Where to get cheap office supplies

If you’ve been looking for cheap office supplies online or discount stationery in your area, then by now you’re probably feeling like you’ve stumbled onto the set of Carry On At The Circus.

It’s difficult to get a read on what’s an appropriate price to pay for pens, paper, printer ink or biscuits - particularly when you’re ordering in bulk. Whomever your supplier is, you’re likely to achieve massive savings over high-street prices.

On the other hand, you can still end up paying two to three times over the odds. A discount promotion or buy-one-get-one-free offer is a warning signal, and almost certainly forms part of a pricing strategy that will see you paying more for stationery and office supplies.

If you’re a financial director or office administrator, you might already be clued in to the big secret - but for the rest of us, here’s the one secret that’s going to wipe off as much as half your office supplies expenses in one swift movement:

Stop searching for discounted office supplies

It’s not a call to arms over quality control - for some situations, it may even be appropriate to go for the budget option rather than the high-end one. Nor is it about wastage and logistical planning, although proper cost analysis is an important element of controlling your office budget. Rather, it’s a question of Bayesian signalling; Gricean logic; and, ultimately, basic principles of pricing. Although there are complicated concepts at work, it boils down to simple human nature.

We’re hard-wired to go after the option with the big shiny ‘discount’ sticker on the front - even when it’s more expensive. It’s a bizarre little quirk of the human brain, and one that’s difficult to switch off - as US retailer JC Penney discovered to their ongoing regret.

Back in 2012, the supermarket giant announced that they were putting an end to their promotional pricing strategy, which saw everyday staples at a permanent discount. Like most supermarkets, JC Penney was artificially inflating their shelf prices before giving them an arbitrary discount. At times, a 50% discount was actually a 10% increase on the recommended retail price.

The incoming CEO Ron Johnson announced a shift to a new, ‘honest’ system of pricing without any fake discounts; two-for-one deals; coupons; prices ending in 9 or 7; or other shifty tactics. The new system was intended not only to lower prices, but to help consumers make informed decisions about their groceries and budgets. The fact that Honourable Ron became Jobless Johnson within less than a year probably tells you how successful that strategy worked.

Customers abandoned JC Penney in hordes, some with a sense of anger over what they perceived as a betrayal; revenue and share price went into freefall; and the company quickly returned to their previous strategy of artificial markdowns. When offered the same products with a lower pricetag, customers still preferred to pay the higher price - as long as it had a discount sticker on it.

In fact, JC Penney customers were so offended by the disastrous strategy that brand loyalty not only went down, with perceived trustworthiness falling as prices decreased; but stayed down too. The company actually issued an apology to jilted shoppers, but the customer base stayed away until prices were raised - in some cases higher than they originally were. An industry commentator had this to say:

“The bargain-hunting website dealnews has since commenced tracking prices at JC Penney. What it’s discovered is that the prices of certain items—designer furniture, in particular—have risen by 60% or more at JC Penney almost overnight. One week, a side table was listed at $150; a few days later, the “everyday” price for the same item was up to $245.”

Discount pricing strategies are pretty much par for the course on the high street - and, as the BBC uncovered, many of them are as arbitrary and misleading as JC Penney’s. And, for the most part, they make sense from a B2C perspective. The Chartered Institute of Marketing claims that attention spans are limited to 8 seconds, rather than the 12 seconds that they were in the early 2000s.

We live in the information age: a world of multitasking; 140 characters; ‘top 10 everything’; truncation and enumeration and fast food; where consumers need to make decisions quickly based off limited information. Discounting is an immediate recognisable signal that a wise purchasing decision is being made, (whether true or not).

For someone involved in B2B procurement, however, discount pricing should be public enemy number 1.

Unfortunately, every workplace from your local chip shop to the state of New York has at one time or other fallen victim to the same ruses that operate in the supermarket.

Promotional pricing strategies in the office

It’s often said disparagingly of politicians that they don’t know the price of a pint of milk, (or in the case of the mayor of New York, the price of a pen and paper).

In all honesty, however, none of us do.

Milk, bread, and other staples are generally far cheaper than they should be - for any number of reasons:

• They could be used as a loss leader, to draw in customers who’ll then pay more for other items.

• They could be inferior-quality versions used to undercut competitors.

• They could be bundled with other items as part of an up-sell; sandwich-drink-and-snack deals at lunchtime are a good example, but there are invisible examples like coffee strainers and coffee (or printer ink and printers).

• They could be used to build trust or complacency in the shopper, who will often judge all the prices of a retailer based on the first or most common items that they purchase from them.

• They could use tricks of human perception - such as charm pricing (like .9 or .7); pricing under benchmarks (such as £1, £5, £10 and so on); or even just including information that looks relevant but isn’t. Something which is advertised as “Only £1.99 when you buy 2!” may look like a discount, but if the single unit costs £0.99 then it’s actually more expensive.

All the tricks outlined above, used for milk and bread, apply equally well to equivalent office basics like pens and paper. You can verify that for yourself with just a few minutes of searching - or checking your most recent receipt.

In day-to-day life there’s not much we can do about this kind of obfuscation. Very few people have the time, resources or inclination to investigate and compare grocery prices on an item-by-item level - and the opportunity costs of rushing from supermarket to supermarket in the search for the cheapest potatoes by gross weight in fact probably outweigh the benefits. That’s why JC Penney’s customers are slowly returning as the prices are rising.

A company facing similar purchasing options, however, has the advantage of a financial director to protect its decision-making process.

There’s still scope, even or perhaps especially in the age of information, to have someone on staff who can perform considered, researched procurement. Someone who can take the time to do a proper cost analysis; engage in slow thinking; and come to a conclusion based on facts rather than on sound and fury.

While honesty didn’t work out so well for Ron Johnson, we at CP Office still believe that it’s both worthwhile and worth a shot. So, unlike many other stationers and vendors of office supplies, we prefer to offer an impartial cost analysis to our potential customers, in addition to the benefit of our genuinely competitive prices. With CP Office, there’s no fuss and no tricks - just an honest discussion about what’s best for you and your office.