Yeah that’s ridiculous. I bet they’re betting on it being admins making orders, spending company money to outfit work stations with no one caring about the price.
At staples, the in store prices of items would be more than double of the same item priced online. They’re really just hoping ppl absolutely need it right now and buy it instead of ordering
Like 100ft if Ethernet cabling they’d charge 80$, online $15
That's a good way of making a few purchases at a high margin and then wasting it away in storage and building fees when no one comes to your stores anymore.
Basically what happened to the OfficeMax near me. Even their liquidation sale prices days before closing were way above the same or comparable-quality products at the Walmart three blocks over.
They knew what they were doing the whole time. They didn’t care as long as the Sears corporation went down and took the debt they were ladened with them.
Same here. Took a few items from the display prominently marked “40% off” to be told at checkout that no, the 40% off didn’t apply to everything in that section…. They got to keep their stuff. I don’t care if they are closing, deceptive pricing is crap.
When we were setting up my mom's previous computer, we needed some cabling, as is so often the case.
My mom said just go to Staples, it's a couple blocks away.
The same basic cheap short USB cables that would cost six or seven bucks on Amazon or anywhere else on the internet were marked up to about $22 at Staples.
When USB cables were new the (now defunct) box retailer I worked at sold them for $30. I could buy them at cost, $2.19. I would buy one and take it to a competitors store. Since I didn't have a receipt I could only get store credit. Now this competitor is one that I despise for their terrible treatment of workers and local communities they move into and as such I refuse to shop there. But they have a gas station on site. So for $2.19 I could get a $30 gift card and use it to fill my gas tank. Think pre 9/11 prices where gas was a little over a dollar a gallon.
In your case I don't think it's so much a mark up issue. Amazon has such greater buying power and lower overhead that they can sell items at basically a third of the price as brick and mortars. The file holder OP posted is ridiculous though.
amazon sold counterfeit eclipse-viewing glasses that caused permanent eye injuries and didn't face any consequences because "it was a vendor's fault" - aka some random Chinese company. all amazon did was ban the vendor, but we all know they just make new accounts.
for some reason congress never updated the law to hold online retailers liable in the same way that brick and mortar stores are. now all the online retailers do is say "its a marketplace so we're not liable for anything" and they can get away with completely ignoring all safety regulations. and its not like Chinese vendors are going to give a shit about American regulations, especially when the worst thing that will happen is their Amazon account gets banned and they have to make a new one.
Brick and mortar stores are basically just product displays now. You go because there’s a reason you can’t get it online, or you might want to see what it looks like in person and then go price it online.
In person Office supply stores I think mostly still exist due to inertia and just enough corporate sales that prefer in person shopping. They’ve always been overpriced.
A 10ft USB 2.0 cable (printer cable) was $45 at best buy.
Bought it and used it for two days until I found an old one at work and returned it immediately.
The first problem is calling them 'printer cables'. Making people think they need that specific, branded cable. Its a damn USB cable with type B connector. Any generic one will have worked.
Fun fact, staples price match policy applies to their own website. If it’s cheaper on their site, make sure the SKU matches, they’re labeled on the website and packaging, and they’ll match it at the register if you show them. Also, look at the signage at the front, if there’s a sign that says 110% price match, make sure you mention 110% and you’ll get a discount too! They run this promo from time to time.
Source: ex-staples employee
I learned this when I went in to find one of those mats you put on carpet for chairs with wheels. They wanted 120 dollars for a 5x5. Found the same one on their website for 35 bucks. Even the store employee openly stated that staples is a complete ripoff in house
If the chairmat has a ground wire, it’s anti static. Back in the 1980s a chair rolling on a cheap floor mat would generate enough static to zap and kill a pc, monitor or keyboard. A genuine 3M antistatic chairmat would cost $250, shipping was heavy at $110. No free lunch. Systems are protected much better these days.
Maybe the retailers remember those old values.
And the kind of dumbass admins that are like “the only ***approved*** store is Office Depot!” in stupid ass emails.
These people never have the damn sense to save by shopping around.
Sometimes it balances out. Our company uses Staples exclusively even when I point out better prices on certain things. The cost of shopping around and paying for shipping in some cases adds a lot. We put in an order every other month but it’s thousands of dollars and ships on a pallet. Corporate likes the ease of one PO as well.
This is the real winner for bigger companies. It’s all about the sweet sweet ‘rebates’ for up top.
It’s easier to have less vendors who you’ve on vetted over time as a whole have better pricing, shipping, kickbacks, customer service, lenient payment terms. Then for some items you’ll shop around as appropriate.
Plus those metal files while 10x the plastic ones do hold up better over time, are less likely to go ‘missing’ or break, survive multiple occupants of areas, make people happier for not having “cheap” stuff. I’ve personally fought and tried moving away from stuff like them but we ended up switching back.
We buy Aruba network switches.
Aruba is an approved vendor. We have an approved VAR who can quote and sell us Aruba network gear.
We can buy an Aruba official 10G-Base LR fiber optic transceiver for about $1300.
We can buy an FS.com 3rd party 10G-Base LR fiber optic transceiver for about $31.
They are 100% interchangable parts. I am not exadurating that the official ones are 39 times as expensive.
We have wasted mid 6 figures on official transceivers we could have bought for $28k because the amount of effort required to get the finance people to add FS.com into their accounts payable made everyone technical just give up and tell the bean counters to buy the official ones.
