Did you know... Oprah's production company saves $41,000 per year
by not using disposable coffee cups! Watch the video below to see
how they did it.
That's the Keurig
B3000 single cup brewer in the offices at Harpo Productions.
Qualified customers can get one FREE from Costless Express for their
own offices. Just call us at 604-444-4467!
November
5, 2009
For the second time
in recent months XPLANE has partnered with The Economist to create a
compelling video on a topic of global importance. After working together on
"Did
You Know? 4.0", The Economist enlisted XPLANE's
visual communication expertise to develop "The
Carbon Economy" about the growing importance of
climate change and green technologies and solutions.
"The Carbon
Economy" will be shown at The Economist's upcoming Carbon
Economy Summit on November 17 and 18, 2009 in
Washington, D.C. The video is three minutes in length and includes simple
visuals and a moving soundtrack to clearly convey the troubled state of global
climate change and what steps must be taken to reach a positive outcome. The
production was created using Apple's Keynote software.
Cheers,
Calvin
October
28, 2009
Just
how green is Wal-mart?
Wal-Mart now sees energy and fuel efficiency
as significant bottom-line drivers: so carbon emissions equal potentially
wasted profits. Wal-Mart has realized that it's far easier to cut
wasteful operating expenses than to grow top line sales.
For the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2009,
Walmart's worldwide sales topped $401 billion.
That's close to $46 million each and every
hour of every day.
That's more than the gross domestic product
of Taiwan, Greece and Denmark, and double that of Romania.
Walmart discloses its operating margin
at 5.8 per cent, which totals a profit of $44,250 every minute.
Walmart's U.S. sales tops Home Depot, Kroger,
Target, Sears, Costco and K-Mart combined.
If Walmart continues to grow at its current
rate, revenues will be $3 trillion by 2020, as much as economies
of France and Britain combined, and it will employ 8.2 million
people.
Walmart is already the biggest private
employer in the U.S.
Walmart develops more real estate, consumes
more energy than any other American company.
How's this for diversity? Walmart sells
more dog food, disposable diapers, guns, toothpaste, CDs and diamonds
than any other retailer.
It's estimated that one-third of American
shoppers visit Walmart once a week.
In a little over a decade, the retailer
went from selling no groceries to being America's No. 1 grocer.
Industry estimates suggest that 70 per
cent of merchandise has left the store before Walmart has paid
its suppliers for it.
Amazing how a company can shape technology, like the introduction
of bar codes or the lowering of the cost on a 4 pack of light bulbs
nationally. It has been an astounding story with Wal-Mart over the
past few decades, as huge manufacturers like GE bow to a retailer.
Its a case now where the tail wags the dog. Is Wal-Mart getting
TOO BIG?
Here
is a great movie (a few years old but still fascinating) if
you can find a download copy or it is on TV every now and then.
Oh, and for us capitalists: Here's
the stock performance since Wal-Mart went public in 1970, issuing
a paltry 300,000 shares.
In 1971 if you invested just $5,000 dollars in Wal-Mart stock,
you would have over $10,000,000 (yeah, ten million) in your jeans
today. I guess not everyone hates Wal-Mart!
Cheers
Calvin
October
5 , 2009
COSTLESS EXPRESS Announces the Acquisition of FROGFILE
Office Essentials; Creating Canada’s Most Environmentally
Friendly Office Supply Company.
Dear Costless Express Customers,
Now more than ever "It's Easy Being GREEN!"™
I am pleased to announce some very exciting news - As of October
5th, 2009 Costless Express has acquired FROGFILE Office Essentials,
creating Canada's most environmentally friendly office supply company.
This business combination allows us to increase our market position,
add new environmental and sustainable products and leverage our
existing infrastructure. We have high praise for the Frogfile management
team and are pleased that they have agreed to join us during the
transition period.
“Frogfile and Costless Express share the same philosophy
when it comes to the environment and providing customers with innovative
and sustainable solutions that add value to their business goals,”
said Gil Yaron, Founder and CEO of Frogfile Office Essentials. “Costless
Express has the breath and depth of warehousing and distribution,
as well as the promotional programs, purchasing power, and financial
clout necessary to empower our sales people to better meet customer
requirements in a positive growing capacity.
This acquisition accelerates Costless Express’s growth,
enhances our competitive position and extends our industry leading
line of products and services. In particular Frogfile’s strength
in environmentally friendly office products and knowledge will continue
to broaden Costless Express’s presence in this important growth
category and key vertical markets.
