Independent dealer since 1945 · Kansas Avenue
Three ways to buy office supplies, and the four rows where we lose.
You already buy from a marketplace or a big box, and for some of what you buy that is the right answer. Here is the whole comparison in one table, written by the smallest of the three, with the rows we lose marked as lost.
The comparison
Fourteen rows. Ten of them go to the dealer and four do not.
The four we lose are marked in the middle column as lost, in words rather than by colour. If you only buy the things in those four rows, you do not need us, and we would rather say so on the website than on the phone.
| Box & Ream | A national big box | An online marketplace | |
|---|---|---|---|
| When it arrives | Next business day on anything stocked, ordered by 3pm. Same day inside the loop if it is on the afternoon run. | One to three days, or you drive to the store. | One to two days on most of it, longer on anything sold by a third party. |
| Delivery charge | None, no minimum, on our own truck. | Free over a threshold, otherwise a fee. | Bundled into a membership you are already paying for. |
| Who brings it in | Our driver, to the room it belongs in, and he takes the cardboard away. | A parcel carrier, to the lobby. | A parcel carrier, to the lobby, in nine separate boxes. |
| Price on a case of copier paper | $44.90, and matched against a written quote from either of the others. | $47.99, or $41.99 in a sale week. | $43.10, moving daily. |
| Price on everyday consumer items | LostWe are usually a little higher on pens, batteries and anything sold by the million. Buy those wherever they are cheapest. | Competitive. | Cheapest, most weeks. |
| Breadth of catalogue | LostAbout 30,000 lines. Anything outside that we order in, which takes two to four days. | Wide. | Effectively unlimited. |
| Evening and weekend delivery | LostMonday to Friday, business hours. There is no night shift. | Store hours, seven days. | Seven days, including Sunday. |
| A search box at two in the morning | LostEmail the order and it is picked when the warehouse opens. | Yes. | Yes, and better than anybody’s. |
| Back-orders | We call you the same morning and offer the equivalent, before you find out from a tracking page. | An email, usually after the expected date. | A silent split shipment. |
| Returns | The driver takes it back on the next run. No label, no box, no photograph of the damage. | Back to the store with the receipt. | Printed label, repacked, dropped off, refunded in a week. |
| Who you speak to when it is wrong | One of four people, by name, on a direct line, during the same working day. | A store manager if you drive over. | A chat window and then a different agent. |
| Account terms | Net 30 on approval, purchase order numbers carried through to the invoice, one statement a month. | A commercial account is available and is a separate application. | Card, or a business account with its own portal. |
| Tax exemption and paperwork | W-9 on file, exemption certificate held once, and we handle the annual re-file. | Handled per store. | Uploaded by you, per account, and it sometimes stops working. |
| Does anybody count your closet | Yes. A weekly walk-round, a written count and a suggested order you can cut before it ships. | No. | An algorithm will suggest a subscription. |
Two things this table cannot show. The first is that most offices are not choosing one of the three, they are already using two, and the sensible split is commodity consumables from wherever is cheapest and everything with a delivery, an account or a person attached to it from a dealer. The second is that the row that changes a budget is almost never the price of paper. It is the eleventh row.
The route
The truck runs a fixed loop, and knowing which day is yours is most of the value.
Ordered by 3pm the day before, on the shelf the next morning. Anything urgent goes on the afternoon run if it is inside the loop.
Mon
North
Riverside, Parkville, Platte City, the airport corridor and the Northland business parks off 152.
Tue
Downtown and Crossroads
The loop, the West Bottoms, the Crossroads, Union Hill and 18th and Vine.
Wed
North-east
North Kansas City, Gladstone, Liberty, Kearney and Excelsior Springs.
Thu
South and Plaza
Westport, the Plaza, Waldo, Brookside and the medical centres along Rockhill.
Fri
East
Independence, Blue Springs, Raytown and the industrial park at 40 and 291.
Any
Inside the loop, afternoon
A second run at 2pm on anything ordered before noon. That is the one people find out about by accident and then use every week.
The eleventh row
Somebody counting the closet is the part nobody quotes on.
Once a week, the same person, in the supply room with a clipboard. Counts what is there, writes down what is low, and emails a suggested order that you can strike lines off before it ships. It costs nothing and it exists because it removes the two things that actually waste money in an office: the emergency drive to buy one toner at retail, and the eleven boxes of the wrong staples somebody panic-ordered in 2019.
It also settles the thing every office argues about, which is who is responsible for ordering. The answer stops being whoever noticed.
Set up once and it runs. Par levels are agreed at the first visit and adjusted twice a year rather than every week.
The other half
Furniture, which is the one thing you should not buy from a photograph.
Desks, task chairs, conference tables, filing and storage, new and used. The used side is the interesting one: corporate refits come out of downtown towers in one lot, and a five year old chair that cost eleven hundred new is a better chair than anything you can buy new for four hundred.
Measured, delivered and installed, with the old furniture taken away. A chair should be sat in for ten minutes before anybody buys twenty of them, so there is a floor with the current range on it and we would rather you came and used it.
Opening an account
- What we need
- A billing address, a purchase order contact and two trade references. Ten minutes on the phone or a form by email.
- Terms
- Net 30 on approval. Purchase order numbers are carried onto the invoice and the statement, because that is what the person paying it actually needs.
- Government and institutional buyers
- The warehouse sits in a federally designated HUBZone, which can count toward a contracting officer’s small business goals. Ask us for the documentation rather than taking it from this page.
- Price matching
- Against a written quote or a live listing from a comparable seller, on the same item and the same pack size. We will not match a marketplace listing from a seller nobody can identify, and we will tell you when we cannot get close.
On Kansas Avenue, in the bottoms, with the dock at the side.
Warehouse and showroom
123 Main St
Kansas City, MO 64120
Will-call and the furniture floor are through the front door. Dock is on the north side of the building. There is parking on the apron and nobody will tow you.
| Monday to Friday | 8 to 5 |
|---|---|
| Order cut-off, next day | 3pm |
| Saturday, Sunday | Closed |
Eighty-one years on the same street, which is the only claim on this page we would not put in the table.
To start
Send last month’s order, whatever it was and whoever it came from. We will price it line by line against this table and tell you honestly which lines to leave where they are.