It goes without saying how essential it is for every office to be fully stocked with all of the office supplies, office equipment, stationery and consumables that they are likely to need to go about their day to day business. What isn’t however a given is that this procedure is necessarily expensive. It is true in many industries that you don’t have to buy products from widely recognised manufacturers in order to be sure of quality and in the office supplies world, that rule holds true: provided you shop carefully and intelligently.

Although at first glance the one off special offers displayed in high street office supplies stores may hold appeal, for the most part, physical office supplies stores charge a premium for the majority of their stock. This is no surprise when you consider the costs they incur in terms of overheads, rent and staff. By all means take advantage of special offers if they represent great value and you genuinely need the item, but avoid paying over the odds for other items purely because you’re already in the store. It is almost universally better value to purchase the lion’s share of your office supplies and other associated equipment from an online retailer given their significantly lower overheads and consequently: lower prices.

Having sourced an office supplies retailer who offers a wide range of products at highly competitive prices the next step towards stocking up the office supplies cupboard on a shoestring is to look for items which fulfil the necessary criteria but aren’t priced at a premium. Although you may feel more confident opting for items from high visibility, widely recognised brands: a specific label is by no means a guarantee of higher quality. It can save you a great deal of money if you look at lower priced items from manufacturers you’re less familiar with. To secure peace of mind simply type the name of the manufacturer and item into a search engine in order to read reviews of the product.

The final major means of making a saving is to buy everything in one go. For a start, many online office supplies retailers offer free delivery on orders over a certain value: so by buying enough to qualify for the free delivery you are already making a saving. In addition to the free delivery, for the most part buying items in bulk results in a lower price per unit due to the phenomena known as economies of scale. Don’t go overboard, or buy more than you’re likely to need: but aim to buy all that you’re likely to need for the foreseeable future and you’ll notice the savings immediately and the benefits for months to come.

Written by Jamie Rock Lyons for DGOS Office Supplies and their Office Supplies Blog

It may be that you have been set the task of reviewing office supplies for your building and are not sure where to start. When you’re running a business you need to be in control of items that are needed on a daily basis.

Below we compiled a list of potential products that your office is likely to currently use on a pretty much daily basis, or will use regularly in time if you’re a start up business, and a few pointers on how to organise office supplies so that you don’t over order or of course run out of stock.

The majority of products used on a daily basis may include:

• Bathroom and kitchen cleaning supplies
• Blackboards or whiteboards
• CD’s for data storage
• Calculators
• Envelopes
• Erasers
• Fax & copy paper
• Franking machine accessories
• Glue
• Kitchen consumables (kettle, tea, coffee, cutlery)
• Labels (for postage, marking files, archiving)
• Lever-arch files (binders)
• Marker pens
• Message pads
• Stationery (letterheads, compliment slips, invoices)
• Sticky tape
• Paper clips
• Pens (Bics, ballpoints, highlighers, fountain pens (for the boss!) & Pencils
• Plastic wallets
• Postage stamps
• Print cartridges
• Rubber bands
• Rulers
• Scissors
• Stamps (marking post as read, invoices as paid etc)
• Stapler & staples
• Correction Fluid
• Toilet rolls
• Phone headsets
• Wall calendars
• Water bottles (water coolers in a large office need replacing regularly)

We do save time by having stationery on hand and it is worth keeping a note to colleagues to ensure they report when they are on the last dozen or so (the last box of pens or the last couple of reams of printer paper etc). Replenishing stocks every month or so is a great help – there’s no point in running out of printer paper when a colleague is in the middle of an invoice run!

Considering an order system to order these types of office supplies on a regular basis isn’t easy but generating processes that can be followed simply by using a master list and reviewing the office supplies needed every couple of months can help. Maintaining a stationery file can help identify where reductions and savings can be made even just months down the line so it’s a huge help where organization, budgets and time is concerned. By gaining an understanding of your office requirements, areas of surplus and products which are required on a rolling basis, keeping the office running smoothly is incredibly simple.