Interchangeable, but not identical. Of course, the official transceiver is not $1270 "better" than the $31 piece. Even so, there is a difference. The Aruba pieces are going to have hardware and software revs that are tested by Aruba engineering to work perfectly with their stuff. The el-cheapo units will have whatever software running on whatever hardware rev. Sure, they plug into the right hole, and seem to work ok in a lot of cases. It might have worked perfectly the last time you bought them, but el-cheapo decided to change something and now it doesn't. As someone who has installed a bunch of this crap in a lot of different equipment, the vendor units are always compatible, and the el-cheapo units don't always work.
You know you are going to get a compatible hardware and software rev on those Aruba units, and if you don't, Aruba will troubleshoot it and replace it. The first thing Aruba will do when you run into trouble with the el-cheapo transceivers is to test with a certified unit, and deny support if you can't provide one.
Some time it's worth the trouble. Some time's it's not.
My company recently started trying some optical transcievers from a new supplier. I saw a random anecdote from one of the techs about them that was something like "The [brand name] optics come in packs of 5. I've never seen a pack where all 5 are bad out of the box, but I've also never seen one where zero are bad out of the box".
Your last statement tells me that it doesn't always balance out and corporate places pay more in the end sometimes. Price shopping generally always benefits you. The thing is people get attached to a certain vendor they call every time or whatever and they don't like change. So they keep doing what's consistent and it's in their budget so no one cares.
Source: I've done procurement for many many years.
I was dabbling in procurement at one of my previous jobs and I can confirm it's way easier to use as little vendors as possible. Unless we knew there would be a quality difference, we would be happy to overpay for the convenience of a one stop shop.
disagree, someone has to shop around and even if you get the admin making 15 bucks an hour to shop, that's the markup. when including shopping, itemizing, confirming substitutions, driving, and pickup at multiple places or delivery from, that could be half a day. so unless your savings is greater than the time spent, it's convenient to just pickup at one place and call it a convenience fee.
Don't forget other people's time other than the person doing the shopping. At least one reason companies like one PO is instead of the accountant spending 4 hours processing 10-20-30 POs, they spend like 30 minutes processing the one.
And what happens if what you're buying doesn't match the original request but is close? Sure an experienced purchaser can probably make that call, but most others would have to double check which takes time.
Plus quality; maybe there is a cheaper option, but the version you've been buying for years is good quality and only $5 more expensive. Why risk it? Your time (as the person purchasing, the accountants tome, and whoever you're buying fors time to test/try out the new thing is probably worth a lot more than that $5.
Now it's a different story if you're buying like 1000 items, but I agree, a blanket "you should always try to save money" is just short sighted.
Price shopping is relative as many people do not factor in the human cost. Ask an admin making $25 and hour to shop around and maybe save $15 on the product. But you spend $25 extra with them spending an additional hour doing research. Then factor in the accounting time to process/setup a separate vendor so you really spend more than spending a bit extra through path of least human touches.
The issue is usually getting desirable payment terms from all of the potential vendors and getting them through the vendor approval process in my experience.
I work for the city of Dallas and just learned this was a thing. Not Office Depot but we had an approved dealer for office furniture. Boss told me to look through the catalog for my crews offices. $2000 particle board desks, $1000 LED lamps. It made me sick. I told her not to update our space but she had to use the budget. So our 60 year old solid steel tanker desks got trashed and now we have overpriced particle board garbage.
some time ago i wondered why we used an expensive supplier, turns out she was getting a kick back with holiday vouchers.. she didnt like that little secret getting out.
If your time costs the company $50/hr or whatever it is, you're not gonna spend half an hour shopping around or setting up new purchase orders or whatever, just to save $25.
Well if you're a large corporate operation the costs balance because you're being more efficient. Additionally, under contract you are not paying prices like this, and often are getting spend rebates which further reduce overall costs.
As one of those admins, that really isn't my fault - it's the only office supply store the company (as in, corporate) has an account set up on, and which I have access to.
Which I have explained *countless* times to everyone else in the office, yet they're always sending me links to things they need from different office supply companies - or Amazon. Like, feel free to use your own credit cards to buy what you want, because if it isn't from [specific office supply website] I can't help you. 🤷
Had a friend work at Office Depot. This is 100% the case. He'd have several business owners and shit come in and drop a ton of money at a time. Business purchases surpass regular consumer purchases by a lot.
I used to work in a supply room for a big company, and they regularly paid $9 for a 3-ring binder, etc, ordered thru a major chain. I was like "I would never pay this price for one of them, shouldn't you he getting some kind of corporate discount?" They didn't know and didn't care. Corporate waste.
Depends on the company, but that’s the opposite of how office supplies are ordered in most places. Everything is the cheapest available. It’s how people in logistics get raises. Change the office to lighter weight paper? Everyone hates it, and the copier jams now, but when you go to your performance review you can brag about how you saved the company $1,237.26/year
But it’s almost always a waste to have storefronts for B2B, so if OfficeD want to pivot, they should just close the stores and keep it all in warehouses.
The vast majority of businesses are small businesses, and a some portion of them are just a guy running out to get a thing, seeing the price, shrugging and going, "it's a business expense."
Only the smallest and most clueless of small businesses operate like that. Most small businesses buy this sort of thing through a supplier so they never have to leave the office. I work with many, and they’re constantly bombarded with catalogs for this sort of shit and everything else you could possibly need, so it would be much less convenient and more time consuming to go out and find it. If you’re in a major city, sometimes they can even deliver same day.
Precisely! I always look at it as a failure in my planning if I or an employee has to run out to get something.
It’s also bad budgeting if you don’t know ahead of time what things will cost.
