Future-Proof Your Business: Buying Tip

Part two of Future Proofing Your Business, by Maria Chappell, Head of Category at Euroffice Group.

Spot buying is just like being stuck in traffic!

It’s a sullen day on a British motorway, traffic suddenly slows down, you can see it backing up and panic sets in… you’re going to be late. In a bid to save time, you switch lane when you see a faster moving queue, only to see them catch up again and overtake you! Sound familiar? We can see it isn’t working, yet we still do it. It is probably smarter to pull over and evaluate what the best method is, or stop and use that time to do something else productive until the traffic issues are resolved.

So for me I think of spot buying in much the same way as I do switching lanes in busy traffic. Buying only the cheapest price ‘on that week, on that product’ might feel right, but dealing reactively like this results in split baskets across wholesalers, higher contribution costs, higher admin costs, lower credit opportunity and increased chance of being turned off due to lower purchasing power.

By coming to Office Power you will save money overall via a smarter buying strategy which uses the whole basket view to make great purchasing decisions. Dealers that join, gain significant buying clout from our group immediately, reduced delivery costs and less time on admin. This means more time selling and nurturing those important customer relationships, rather than chasing deals.

It’s hard not to switch lanes in busy traffic chasing the shorter queue. Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, we know there is a smarter way to deal with the British motorways (and how we buy).

Any questions or comments for Maria, please leave below…