Imprest FAQ

GENERAL

What do you do?
What do you mean by ‘fully managed’?
What do you mean by ‘fully financed’?
What are your 3 guarantees?
What’s the catch?
Never heard of you before. Why don’t you advertise?
Why should I switch when my existing supplier says he can manage my stock?

STOCK COUNTS

What is an Initial Audit?
How often do you come round?
Won’t we end up using more?
We’re quite remote. Do you really come out all this way to see us?
What if we have security issues?

REPLENISHMENT

Where do we keep all this stock?
How do you know what to send us?
What if we do a mail shot and use all the colour toner and big envelopes?
What if we throw out a printer and end up with consumables we don’t need any more?
What if I buy a new printer and need a different cartridge for it?
What if I need to order something we don’t normally use?

DELIVERY

What are your delivery charges?
Why is regular delivery free?
How do you get supplies to us in an emergency?

INVOICING

When do I have to pay?
Will it fit in with our purchasing system?
Can I have a separate invoice for a particular item or a special project?
If we are counted more often does that mean we get more bills?

PRICES

How good are your prices?
How come some of your prices are higher than our current supplier?
Why does usage matter?
What’s the Stock in Trade ‘Rebate Club’?
Why should we swap suppliers?

We manage and finance office and IT supplies, stationery and consumables for our customers with a unique imprest office supplies system.  We supply toner cartridges, inks, copier papers, pens, pencils, stationery, office furniture, computer equipment – anything at all for the office, in fact. Delivery is free and there are no hidden costs.  And unlike the traditional ‘buying and stocking up’ method, our customers don’t pay for items until they’ve used them.

Putting in our stock and maintaining it for your use means you’ll never over-order, or run out of what you need. And you’ll never end up with wasted stock.

Let’s be clear about this – the stock that we deliver to your premises isn’t yours. It’s ours. Which frees the money you had tied up in stock back into your own business.  And because this stock is ours, you won’t be loaded up with more than you can use in a reasonable time.

We guarantee to save you time and money.
We guarantee that what you need will be there when you need it
We guarantee to save wastage
Check out thew details here

There isn’t one. How are we able to offer what we do? Because of what we don’t do!

NO Central Warehouse: Our small warehouse couldn’t possibly hold all your stock. But because we have stock distributed all around the country – where it’s needed – it doesn’t have to.

NO Expensive Deliveries: With stock shipped to customers before they need it, there’s no need for urgent or next-day delivery. Usually its just one delivery per customer per month.

NO Telesales: Why call you when we cannot influence how much you spend!

NO Promotional Catalogues: You get one brochure a year. And that’s it. And with our online catalogue, you may not even need that.

All of this means you only get what you need, and we make massive savings on overheads, salaries, marketing, commissions and telephone calls, etc..  When you join Stock in Trade, you get a fully financed and managed state of the art stock management system. And we get a satisfied customer.

Because we don’t believe advertising is the best use of our money.  Most of our new business comes through personal customer referrals.

We’ve heard this before – many times. But it’s never yet been true. They may offer ‘consignment stock’ but they won’t finance or manage it like we do. There really is nobody else offering this unique service.  We’ve spent years developing our system and writing the software to manage it.

It’s the first thing we do when you become our customer. It involves making a note of all the stock and equipment you have at the time.  This gives us a very good picture of what you need and what you’re wasting. The process usually takes half an hour – depending on your office. When it’s done, you get a full report listing our findings.

Every four weeks. We need these constant intervals to get accurate usage data. But we visit new customers more often, until we get to know how quickly they’re using things.

No it doesn’t. Our system is driven by your usage, something which we can’t influence. If you need it, you use it. That’s it.  We can’t increase your spending with cut-price catalogue offers, 2 for 1 deals or any of that other stuff. For the first time ever, you’ll only be buying what you need - not what’s been sold to you.

Yes, if you’re based in the UK.

Many existing customers have security systems in place and we haven’t yet found one we couldn’t comply with. We’re happy to discuss any concerns you have.

