How To Keep Your Office Well Supplied on A Tight Budget

2013 is fast approaching and for many it’s a time of joy, renewal and anticipation. Unfortunately, for many businesses, it’s also a time of spreadsheets, complex calculations and cutbacks.

The heralding of a new calendar year also means the heralding of a new fiscal year for many businesses and with a new budget comes new headaches and, in the current financial climate, some serious cutbacks.

The chances are you’re probably well into planning budget reassignments and cutbacks, and if you’re having to cut back your spending, the chances are that business supplies are one of the first areas you’ve targeted.

However, cutting on back too severely on supply essentials such as toner cartridges can actually hamper your office’s productivity levels and affect how well your workplace operates. Any cuts to your office supply budget need to be done responsibly and specifically targeted to avoid placing the day-to-day operation of your office in jeopardy.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled a few ways with which to keep your office well-supplied and productivity high - while also making budget-friendly cutbacks.

Re-Evaluate Your Suppliers

One of the biggest money-wasting crimes business owners commit when purchasing office supplies is sticking to the same suppliers regardless of their financial situation. It’s quite an easy routine to fall into; relationships with suppliers build up over time to the point where you might even consider them friends of the business. But unfortunately, this isn’t the most sustainable approach.

When it comes to shopping for business supplies, undertake an extensive price comparison between a range of suppliers for items such as ink cartridges, paper and stationery. You should find that by mixing and matching suppliers, you can save quite a lot of money without compromising on the levels of supplies you’re bringing in each month.

Buy In Bulk

At first, buying supplies in bulk seems like quite a risky strategy for a cash-strapped business; it’s a large upfront fee that comes out of one month’s budget, potentially putting the business in jeopardy. However, with a few clever reassignments of the budget, buying in bulk one month and not buying at all in others makes perfect business sense.

Most business suppliers will offer discounts when you buy their products in bulk quantities, with bigger discounts dependant on how large your order is. While the initial outlay can seem quite harsh on the company bank account, the money you’ll save in the long run makes buying in a bulk a good idea for any business.

Recycle Your Consumables

The average office consumes an enormous amount of supplies over the course of a year, with a good proportion of these supplies ending up in the bin once they’ve been used. However, even when ‘finished’, a good deal of office supplies can be reused for the fraction of the cost of a like-for-like replacement.

Take printer cartridges for example. The depletion of an ink or toner cartridge isn’t the end of it’s life entirely, it’s just the end of the ink supply inside. There’s nothing wrong with the actual casing and the cartridge itself. Throwing a cartridge away is equivalent to throwing away a battery-powered electronic device just because the batteries are low - unsustainable and very expensive to replace!

Instead of throwing away your old cartridges and forking out for expensive replacements, why not get them refilled by a dedicated specialist, such as Cartridge World? It’ll cost you a fraction of a new replacement and the print output quality is generally equivalent to new cartridges too.

It should be noted that ink cartridges cannot be refilled over and over again but you needn’t worry; our compatible cartridges provide a cost-effective solution once your old cartridge has finally given up the ghost.

The measures outlined above are just a few of the basic steps you can take to ensure that your business continues to tick over despite cutbacks. There are, of course, some more creative ways to do it too, but we’ll leave those for you to come up with! In the meantime, check out the business direct section of our site for more information on how Cartridge World can help your business save money.