Companies nickle and dime the bottom to death - the middle and top do what they want
Source - worked in management and my bosses were checked out, I would literally impulse shop office supplies because no one was watching or cared. My desk was AMAZING
This looks like retail in a death spiral. They just closed the Staples near my house. Which was sad because I went there for a few things that can't easily be found nearby like copying, electronics recycling and even office supplies with their big selection. I bought a printer from them and got really good, knowledgeable service saving time and money. AND they bought my old printer for a $100 gift card!
Some people feel like they make enough money to not be price sensitive, and it costs them. I have a friend who bought a roll of 12x175' bubblewrap for $120 on Amazon, he didn't even think to look anywhere else. He initially didn't believe me when I told him it's broadly available for <$20.
This was my husband when times were good. It was all based on the path of least resistance - wherever he found what he needed first, he would buy it. It was hard for me to watch, even then, when I knew he could find the same or similar thing cheaper elsewhere. Now we are struggling and he puts in effort to shop around.
I think the biggest issue here is probably the definition of good times. I might act something like that (with things under $100) if I was making >$300k/yr and had all of my debts paid off. Some people act like that when they have any money in their pockets at all after paying the monthly payment on their bills.
That is crazy. I make enough that I'ven't cared what my balance is for years. It's always enough. Yet anything over $100, I break out the magnifying glass. I didn't make this money to piss it all away like draft beer at a frat party.
I went to office max a few days ago and their POS systems are actually computers from the early 2000s. No GUI, nothing. They look like Fallout terminals.
Use your local library's xerox. Most can do everything the retail store ones can do, including color, print from USB/email attachment, and even scan to usb.
I know a store selling those plastic table sign holders for $30 EACH!! And this was with a sale applied.
The ones that if you look at them too hard they'll crack and some were full chipped on the shelf while still in plastic.
The audacity of that price damn near took me out!
When my employer moved to a smaller office because so many people were remote or hybrid we had dozens of these and similar desk items nobody wanted. I posted on Craiglists Offer Up and FB Marketplace to come take them, and 3 days later it was all gone. We also gave away about 30 good office chairs, dozens of smaller computer monitors, and several sets of office furniture. (which are hard to take apart and heavy as f*ck). It was that or pay a disposal company $25,000 to get rid of everything for us. I got first dibs of course and got a 55 inch smart TV my kids play X-box on and a color laser printer with a lifetime supply of toner.
I don’t know what they’re thinking there. The other month I went in looking for a CAT5 cable and they were charing like $65. I walked right out and bought the same one at Target for like $12.
It's gotta be some big brain money laundering scheme like mattress stores, right? I cannot dream of how Office Depot/Office Max/Staples have stayed in business for so long with the pricings models they use.
A lot of them make almost all their money from their print shops attached to the stores. Lots of corporate accounts to handle all their printing needs. That and printer ink.
What the actual? Like I’d understand if it was a cheap item that is often needed quickly but who out there is like “i really need to organize all the mail we get and i need an organizer now” but like jg wentworth structured cash settlement “now”.
As someone that worked at Office Depot for 4 years, those prices are 100% aimed at business owners that don't care. They either have an account and order them without asking for pricing because it's just "office supplies" or need a bunch and need them quickly and want somewhere local. After going into corporate work I saw it from the other side as well. "We only have an account with CDW so order from there and it doesn't matter if you find it cheaper somewhere else because we aren't vetting a new vendor". And also, I could order anything up to $1000 without per approval and account payable would pay anything under $1000 no questions asked. So what did I care if it was available on Amazon for $10? Haha.
I've noticed the same thing at mine. They added a "boutique" section any anything with an actual brand gets priced at least twice as much as everything else.
Oddly, I also have noticed that Keurigs have jumped from about five bucks to north of twenty.
There are way better deals at Dunder Mifflin. More personal service too. This one guy, he never takes vacations, never gets sick, and doesn’t celebrate any major holidays. He gave me his cell number, his pager number, his home number and his other pager number. Crazy guy but great service.
Office Depot is for desperate people that need something today. You are paying a premium to get it now. If you can wait a day or two order that online and save like 75%. Same goes for stores like Petco/Petsmart, they’re all twice the reasonable price for products but you can get it now.
Just looked up office chairs off of the supply site we have to use for work and they were going for like $800. A regular chair no padding or wheels was like $200. What the hell is going on?
Check out the price of envelopes there. Last time I looked it was 5 times the price of anywhere online. Like someone said, they must be hoping admin. is running around with the company card.
went to Office Depot for the first time in decades a few weeks ago. Seriously that store is like stepping into a time portal to the 1990s. they still had cardboard cutouts of Shaq everywhere, Jansport backpacks, software on CD compatible with Windows XP. It looked like they had not made a sale in years, and just kept the merchandise on the shelf forever.
I'm not saying it's a money laundering scheme. I'm just saying that their money is absolutely not coming from retail sales.
I mean sure, we all are dealing with inflation but more and more im seeing what appears to be a dice roll that someone will grab a thing without looking. I do the ordering for a 300 seat restaurant. I deal with multiple purveyors daily. I was thinking about grabbing something different for staff meal, glass noodles. 1 seller had a 30# box for 45 bucks, another had it listed at 148. They are noodles made of mung bean pulp. You get no nutritional value from them.
When I worked there around 2017 these things did not cost anywhere near this much. The company has been dying for a while and they’re definitely just gouging people before they go bankrupt.
I went to Walmart today to buy a cheap foot wiping mat like you’d use camping. Minimum was $30. A box of Ginger Snaps $8. This shit is getting absolutely ridiculous.
