Case Study

Special Issue TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS Critically IMPORTANTVENDOR SPECIAL Special Issue

Bulk Office Supply began its OP journey in 1989, working out of the basement Special Issueof a house in Brooklyn, New York. With no suppliers or customers initially – but a strong desire to succeed – it developed into an established, local independent dealer that, by VENDOR SPECIAL 2006, operated from a 20,000 sq ft (2,000 sq m) warehouse with a fleet of vehicles servicing New

York City and the surrounding area. An outside sales force was never part of

Bulk’s go-to-market strategy. Instead, it relied on direct mail to generate leads and orders which would then be handed to its inside sales and telemarketing team. When online procurement became more widely adopted, the company changed its internal structure and, using S.P.

Richards as its primary wholesaler, moved towards a stockless model, in the process also giving it much greater geographical coverage. Technology has always been an important part of the business, according to President

Alex Minzer. He says: “In the beginning, sales management, EDI with wholesalers, product management and financial reporting were the type of solutions we needed from our systems providers. When e-commerce was starting to boom, customer expectations changed and we needed to act. “I think it’s fair to say that the web store solutions of independent dealers in the early days – if they existed at all – did not have the look, feel and ease of use of some of the progressive operators at the time. Bulk Office Supply was no different: our front end didn’t look like an online retail store, but more like a hybrid of a sterile order form and a functioning website – it didn’t work and was not what we wanted.”

THE RIGHT PARTNER

Enter Logicblock, the company Bulk ultimately chose as its software solutions provider and has been with ever since. As Minzer explains: “We first came across Logicblock at a vendor trade show in 2006. What attracted us to its system was the look and feel of the open storefront where www.opi.net

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customers could place orders easily and there was no need to log in – it looked a bit like what the big box competitors offered.

“Connecting the company’s 7cart e-commerce system to our most important suppliers and wholesalers was seamless and fast. As a bonus, it also fully integrates with QuickBooks which makes it easy for us to maintain all of the required accounting functions.”

The website itself took a few months to build and finetune, he adds. But in the very first month it directed customers from the old storefront to the new one, Bulk saw a 15% jump in order size.

“We attributed the considerably larger orders to a more intuitive shopping experience which meant customers spent longer on the site and looked at new categories. Uncomplicated checkout overcame the final hurdle in the process,” Minzer says.

COVID CHALLENGES

Most recently, of course, it was the shift in its offering that took considerable time and patience. Bulk’s product mix has certainly changed during the pandemic, with ‘traditional’ sales still recovering and PPE offering something of a lifeline.

However, supply and demand volatilities also caused some difficulties, as Minzer points out: “The wholesalers couldn’t deliver inventory levels to our system fast enough, often resulting in products being offered for sale that weren’t actually available.

“Fortunately, we were able to compensate for this using the safety stock feature within Logicblock. It was a challenging year on many levels and one during which having a well-designed and functioning web store became critical.”

It was a challenging year […] during which having a well-designed and functioning web store became critical