We are becoming increasingly aware of companies in recent weeks offering copier paper to schools at significantly below the market cost to large distributors like ourselves, and taking payment up front to supply large volumes of paper that could last a school as long as 2 years, possibly more, often involving significant sums of money.
Please be aware! Should these companies become insolvent/put into liquidation whilst owing you stock, you are likely to lose your money as the paper will not be supplied.
We urge any school that is approached by anyone offering product on this basis – i.e. for bulk quantities and offering to store it free at extremely low pricing – to make the following checks:
Is the trading address easily found on their website or on email communications?
If the company is a limited company, take a quick look at the details registered on the Companies House website – how long have they traded, do they have reserves, how many employees are there? If the company is not limited, will they provide financial information about themselves?
Can you find their premises on google maps street view? If it is not possible to see a warehouse, they probably don’t keep the paper in stock, just buy stock when needed. With supply and pricing so uncertain how are they able to fix a price for the school?
As we have previously advised, the challenges we as a paper merchant have faced over the last 20 months include Covid 19, Brexit, paper mills stopping paper production in favour of packaging, fuel shortages, soaring energy costs, worldwide container availability issues, soaring shipping costs and driver shortages etc, all on an unprecedented scale. The supply from abroad is very fragile and the market can turn quickly.
Springfield have been selling bulk quantities of copier paper to the Education sector for over 40 years. We have built up years of experience and can truly say we are experts in this industry. Our long-term stability and reliability for the customer is our top priority. Can a new supplier demonstrate this too?
In times of difficulty over the years we have seen Companies come and, unfortunately go again, often defaulting whilst owing suppliers and customers alike. Unfortunately, the numbers of businesses going into liquidation is on the rise (see the link below)
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/15/more-than-1400-firms-went-bust-last-month-in-england-and-wales-figures-show
We don’t want our customers to become a statistic of another of these companies. We appreciate that costs are rising across the board, the chance to secure a “cheap” price for long term paper supply may be difficult to ignore. However, please remember that if an offer looks ‘too good to be true’, it probably is.
Dec 01, 2021