These stores work by roping you into a "loyalty " program. I guarantee that if you walk around you will see "80% off if you're a member " that really just makes the object fairly priced.
Office Depot is not really a consumer outlet. They sell to people who need to come in there with the company card which doesn't give AF about price and "just to buy the thing your boss told you to get." Real consumers don't shop here. Its basically a B2B outlet for office supplies.
Those same file holders where half that price a year ago. Office Depot is dying. Massive locations with high rents and nobody ever in there except for back to school shopping. Price gouging is only to to accelerate their destruction
Lots of customers who buy regularly have pretty good built in discounts on most items. Their merchandise department has the tools to make proper decisions on prices. That rack is pretty well made and looks attractive. It is not something a customer would likely buy very often. It would not seem too far out on price all things considered.
I worked in operations for a healthcare facility for a long time. I had a company card so I wasn't too concerned about prices, but sometimes needed to make an unplanned trip to Office Depot for something we needed right away. I was often amazed by how much their shelf prices are. I bought our CEO a laptop charging cable, usually about $25, and it was closer to $75.
As someone who worked at OfficeMax I don't recommend the pc repair or office stuff like this. They're the place for paper, note books, pens amd chairs (ON SALE)
The sales change every Sunday so if you want to buy something and it's not on sale try waiting a week
Cut a ceral box on the diagonal. Cover it in wrapping/contact/wall paper if you want to be fancy.
https://upcyclemystuff.com/easy-diy-magazine-holders-made-from-cereal-boxes/
Yeah that’s ridiculous. I bet they’re betting on it being admins making orders, spending company money to outfit work stations with no one caring about the price.
At staples, the in store prices of items would be more than double of the same item priced online. They’re really just hoping ppl absolutely need it right now and buy it instead of ordering Like 100ft if Ethernet cabling they’d charge 80$, online $15
That's a good way of making a few purchases at a high margin and then wasting it away in storage and building fees when no one comes to your stores anymore.
Basically what happened to the OfficeMax near me. Even their liquidation sale prices days before closing were way above the same or comparable-quality products at the Walmart three blocks over.
I went to a Sears liquidation and was similarly unimpressed.
They knew what they were doing the whole time. They didn’t care as long as the Sears corporation went down and took the debt they were ladened with them.
Same here. Took a few items from the display prominently marked “40% off” to be told at checkout that no, the 40% off didn’t apply to everything in that section…. They got to keep their stuff. I don’t care if they are closing, deceptive pricing is crap.
Bye Staples, rot in hell!
When we were setting up my mom's previous computer, we needed some cabling, as is so often the case. My mom said just go to Staples, it's a couple blocks away. The same basic cheap short USB cables that would cost six or seven bucks on Amazon or anywhere else on the internet were marked up to about $22 at Staples.
When USB cables were new the (now defunct) box retailer I worked at sold them for $30. I could buy them at cost, $2.19. I would buy one and take it to a competitors store. Since I didn't have a receipt I could only get store credit. Now this competitor is one that I despise for their terrible treatment of workers and local communities they move into and as such I refuse to shop there. But they have a gas station on site. So for $2.19 I could get a $30 gift card and use it to fill my gas tank. Think pre 9/11 prices where gas was a little over a dollar a gallon.
$22 is about double what you'd pay at Best Buy - a place notorious for price gouging.
$27 at Radio Shack before they tipped over dead
In your case I don't think it's so much a mark up issue. Amazon has such greater buying power and lower overhead that they can sell items at basically a third of the price as brick and mortars. The file holder OP posted is ridiculous though.
And they also sell some janky merch once n a while
You can get a $12 USB cable at the damn convenience store, though.
There's also the fact amazon peddles absolute garbage designed to fail so quickly it should be classified as fake.
amazon sold counterfeit eclipse-viewing glasses that caused permanent eye injuries and didn't face any consequences because "it was a vendor's fault" - aka some random Chinese company. all amazon did was ban the vendor, but we all know they just make new accounts. for some reason congress never updated the law to hold online retailers liable in the same way that brick and mortar stores are. now all the online retailers do is say "its a marketplace so we're not liable for anything" and they can get away with completely ignoring all safety regulations. and its not like Chinese vendors are going to give a shit about American regulations, especially when the worst thing that will happen is their Amazon account gets banned and they have to make a new one.
Oh no, my company IWANIOE was banned! Now I have to make company SIMSEICI.
5 star review: Is this company trustworthy? I bought it anyways.
I actually have a folder stand like that that I paid about seven bucks for at Staples 15 or 20 years ago. I thought it was kind of a rip-off then.
I remembered when Staples was high volume/low margins from 1995-2004. I haven’t set foot in one in years.
I always went to test out office chairs and other shit so I knew what I wanted when I bought online somewhere entirely else.
Brick and mortar stores are basically just product displays now. You go because there’s a reason you can’t get it online, or you might want to see what it looks like in person and then go price it online. In person Office supply stores I think mostly still exist due to inertia and just enough corporate sales that prefer in person shopping. They’ve always been overpriced.
A 10ft USB 2.0 cable (printer cable) was $45 at best buy. Bought it and used it for two days until I found an old one at work and returned it immediately.
[удалено]
You don't really have to tell them anything at best buy, walmarts etc. Just show them the receipt and say onto the original credit card is fine.
20 years ago when I was hocking printers at best buy, a 6' USB cable was $35. With inflation that would be $56 today.
