Although procuring office supplies often turn out to be the challenging proposition for a good number of small businesses in the face of shortage of funds but still these supplies come across as an indispensable necessity in order to run critical affairs of a small business. This necessitates that you wield your monetary resources, employing your discretion. With a good number of companies facing the turmoil over the last few years, such a situation has instigated them to sift out among the feasible approaches to save money.
Here are 10 ways to save money on office supplies:
- Get Products at Discounted Prices with Debit/Credit Cards: You are better employing business debit/credit cards for purchasing office supplies since a good number of business shopping cards present options of cash-back and other handy benefits from using the credit card. Thus, it becomes imperative that you obtain incentives including cash-back without doing anything different.
- Research Online for Best Price Quotes: Before you acquire office supplies, it becomes necessary that you employ extensive research online and seek out the best possible quotes. Though it may appear time-consuming task at first instance but still it will yield you dividends as the ensuing course of action approaches. Browse through a wide array of websites featuring multitude vendors and brands. However the essential parameters that exert significant bearing on your choice include quality, timely delivery, and safety of items.
- Bulk Purchase of Commonly Used Items: A bulk purchase of frequently used supplies comes in handy to cut down on the aspect of cost. The most commonly and frequently used items include notepads, wholesale pens and pencils, and printer paper, among others and thereby should be procured in bulk.
- Thrifty Use of Colour Printing: Another approach to cut down on the cost of office supplies is to ensure that employees make use of colour printing only in the case of absolute necessity. However, in order to ensure this, a person entrusted with the management of office supplies should make sure that adequate black printer ink cartridges are stocked into the office supply closet. This is due to the fact that black printer ink cartridges are available at relatively cheaper price to colour printer ink cartridges.
- Economical Option to Printing in Memory Sticks: Office supplies such as portable hard drives and memory sticks comes in handy to save unnecessary printing costs through leveraging the power of technology and allowing employees to share files and information, These devices are easily available at cost-effective prices which makes it affordable to such an extent that everyone in the office can have their own.
- Implement Recycling of Paper: You should make it a point to ensure that recycling of paper is practiced as a measure to save upon the increasing cost. For instance, if you print something inadvertently, instead of throwing out the paper, you should put it back into the printer and print on the opposite side.
- Frugal Use of Office Supplies: You should employ extra care to ensure that you reap the maximum usage of office supplies available at your disposal. Additionally, you should also make sure that you remain thrifty with the available supplies despite the fact that you have adequate amount of it stocked into your office closet.
- Seek out Free Shipping Option: Free shipping is another pivotal aspect for saving money on office supplies. A good number of companies offer free shipping. However, employ your discretion to get the measure of fine print. A handful of companies offer free shipping on freight items, this presents considerable disadvantage to customers who seek to procure office items such as tables, chairs, desks, etc. in large quantities. Sifting out companies that provide free shipping on freight will come in handy to save upon a substantial amount of money.
- Opt for Generic Brands: You should seek out generic brands for specific items such as paperclip since a brand paperclip will not be any different to a generic paperclip which will easily save you at least 30% lesser what would have been in case of brand name products. Other such products include binder clips, rubber bands, mailing boxes, folders, etc.
In the end, it is worth concluding that with such great approaches to save money on office supplies, it becomes necessary that you bear them in mind while you seek to make purchase of office supplies.