REPLENISHMENT

Wherever you do now, just more efficiently. We try as hard as possible to keep what’s on your site to an absolute minimum. If you’re particularly short of space we’ll keep levels down further by counting stock more frequently.

It’s a complicated calculation based on how quickly you use things. We’ll leave you with enough of everything to last you past the next stock count, and half way to the one after that.  As we build up your usage history the process is further refined, so that you have as little stock on your site as possible – without you being in any danger of running out.

If you’ve got something coming up that’s going to take extra supplies, let us know ahead of time – and we’ll make sure you have enough. If you don’t have any warning, or you just forget to tell us – we’ll get emergency supplies to you, pronto.

If they’re OUR consumables, we’ll take them away and deliver them to another customer. If you bought them before joining us, we’ll offer to buy them from you.

If you buy new equipment that needs consumables, you need to let us know, so we can add them to the list. That way you’ll have replacements ready when you need them.  Don’t forget – we can supply whatever office or computer equipment you need.

Just do it the old-fashioned way. Pick up the telephone and place an order. Or send a fax. Or an email.

DELIVERY

There’s no charge for your regular supplies.  If you need something not on your list and can’t wait until your usual delivery, we would charge shipping at a cost.  Ordering special one-off items like furniture and large equipment may also incur a charge.

Because our stock is delivered before you need it we don’t have to pay for fast next-day delivery. We take full responsibility for managing your stock so if your run out of something because of unexpectedly high usage, we’ll still get it to you free.

There isn’t one huge Stock in Trade warehouse with all our stuff in it. Our stock is spread around the country – at our customers’ sites. This means that we can transfer products to you very quickly.  We’ve transferred stock between customer sites many times. Sometimes customers are happy to walk up the road and collect it. On one memorable occasion the boss of a company dropped an item off at another company on his way out to lunch. How’s that for service?

If we really don’t have anyone nearby, we’ll arrange for conventional next day or same day delivery.  We’ll give you one of our annual product brochures. If you mislay your copy, you can always look at our Online Catalogue.

INVOICING

You are not liable to pay for an item until after you use it. It could be 4 weeks before we count stock and you get invoiced for it. And then another 30 days before you have to pay the bill. All in all the item could have been in your stock cupboard for weeks before you used it and almost 2 months until you actually have to pay for it.

Yes. The Stock in Trade system is designed to mesh seamlessly with customers’ existing purchasing setups.

Yes.

No, not unless you prefer to. We usually invoice every four weeks, even if your stock is counted weekly.

PRICES

If this is such a good service, you must be paying for it somewhere, right? Well, no. Our prices are competitive, but as we don’t do things the traditional way, we don’t have the usual overheads. The service is free – and you’d be hard put to get more ‘cost effective’ than that!

We don’t claim to be the cheapest on every product all the time – no one can. But a substantial price difference usually means we are not being fairly compared.  Some suppliers quote prices for lower capacity cartridges, compatibles or even counterfeit goods. One new customer of ours was completely unaware that his old supplier had been shipping him compatibles and not originals.  More importantly, when comparing prices between suppliers you should always take your ‘usage’ into account.

Because it’s the only way you can do a realistic price comparison between suppliers. Some suppliers promote ‘loss leaders’ – offer a knock-down price on items you want, but may not use that often. And you might not see as significant the fact that they charge slighly more for other items.  But when you take ‘usage’ into account you can see that a saving on something you buy a few times a year does not compare to a smaller increase on somethingyou buy regularly and in high numbers. That’s why it is important that you keep track of what you use, rather than what you buy. And our service gives you that information every single month.  A supplier cannot influence your usage, but Stock in Trade can make sure you don’t spend more than you need to.

Click here to view our Price Comparison Presentation

It’s a customer referral service that allows you to reduce your monthly costs whenever you refer another customer us – Check out the details here

Have you read any of this? You’ve just jumped straight to this question! Now go back and do it properly.