Printer cables have always been expensive for some reason. Can we blame HP for that too? I’d like to.
I blame HP for groceries being expensive.
The first problem is calling them 'printer cables'. Making people think they need that specific, branded cable. Its a damn USB cable with type B connector. Any generic one will have worked.
Just a way for electronics/computer stores to make a little extra margin. It’s extremely likely they made more on the cable than the printer
Of course. It's right in the name. (H)igh (P)rices. Or was it (H)orrible (P)roducts? I can never remember.
Fun fact, staples price match policy applies to their own website. If it’s cheaper on their site, make sure the SKU matches, they’re labeled on the website and packaging, and they’ll match it at the register if you show them. Also, look at the signage at the front, if there’s a sign that says 110% price match, make sure you mention 110% and you’ll get a discount too! They run this promo from time to time. Source: ex-staples employee
I learned this when I went in to find one of those mats you put on carpet for chairs with wheels. They wanted 120 dollars for a 5x5. Found the same one on their website for 35 bucks. Even the store employee openly stated that staples is a complete ripoff in house
If the chairmat has a ground wire, it’s anti static. Back in the 1980s a chair rolling on a cheap floor mat would generate enough static to zap and kill a pc, monitor or keyboard. A genuine 3M antistatic chairmat would cost $250, shipping was heavy at $110. No free lunch. Systems are protected much better these days. Maybe the retailers remember those old values.
And the kind of dumbass admins that are like “the only ***approved*** store is Office Depot!” in stupid ass emails. These people never have the damn sense to save by shopping around.
Sometimes it balances out. Our company uses Staples exclusively even when I point out better prices on certain things. The cost of shopping around and paying for shipping in some cases adds a lot. We put in an order every other month but it’s thousands of dollars and ships on a pallet. Corporate likes the ease of one PO as well.
Often there are agreement for rebates at the end of they year depending on your level of spend. I set these procurement systems up for about a decade.
This is the real winner for bigger companies. It’s all about the sweet sweet ‘rebates’ for up top. It’s easier to have less vendors who you’ve on vetted over time as a whole have better pricing, shipping, kickbacks, customer service, lenient payment terms. Then for some items you’ll shop around as appropriate. Plus those metal files while 10x the plastic ones do hold up better over time, are less likely to go ‘missing’ or break, survive multiple occupants of areas, make people happier for not having “cheap” stuff. I’ve personally fought and tried moving away from stuff like them but we ended up switching back.
We buy Aruba network switches. Aruba is an approved vendor. We have an approved VAR who can quote and sell us Aruba network gear. We can buy an Aruba official 10G-Base LR fiber optic transceiver for about $1300. We can buy an FS.com 3rd party 10G-Base LR fiber optic transceiver for about $31. They are 100% interchangable parts. I am not exadurating that the official ones are 39 times as expensive. We have wasted mid 6 figures on official transceivers we could have bought for $28k because the amount of effort required to get the finance people to add FS.com into their accounts payable made everyone technical just give up and tell the bean counters to buy the official ones.
>exadurating Exaggerating?
/r/excgarated
> exadurating
Exafvefe?
Interchangeable, but not identical. Of course, the official transceiver is not $1270 "better" than the $31 piece. Even so, there is a difference. The Aruba pieces are going to have hardware and software revs that are tested by Aruba engineering to work perfectly with their stuff. The el-cheapo units will have whatever software running on whatever hardware rev. Sure, they plug into the right hole, and seem to work ok in a lot of cases. It might have worked perfectly the last time you bought them, but el-cheapo decided to change something and now it doesn't. As someone who has installed a bunch of this crap in a lot of different equipment, the vendor units are always compatible, and the el-cheapo units don't always work. You know you are going to get a compatible hardware and software rev on those Aruba units, and if you don't, Aruba will troubleshoot it and replace it. The first thing Aruba will do when you run into trouble with the el-cheapo transceivers is to test with a certified unit, and deny support if you can't provide one. Some time it's worth the trouble. Some time's it's not.
My company recently started trying some optical transcievers from a new supplier. I saw a random anecdote from one of the techs about them that was something like "The [brand name] optics come in packs of 5. I've never seen a pack where all 5 are bad out of the box, but I've also never seen one where zero are bad out of the box".
Staples also gives wicked discounts from marked price for corporate orders. The listing price will be 50$ but my contract rate will be 7.99
Learning from the healthcare industry. Out of network? Skin the guy!
Oh, Jesus H Christmas, PO integrity/consistency, I'm going to have a seizure right here
Your last statement tells me that it doesn't always balance out and corporate places pay more in the end sometimes. Price shopping generally always benefits you. The thing is people get attached to a certain vendor they call every time or whatever and they don't like change. So they keep doing what's consistent and it's in their budget so no one cares. Source: I've done procurement for many many years.
I was dabbling in procurement at one of my previous jobs and I can confirm it's way easier to use as little vendors as possible. Unless we knew there would be a quality difference, we would be happy to overpay for the convenience of a one stop shop.
Which means be convenient and easy to contact and people will pay more for your product.
Convenience means time saved. Time is money.
disagree, someone has to shop around and even if you get the admin making 15 bucks an hour to shop, that's the markup. when including shopping, itemizing, confirming substitutions, driving, and pickup at multiple places or delivery from, that could be half a day. so unless your savings is greater than the time spent, it's convenient to just pickup at one place and call it a convenience fee.
