Office Supply Dealers Hustling

(To see a list of the top office furniture suppliers, click here.)

One local office furniture dealer proved to be an exception to the rule among his counterparts when asked about the pulse of his business.

“We’re booming, dude,” he said before quickly adding he didn’t want his name or other details printed because it might alert his competitors to deals still in the works.

The dealer’s reluctance also reflected the mood among most office furniture and equipment dealers, who said business has slowed considerably since Northwest Arkansas’ high-growth heyday.

“It’s out there,” Jason Moles of Today’s Office Inc. said. “It’s just not walking through the door as much.”

In other words, suppliers are frequently being forced to either hustle more or find and deliver new products to would-be customers. The latter is true in the case of Preferred Office Products.
Sales manager Scott Fromm said POP is introducing its customers to Laserfiche and its line of electronic, automated document management programs.

“It was just a natural progression,” Fromm said of the decision to carry the software that aids in document storage and retrieval. “It’s something we needed to do for our customers, because some of our customers deal with tens of thousands – if not more – documents on a regular basis.”

Companies like Xerox and Canon offer similar programs, Fromm said, but he believes Laserfiche is better for customers who want to customize something to fit their individual needs. Laserfiche is a California-based business that’s been in operation since 1987.