What does this mean for Costless Express customers?
“We’re More Than Just Office Supplies”™
It allows our customers to outsource their total office procurement
needs. Customers can look forward to an expanded environmentally
friendly selection of products at even lower prices. Costless Express
will expand the total item selection to offer over 30,000 business
products and associated services to help our customers run their
operations more smoothly, focus on their core business and drive
down hard and soft procurement costs. In addition, Costless Express
will now be able to offer guidance to customers who wish more information
on creating an environmentally sustainable company and how to take
the steps to get there themselves.
We are excited at Costless Express to add over one thousand new
Frogfile customers. As an existing Costless Express customer I can
assure you our service levels will be at the best ever due to the
addition of several new outside sales staff (a first for Costless
Express). I hope you get a chance to meet one of our Senior Account
Managers soon as they'll have many exciting new programs and products
to offer.
Over the past three years Costless Express has focused on being
the most environmentally friendly office supply company in Canada.
During that time we’ve had many successes such as becoming
Canada’s First Carbon Neutral Office Supply Company, eliminating
cardboard boxes for plastic delivery totes, paperless invoicing,
"Save-a-stamp" payment, fleet optimization investments
and many more. On October 5th I feel we have something very special
to be proud of at Costless Express - the addition of Frogfile to
our corporate family.
About Frogfile Office Essentials
“It’s Easy Being Green” ™
Frogfile Office Essentials was born of a simple idea in 2004: Anyone
can make a difference through his or her work. Frogfile believes
that the ordinary "nuts and bolts" of the nine to five
world -- paper, pencils, and pens -- are, in fact, part of the solution.
Teaching environmental stewardship to office workers and offering
environmentally friendly products will have lasting effects for
the planet and customers.
Frogfile sources and distributes thousands of pro-planet office
alternatives for a wide range of companies. Whether a customer is
a growing non-profit or an established Fortune 100 firm, Frogfile
takes the guesswork out of responsible procurement. Frogfile saves
customers time and money by pre-selecting only the most sustainable
solutions available and educating customers on practicing environmental
sustainability inside and outside the office.
Gil Yaron, Frogfile's founder and CEO, brings to Costless Express
over four years of triple digit sales growth, more than a decade
of experience in product sourcing, environmental standards, and
best practices. With every order, Yaron has proven that smarter
office selections needn't come with premiums of cost, quality, or
convenience.
Frogfile.com’s website, phone and fax will remain operational
during a 60-day transition period in which all Frogfile customer
account information will be transferred to Costless Express.
Regards,
Calvin Johnson
September
28 , 2009
Here is a great BLOG entry from our new cardboard binder supplier
(as I wrote about on September 25th)
This type of stuff really floors me. As
I walk down the aisles of big box office supply stores, it never
ceases to amaze me that the “eco product choices”
someone at corporate has made aren’t really better than
the non eco counterpart. I’m wondering if they really want
to make a difference or do they do it just to confuse customers?
This particular 3 ring binder really jumped out at me while I
was swimming through the sea of vinyl… A fine example of
misleading buzz words of product attributes that are unregulated
and unwarranted.
100% Recyclable - Not without a lot
of work. You need an Exacto knife to get through the plastic
cover and a welding torch get the ring metals removed.
100% Biodegradable - Nope. - Our landfills
entomb our garbage. Without heat, moisture or microorganisms,
even organic matter won’t biodegrade.
70% Post Consumer Waste - Maybe the
inside board covered in plastic?
No V.O.C.’s (Volatile Organic
Compounds) - True, but if you eliminated the polypropylene plastic
that covers the binder, this would be a moot point.
While I take the time to research these
claims, most consumers do not have the time and make buying decisions
based on trust of what has been printed. If manufacturers would
make better products instead of sugar coating the same old trash,
the world would be a much better place.
Great story Brad!
Cheers,
Calvin
September
25 , 2009
Sustainable and Green Office Products
Our purchasing department is always on the lookout for new and
exciting items to bring to our clients.
One such item and company we have been in discussions with for
almost a year is a fantastic supplier of cardboard office supplies.
In particular they have a line of cardboard binders that we have
wanted to carry. Recently we became a distributor of the product
line and are now able to offer our customers prices similar to or
lower than a regular plastic binder.