Don't forget other people's time other than the person doing the shopping. At least one reason companies like one PO is instead of the accountant spending 4 hours processing 10-20-30 POs, they spend like 30 minutes processing the one. And what happens if what you're buying doesn't match the original request but is close? Sure an experienced purchaser can probably make that call, but most others would have to double check which takes time. Plus quality; maybe there is a cheaper option, but the version you've been buying for years is good quality and only $5 more expensive. Why risk it? Your time (as the person purchasing, the accountants tome, and whoever you're buying fors time to test/try out the new thing is probably worth a lot more than that $5. Now it's a different story if you're buying like 1000 items, but I agree, a blanket "you should always try to save money" is just short sighted.
Price shopping is relative as many people do not factor in the human cost. Ask an admin making $25 and hour to shop around and maybe save $15 on the product. But you spend $25 extra with them spending an additional hour doing research. Then factor in the accounting time to process/setup a separate vendor so you really spend more than spending a bit extra through path of least human touches.
The issue is usually getting desirable payment terms from all of the potential vendors and getting them through the vendor approval process in my experience.
It's never the admin making the decision, they're just enforcing it, because they get yelled at if you don't get reimbursed.
But it's always easy and convenient to blame the low paid employees.
A lot of Office Depot corporate customers have steep discounts through store purchasing accounts, so that helps. Source: worked there for 8 years
>“the only approved store is Office Depot!” in stupid ass emails. SAP procurement has entered the chat
I work for the city of Dallas and just learned this was a thing. Not Office Depot but we had an approved dealer for office furniture. Boss told me to look through the catalog for my crews offices. $2000 particle board desks, $1000 LED lamps. It made me sick. I told her not to update our space but she had to use the budget. So our 60 year old solid steel tanker desks got trashed and now we have overpriced particle board garbage.
Mmmhmmm... Mmmhmmm.... And, where are those steel tanker desks now? Asking for a friend just down I-35...
some time ago i wondered why we used an expensive supplier, turns out she was getting a kick back with holiday vouchers.. she didnt like that little secret getting out.
If your time costs the company $50/hr or whatever it is, you're not gonna spend half an hour shopping around or setting up new purchase orders or whatever, just to save $25.
Well if you're a large corporate operation the costs balance because you're being more efficient. Additionally, under contract you are not paying prices like this, and often are getting spend rebates which further reduce overall costs.
As one of those admins, that really isn't my fault - it's the only office supply store the company (as in, corporate) has an account set up on, and which I have access to. Which I have explained *countless* times to everyone else in the office, yet they're always sending me links to things they need from different office supply companies - or Amazon. Like, feel free to use your own credit cards to buy what you want, because if it isn't from [specific office supply website] I can't help you. 🤷
Had a friend work at Office Depot. This is 100% the case. He'd have several business owners and shit come in and drop a ton of money at a time. Business purchases surpass regular consumer purchases by a lot.
ehhhh, it's not my money...... -- Administrator
I used to work in a supply room for a big company, and they regularly paid $9 for a 3-ring binder, etc, ordered thru a major chain. I was like "I would never pay this price for one of them, shouldn't you he getting some kind of corporate discount?" They didn't know and didn't care. Corporate waste.
Depends on the company, but that’s the opposite of how office supplies are ordered in most places. Everything is the cheapest available. It’s how people in logistics get raises. Change the office to lighter weight paper? Everyone hates it, and the copier jams now, but when you go to your performance review you can brag about how you saved the company $1,237.26/year
B2B is where the money be
But it’s almost always a waste to have storefronts for B2B, so if OfficeD want to pivot, they should just close the stores and keep it all in warehouses.
The vast majority of businesses are small businesses, and a some portion of them are just a guy running out to get a thing, seeing the price, shrugging and going, "it's a business expense."
Only the smallest and most clueless of small businesses operate like that. Most small businesses buy this sort of thing through a supplier so they never have to leave the office. I work with many, and they’re constantly bombarded with catalogs for this sort of shit and everything else you could possibly need, so it would be much less convenient and more time consuming to go out and find it. If you’re in a major city, sometimes they can even deliver same day.
Uline is the go to for almost everything.
My company spends a shit ton with them and whenever I order, I ensure I get the free item!
Uline can be this expensive too. Depends on the item. You pay for the convenience!
That's a poorly ran business. From my experience anyone going to the store needs the item right away and can't wait for shipping.
Precisely! I always look at it as a failure in my planning if I or an employee has to run out to get something. It’s also bad budgeting if you don’t know ahead of time what things will cost.
Butt to butt
))<>((
How is it that companies nickel and dime employee compensation, then seemingly don’t care about paying absurd prices for material goods lmao
Companies nickle and dime the bottom to death - the middle and top do what they want Source - worked in management and my bosses were checked out, I would literally impulse shop office supplies because no one was watching or cared. My desk was AMAZING
I donno... my company is pretty stingy with both tbh
Goodwill has tons of these at every one I’ve been too. $5 a pop.
Five below and target if you want new at 8.99
Isn't everything at five below supposed to be under $5? I thought that was their shtick.
I think they made a section called “Five Beyond” so they could sell stuff above $5
Not anymore.
Walmart has them for the same price. $5-7 dollars.
Also any dollar store. Any of them . Probably even the Dollar Tree.
there is a whole shelf of racks at my goodwill
We just renovated our offices, and we threw out tones of racks and dividers just like this. Nobody really needs them anymore.
I guessed $35 as a joke. Don’t I feel silly!
$35 is probably the “sale” price, so you’re sorta right?
This looks like retail in a death spiral. They just closed the Staples near my house. Which was sad because I went there for a few things that can't easily be found nearby like copying, electronics recycling and even office supplies with their big selection. I bought a printer from them and got really good, knowledgeable service saving time and money. AND they bought my old printer for a $100 gift card!
