to organize all of the items you buy for your company, so that when it comes time to order any of them, you know where to go, how much you’re going to pay, and how long it’s going to take to get there.
“My Needs Are Specific – Only 1 Vendor Has What I Need”
First off, if that’s actually true.. that’s NOT good.. take a look at your business and make sure there are contingency plans in place.
But really, that’s OK because a company who consolidates your procurement process can work with any and all vendors (not to mention, they will suggest other vendors that ship faster and have better rates – FOR THE SAME EXACT products you already get).
Was that another benefit that wasn’t on the list above.. I think so.
What You Should Do Next
First off, check this out.
Pretty cool huh? You can scan the items that you need and upload it to your computer.. less buttons to click, less searching, less time spent!
This is GREAT for companies with multiple office locations or one big office that runs through supplies very quickly because:
- You can control spending on office supplies
- Quickly and digitally make a list of what you need to order
- Order it with the click of a button
- Get reports on the materials your office uses most often
That last one is very neat – think about it, after ordering office supplies for a couple months, you can run a report to tell you which supplies are being used at what rate.