Looks for a full line of cardboard office supplies and more info
coming soon. Here is a sneak peek!
3
Ring Binders
The ReBinder is the world's only FSC Certified Binder. By choosing
a ReBinder over the 3 ring vinyl binder, you lower your carbon footprint,
save money and deliver an awesome message about your commitment
ReBinder provides an ecological solution for office products that
no other can claim. Our corrugated cardboard binders are 70% Recycled
(at least 40% Post Consumer Recycled) and are the best alternative
to toxic vinyl binders.
ReBinder recycled binders are very durable and more resistant to
spine-tearing than the traditional vinyl binders. ReBinder is truly
recyclable and reusable because it is a corrugated cardboard binder.
Vinyl binders are neither recyclable nor reusable.
Unlike other binders that use rivets to attach their ring metals,
ReBinder's ring metals are affixed using two screws and t-nuts that
can be easily unassembled and "reused" without any waste.
We believe it's unlikely you'll ever need to replace your ReBinder
cover, but if you do, it can be recycled back into the system and
kept out of the landfill. Replacement covers are available for purchase
for less than purchasing a new binder. Available in 1", 2"
and 3" sizes.
Why ReBinder?
It's The Original - A Brand You Can TRUST!
Because those OTHER Binders end up in a landfill
Made from rigid, recycled corrugated cardboard
Easy to Recycle your old cover
Easy to Replace it with a new cover
Save Money, Save Time & Save Mother Earth
Cheers,
Calvin
September
14 , 2009
What we do for the H1N1 Flu:
You
could say that the H1N1 flu epidemic has a direct effect on our
average work day at Costless Express. Everyone in our sales team
and even our marketing department has been busy trying to help our
customers prepare. We understand that everyone wants to protect
their employees and their families from any sort of germs going
around.
It is interesting to see reports of the epidemic on the news and
the way people are preparing. I can't say that I feel the urge to
to wear a face mask in public, but I have been reaching for the
hand sanitizer a bit more often that usual. I dont know a lot of
details about who is actually getting H1N1. It seems like a healthy
diet and a healthy body is just as important as using hand sanitizer
and washing our hands properly. It is much easier to catch all that
junk if we dont have healthy immune systems to begin with.
Those opinions aside, in the healthcare and government sectors,
keeping your hands germ free is crucial. At work, we all have these
little Purell
Pals on our desk: (You can get your own Pals here.)
Here are some other great products from Purell that are great ways
to keep your hands clean and avoid germs.
Purell
NXT Space Saver Hand Sanitizer Dispenser
and Refill
Promotes hand hygiene by killing most common germs without need
for soap and water. The perfect duo. Ask us about FREE wall dispensers
for your office!
Purell
Instant Hand Sanitizer with Aloe
Kills 99.99% of common germs that may cause illness, without soap
or water. Plus, aloe always feels really nice, and light green is
such a soothing color.
Cheers,
Calvin
September
9 , 2009
Have
you ever had a great idea in a meeting, and it actually got off
the ground and turned into something great?
For our management team - there was a meeting about 3 years back
when we came up with the idea to introduce totes instead of cardboard
boxes for every delivery. Costless Express was committed to becoming
carbon neutral, and many of our meetings revolved around reduction
of waste materials in our logistics and distribution system. We
went ahead and researched and tested the concept, then implemented
tens of thousands of dollars worth of plastic reusable totes into
our system.
Today we use our very handy RED TOTES for all deliveries on our
trucks. We are in negotiations currently with our suppliers to encourage
them to accept our red totes from us, so they too can ship product
into our building with minimal or no extra packaging. This would
truly be an exciting step by involving our supply partners in our
reduction and environmental plan.
Costless will save 200,000 cardboard boxes from the landfill. Although
we are actually ELIMINATING the use of cardboard in our distribution
- here are some interesting facts about recycling cardboard.
Here's a few reasons why recycled cardboard and paper products
can make a real difference for the environment:
Paper and cardboard account for 41% of all municipal solid waste.
Recycling 1 Ton of Cardboard saves 682 Gallons of oil
Recycling 1 Ton of Cardboard saves 7,000 Gallons of water
Recycling 1 Ton of Cardboard saves 3.3 cubic yards of landfill
space
Recycling 1 Ton of Cardboard save about 17 trees
Recycled cardboard requires 645% less energy than make cardboard
from virgin wood pulp, the equivalent of 3,000 kilowatt hours
of electricity
Cheers
Calvin
September
5, 2009
Save 8% at G&T — "Just don't log in"
I
had a similar circumstance to the Office Depot
story I wrote about on September 1st, but with Grand & Toy.