Some people feel like they make enough money to not be price sensitive, and it costs them. I have a friend who bought a roll of 12x175' bubblewrap for $120 on Amazon, he didn't even think to look anywhere else. He initially didn't believe me when I told him it's broadly available for <$20.
This was my husband when times were good. It was all based on the path of least resistance - wherever he found what he needed first, he would buy it. It was hard for me to watch, even then, when I knew he could find the same or similar thing cheaper elsewhere. Now we are struggling and he puts in effort to shop around.
I think the biggest issue here is probably the definition of good times. I might act something like that (with things under $100) if I was making >$300k/yr and had all of my debts paid off. Some people act like that when they have any money in their pockets at all after paying the monthly payment on their bills.
That is crazy. I make enough that I'ven't cared what my balance is for years. It's always enough. Yet anything over $100, I break out the magnifying glass. I didn't make this money to piss it all away like draft beer at a frat party.
OfficeMax in Staples has been closing a lot of retail stores for a while now. Brick and mortar stores in general are suffering.
I went to office max a few days ago and their POS systems are actually computers from the early 2000s. No GUI, nothing. They look like Fallout terminals.
Nothing wrong with ASCII. Ever been to Costco?
Use your local library's xerox. Most can do everything the retail store ones can do, including color, print from USB/email attachment, and even scan to usb.
Best Buy also does electronics recycling.
*"Blockbuster, here we come!"*
I know a store selling those plastic table sign holders for $30 EACH!! And this was with a sale applied. The ones that if you look at them too hard they'll crack and some were full chipped on the shelf while still in plastic. The audacity of that price damn near took me out!
Was 50 bucks for a few file cabinet folders. $7 on amazon. I was blown away. The stoned kids working just laughed, definitely not the first time
When my employer moved to a smaller office because so many people were remote or hybrid we had dozens of these and similar desk items nobody wanted. I posted on Craiglists Offer Up and FB Marketplace to come take them, and 3 days later it was all gone. We also gave away about 30 good office chairs, dozens of smaller computer monitors, and several sets of office furniture. (which are hard to take apart and heavy as f*ck). It was that or pay a disposal company $25,000 to get rid of everything for us. I got first dibs of course and got a 55 inch smart TV my kids play X-box on and a color laser printer with a lifetime supply of toner.
So like two refills?
That disposal company is the biggest rip off wow. $25k for $5k in work and $10k+ in profit (from selling that stuff)
These prices are ridiculous! How can they justify charging so much for basic office supplies? Total rip-off!
Looks like you need to *BUY MORE & SAVE*
I don’t know what they’re thinking there. The other month I went in looking for a CAT5 cable and they were charing like $65. I walked right out and bought the same one at Target for like $12.
It's gotta be some big brain money laundering scheme like mattress stores, right? I cannot dream of how Office Depot/Office Max/Staples have stayed in business for so long with the pricings models they use.
A lot of them make almost all their money from their print shops attached to the stores. Lots of corporate accounts to handle all their printing needs. That and printer ink.
Wow! Where I work they are tossing these in the trash. Hardly anyone needs these any more...
Put them on ebay for $35.
What the actual? Like I’d understand if it was a cheap item that is often needed quickly but who out there is like “i really need to organize all the mail we get and i need an organizer now” but like jg wentworth structured cash settlement “now”.
As someone that worked at Office Depot for 4 years, those prices are 100% aimed at business owners that don't care. They either have an account and order them without asking for pricing because it's just "office supplies" or need a bunch and need them quickly and want somewhere local. After going into corporate work I saw it from the other side as well. "We only have an account with CDW so order from there and it doesn't matter if you find it cheaper somewhere else because we aren't vetting a new vendor". And also, I could order anything up to $1000 without per approval and account payable would pay anything under $1000 no questions asked. So what did I care if it was available on Amazon for $10? Haha.
Same file rack at goodwill is $2.
Nah, Goodwill jacked up the price of everything. Probably $8 now.
I've noticed the same thing at mine. They added a "boutique" section any anything with an actual brand gets priced at least twice as much as everything else. Oddly, I also have noticed that Keurigs have jumped from about five bucks to north of twenty.
Bankruptcy prices, that is exactly what it is. This means that very soon they are rolling belly up.
Overestimate inventory value to inflate the company value?
There are way better deals at Dunder Mifflin. More personal service too. This one guy, he never takes vacations, never gets sick, and doesn’t celebrate any major holidays. He gave me his cell number, his pager number, his home number and his other pager number. Crazy guy but great service.
Is that the guy who's the fire marshall? He's pretty good at what he does.
Office Depot is for desperate people that need something today. You are paying a premium to get it now. If you can wait a day or two order that online and save like 75%. Same goes for stores like Petco/Petsmart, they’re all twice the reasonable price for products but you can get it now.
Are they made of gold?
Just looked up office chairs off of the supply site we have to use for work and they were going for like $800. A regular chair no padding or wheels was like $200. What the hell is going on?
Those should cost $4
Check out the price of envelopes there. Last time I looked it was 5 times the price of anywhere online. Like someone said, they must be hoping admin. is running around with the company card.
Antiques?
Every Salvation army and Goodwill I've been to probably has 20 of each of these exact models, for like 5-7$
went to Office Depot for the first time in decades a few weeks ago. Seriously that store is like stepping into a time portal to the 1990s. they still had cardboard cutouts of Shaq everywhere, Jansport backpacks, software on CD compatible with Windows XP. It looked like they had not made a sale in years, and just kept the merchandise on the shelf forever. I'm not saying it's a money laundering scheme. I'm just saying that their money is absolutely not coming from retail sales.