We were quoting on supplies for a large company who used G&T.
The purchaser was too busy to give us his data so instead he just
supplied us his user name and password to the G&T website.
We logged in and did an in-depth analysis and found some perplexing
yet exciting discoveries.
When we met again with the prospective customer, I said "I
can save you 8% on your whole G&T budget in three words - DON'T
LOG IN"
What we found was, if the customer DID NOT use the User Name and
Password when he went to the G&T website, the prices were actually
cheaper over all. Have you had any experiences like this dealing
with a big box company like G&T or CORPORATE EXPRESS? I would
love to know.
Cheers,
Calvin
September
1 , 2009
Ahhh,
Good Old Office Depot. Busted Again.
If you Google about them, you'll find many stories recently about
different US state agencies and corporations suing or investigating
them for incorrect pricing. Even
Ahhnold in California is investigating them.
What's happened is that with new web crawling technology (like
our Price Spider) and powerful computer analytics,
the big box office supply companies are getting caught with their
proverbial pricing hand in the cookie jar. In the past, customers
and small competitors never had the technology to data mine the
confusing contracts and look for compliance, or review if they were
getting a better price than the regular public.
Former account manager in Office Depot's Business Solutions Division,
David Sherwin, a protected whistle-blower in Florida where the company
is headquartered, has been credited with the launching of the investigations.
Here is another incredible and thought provoking video from my
friend Parker Lee at XPLANE.
I have blogged about a few these videos, and after seeing them,
I just sit in awe and think - WOW, where will the world be in 5-10-50
years. Watch it for yourself.
Did You Know? originally started out as a PowerPoint presentation
for a faculty meeting in August 2006 at Arapahoe High School in
Centennial, Colorado, United States. The presentation "went
viral" on the Web in February 2007 and, as of June 2007, had
been seen by at least 30 million online viewers. Today the old and
new versions of the online presentation have been seen by at least
50 million people, not including the countless others who have seen
it at conferences, workshops, training institutes, and other venues.
http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/versions
How
to motivate and inspire your staff in 2 minutes!
The Dow has dropped 3,000 points and hundreds of thousands of
jobs have been lost. We Canadians are now a ragtag bunch of scruffy
underdogs, down by three touchdowns at halftime, with a whole horde
of orcs waiting for us right outside those locker room doors. Inspiration
has become something we need. Ya, that's right, pick up that chin,
we got a lot of fight still in us! C'mon - who's with me!!!
What I'm trying to say is, if you show this montage at your next
staff meeting you may just single-handedly save your company (and
possibly get that raise):
Back
again on Vancouver Island. Starting to feel like my home away from
home as we ramp up our expansion. One of the favourite places for
our family is Parksville, and we rent a beach house every year for
at least a week or more. We have been coming to the Island for many
years and although this year was going to be a mix of work and family
for me, it was a great home base for me to take care of business
in Nanaimo and Victoria.
One great spot we visit on a regular basis while here is a tiny
town called Coombs. Here's
a link to a great story in the Victoria Times. In particular
there is The Old Country Market, famous for Goats on their Roof!
Yup, goats. It's a Scandinavian tradition to to let them "mow"
the grass on your roof. Yup, grass… anyway, you get the idea
that this is a special place.
I really drink up the way they have marketed in such eclectic and
unique ways. I always take away a few good ideas and a ton of inspiration
on how I can apply the marketing to Costless Express. It's a real
lesson in how to successfully brand a business and give customers
a shopping "experience."
One trick they have up their sleeve is that there is no zoning
regulations on their property, so they have been able to create
what I can only describe as a mini main street (a la Disney) where
each storefront seems to be a different business, yet they are actually
all run as a group, with family running different stores. There
is the main market with exotic foods, the very popular ice cream
stand (one scoop is HUGE!!), a deli, cafeteria, fruit and veg stand,
a garden
center with lots of statues and bamboo items, a massive building
filled with replica Far East inspired furniture (Sandy's favourite!)
and a very cool surf shop Wabi Sabi (my favourite). All this and
more on one property, and the crowds just keep coming back time
and again. No matter what day of the week, the place is packed.