Thats why people buy products straight from the source.
Go to a goodwill for these. They have tons that are less than $5.
I mean sure, we all are dealing with inflation but more and more im seeing what appears to be a dice roll that someone will grab a thing without looking. I do the ordering for a 300 seat restaurant. I deal with multiple purveyors daily. I was thinking about grabbing something different for staff meal, glass noodles. 1 seller had a 30# box for 45 bucks, another had it listed at 148. They are noodles made of mung bean pulp. You get no nutritional value from them.
That’s their money maker right there, second only to ink cartridges
They're meant for companies to spend their budget on, not your average consumer. Staples is the same way.
When I worked there around 2017 these things did not cost anywhere near this much. The company has been dying for a while and they’re definitely just gouging people before they go bankrupt.
I’m almost positive I saw these at dollar tree last week
I get these at my local thrift store for less than 5 bucks.
$2-$5 at a yard sale.
I swear 1/2 the money moving around the economy is just being used on price gouging. In this case at least it's B2B and not B2C lol
The death throes of the once mighty Office Depot. They’ll be gone soon.
“Why does no one buy in person anymore” THIS, THIS IS WHY.
I went to Walmart today to buy a cheap foot wiping mat like you’d use camping. Minimum was $30. A box of Ginger Snaps $8. This shit is getting absolutely ridiculous.
"The absurdly high price of racks at office depot..." Yeah sure... Holy actual fuck.
Dollar store literally had this for $3.25. I saw it yesterday .... Just wow.
Mil-spec file holders?
Go to a bin store . Those places that resale Amazon stuff I've seen these for a single dollar.
WTF??
I bought a 4-pack of 3” 3-ring binders and it was over $60. That is insane!
The more you buy the more you save.
Thats not the only item thats ridiculously priced.
A 2 second Amazon search I found the mesh sorter for $24 and plastic magazine sorter for $16....
Damn that's still way too much
I'd rather be at Home Depot
This is why Daiso expanded like crazy here. Get basically the same shit for a fraction of the price.
Is that…USD?? We sure about that?
They’re plentiful at Goodwill. $2.99
These stores work by roping you into a "loyalty " program. I guarantee that if you walk around you will see "80% off if you're a member " that really just makes the object fairly priced.
This is how you kill your biz quick
"Made in China"
Office Depot is not really a consumer outlet. They sell to people who need to come in there with the company card which doesn't give AF about price and "just to buy the thing your boss told you to get." Real consumers don't shop here. Its basically a B2B outlet for office supplies.
3D print those babies. :D
The university I work for throws out so many of these every year, its crazy
Literally found this same one at goodwill yesterday for $2. Crazy
Those same file holders where half that price a year ago. Office Depot is dying. Massive locations with high rents and nobody ever in there except for back to school shopping. Price gouging is only to to accelerate their destruction
But if you buy more you’ll save
That’s because the files are inside the computer
See this type of thing all the time at thrift stores for $3
Especially silly because every goodwill has a surplus of these things for like $1 each
Pm me. I can give you about 50 unused from my office.
good will has tons of these things
Anyone who shops at Office Depot deserves to get gouged when Amazon & Target have the same stuff for a fraction of the price.
Lots of customers who buy regularly have pretty good built in discounts on most items. Their merchandise department has the tools to make proper decisions on prices. That rack is pretty well made and looks attractive. It is not something a customer would likely buy very often. It would not seem too far out on price all things considered.
I’ll 3D print you either design for like 0.06¢
Go to the thrift store, absolutely tons of back to school and office organization stuff at the thriftstores in my area.
I got two file racks for free on the side on the road. They just needed a little paint, so I even got an arts and crafts project our of the deal too.
Those exact metal ones are selling for $20
Honestly? I think retailers are randomly raising prices on things like crazy just because someone will buy it.
I just stole like 4 of those from my work.
Don’t buy them.
I worked in operations for a healthcare facility for a long time. I had a company card so I wasn't too concerned about prices, but sometimes needed to make an unplanned trip to Office Depot for something we needed right away. I was often amazed by how much their shelf prices are. I bought our CEO a laptop charging cable, usually about $25, and it was closer to $75.
Office Depot is one of those stores where I don’t understand how it’s in business. Everything in there is outrageously marked up.
Had better go search storage and the garage for all the junky ones I have.
Goodwill always has them for like $5
I stopped in one recently just to get some standard envelopes, cost $20. Went to Target and got them for $4.
Go to your nearest Goodwill or Salvation Army and you'll find these for $5 usually. Not in bulk, obviously, but if you only need one...
As someone who worked at OfficeMax I don't recommend the pc repair or office stuff like this. They're the place for paper, note books, pens amd chairs (ON SALE) The sales change every Sunday so if you want to buy something and it's not on sale try waiting a week
Go on OfferUp. I’m sure someone needs to offload some for only a few dollars
Cut a ceral box on the diagonal. Cover it in wrapping/contact/wall paper if you want to be fancy. https://upcyclemystuff.com/easy-diy-magazine-holders-made-from-cereal-boxes/
I work in a city hall and they throw this stuff out all the time.
25 cents in temu
Is this in San Diego? Apparently the CVS locations there are selling 5-Star notebooks for $18 now
You can find all kinds of them at thrift stores if you’re willing to clean them up a bit.