(Tip: park way at the back of the property, not on the road or in
the first few crowded lots.)
If you have kids, then you must stop to pick up some of the coolest
toys found anywhere. The prices are cheap and granted the products
can be kind of cheap too, but the kids don't seem to mind (most
toys are destroyed before the trip is over, at least my kids', when
they are on holidays with up to 6-7 cousins - all under 7yrs). This
year I felt like a bad parent, since we bought our two boys wooden
swords and shields at the market. It was not something I thought
we would ever buy, but when the other cousins' parents (thanks Grace
and Richard) bought swords and shields, I had to arm my kids out
of defense. Any parent would have done the same, don't you think?
Anyway, all the swords spent most of the time confiscated and hidden
on the top shelf of the coat closet, but when all the kids "played
nice," it was a treat to watch them role play, and we took
some great pictures.
If you scroll down to my July 1st post,
you'll read about my new software toy we called SMART SCRAPER.
Well,
it's been over a month since we started using it, and it was time
to think up a bit better name. Smart Scraper and the putty knife
graphic seemed OK at the time, but as we continued to say the name,
it just sounded more and more like something from a late night infomercial.
So after much deliberation, voting and heated debate, we officially
changed the name to PRICE SPIDER!
We have now done an analysis on over 15,300 office supply items
we sell using the software. We entered several factors such as -
Strength of the Canadian dollar, lower negotiated office supply
pricing from our suppliers, items we purchase in bulk, how much
space and cash flow the items take in our warehouse and —
most importantly — what Staples, Office Depot, Grand &
Toy and others are selling the items for.
Of the 15,300 items we ran through Price Spider, there were almost
5000 matches apples-to-apples against the competition. These items
we guarantee are lower than the competition. On the remaining 9500
items, we decided to lower our prices! (800 items we kept the same
price.) What this means to you the customer is that most items in
our 2009 Big Book catalogue are now lower than the published price
you see on the pages!
Our customers couldn't believe it today as our sales people started
telling them that thousands of items have just DROPPED IN PRICE!
Ask your other suppliers that you buy office supplies from if they
are lowering their prices. The strong dollar and aggressive pricing
from the wholesalers have reduced costs, and they should pass on
the savings I think.
On the flip side though, when oil prices go up, the dollar goes
down or the economy starts ramping up (or all three) - inflation
will kick in, and prices will start going up and so will the need
for us to raise prices.
But for now - THANKS PRICE SPIDER!
Cheers,
Calvin
July
27 , 2009
Announcing
JumpCart!
I am proud to announce the introduction of some exciting and exclusive
technology from Costless Express.
JumpCart will revolutionize the way you order
your business supplies. With just the click of a button, you can
now scan any product bar codes we sell and have your order automatically
upload to our website shopping cart.
The next time your toner is running low, just scan the bar code
sticker we placed on your machine — done! No more hunting
for item numbers or what supplier you ordered from last time. It
works great in the lunch room too. Open a cupboard and scan shelf
labels of all your favorite supplies like coffee, sugar, napkins
and cream. You can even scan the actual bar code on the box if you
like.
The scanner is the size of a car alarm remote, and after you have
scanned your order while walking around your office, you just plug
in the scanner for three seconds and your order is automatically
dropped into our web shopping cart under your exclusive user name
and password. Once the order is loaded on the web, you can add,
delete or change the order, and even put the order on hold for future
submission.
Your
sales rep can also create a custom mini catalogue of just the items
you regularly order. The catalogue is sorted in groups for easy
reference, and best of all each catalogue item has a bar code. Imagine
flipping through your own hand-picked item catalogue and scanning
the items you need to order. Coffee (Beep)… paper (Beep, Beep)…
toner for the mailroom printer (Beep). It's that easy. Your ordering
time will be cut significantly. Best of all, it is absolutely FREE
to use for all Costless Express customers.
Costless Express is the only company in Canada offering this time
saving ordering technology.
Last
night I was order picking, and today you can call me Calvin the
TOOL MAN Johnson.
Still short staffed, I went today to install 30 paper towel dispensers
at a customer's location.
I had planned on attending the customer's location during the
installation regardless, but I was expecting to have an assistant
with me to do the actual drilling and installations. Since the warehouse
was still short staffed, and one full trailer of Coke and another
of Pepsi was arriving this morrning (our big pop sale this week
cleaned us out) it was going to be just me.
Our customer RCABC
in Langley has a gorgeous new facility and we sell them just about
everything under the sun for their entire business, including now,
all their washroom supplies like paper towels, toilet paper and
soap. All with FREE DISPENSERS courtesy of Costless Express. The
new dispensers are from our TORK line and will save the customer
25% or more on consumption, and the paper is EcoLogo Certified 100%
Recycled.
I did pretty well I thought, installing about half the dispensers
today. Their building is kind of a maze underground, and finding
all the washrooms had me back-tracking a bit. One instructor would
just smile every time I did "laps" past his office. The
remainder will need to be installed next week, but the good news
is the customer is also interested in Purell wall dispensers (also
free) after I offered to demo this vital part of their health and
wellness program.
If you need to upgrade your washroom dispensers, or need Purell
for office, please give us a ring.
Cheers,
Calvin
July
23 , 2009
"The
Show Must Go On!"
How is your summer? How about your holidays? How about when your
co-workers take holidays? How does your company deal with short
staff? Especially in this economy, there usually is not much overlap
in staffing. Ok, so what happens when people are on holidays and
someone gets sick… and someone gets injured… AND someone
has a family emergency, all on the same day? (We usually have 5
order pickers on shift, and 3 could not come.) You call in everyone
to help!
So here I am today, picking orders from 4pm till 9pm, twenty feet
up in the warehouse on one of our order picker machines. Oh, did
I say it's 33 degrees in the warehouse? Thanks to Sandy for also
basically saving the day by coordinating labor and motivating other
staff to jump in. Everyone in our company really pitched in to get
the job done. We even had a young fella help out that was walking
door to door looking for work and dropping off his resume. Can you
imagine - "Hey, I'm in the neighborhood looking for work, do
you have any?" YEAH, START RIGHT NOW! His name is Paul, and
he did such a great job, we will keep him for a few more days and
see if we can hire him on.
Also, sorry to my day warehouse manager for dropping a case of
Coke Zero cans from 20 feet up. It was an accident. I know that
24 cans of exploded pop makes a real sticky mess :-)
Hope your summer is off to a great start
and that business is going well as we head into the second half
of the year. I am very excited to share with you XPLANE's latest
video XPLANATiON, "Imagine Leadership." The inspiring
and thought-provoking piece on global leadership was created in
collaboration with Nitin Nohria, Richard P. Chapman Professor
of Business Administration, and Co-Chair of the Leadership Initiative
at Harvard Business School.
Whenever possible Helijet aims to work
with like-minded Carbon Neutral Companies.
One way to meet this goal has been to partner
with Costless Express for our coffee counter and office supplies.
Everything from Apples and Ballpoints to Trail Mix and Wastebins.
CEO Calvin Johnson and his terrific team help us make sure we
are getting the best value for our dollar and the evironment.
When possible we also make sure that the products we are buying
are local or follow a similar environmental policy, like Ethical
Bean Coffee and Ecotainer cups and bowls.
Single source suppliers help by reducing
the number of warehouses being shipped to and then the number
delivery trucks on the road bringing items to the office. Even
better in this case, Costless Express is also a Carbon Neutral
company!
July
16, 2009
My new Business Development Manager, Kristi, is incredible at
getting to the decision maker when she calls prospects. She is working
on a list right now of "Fortune 500" companies in Vancouver
and promoting our Office Coffee Service.
She is a real pro and doesn't give up 'til she gets me an appointment.
Well, recently she came accross a company who foiled her attempts
at every angle. She just could not get past the gate keeper or phone
system. Nobody would give her the contact name of the purchaser
for their breakroom supplies. But… in her many attempts calling,
she did find out the company was in the midst of reviewing their
current supplier, so she knew time was of the essence and this called
for something special.
Here is her solution to get the attention of the mystery person
in charge of making the decisions: A cake with the inscription "You
can have your cake and eat it too! Let Costless Express save you
dough!"
I personally took down the cake, and the receptionist was blown
away, saying nobody has ever done something like that, and she hopes
we win the account because we were just so original and determined.
I can say we did make contact with the Executive Assistant to
the President. Seems all the right people had some cake today!
Having fun, one customer at a time!
Calvin
July
13 , 2009
Did
you know Costless Express does PRINTING? Well, if your answer is
no, you may be hearing more about our service soon, since we purchased
equipment to print some of our jobs in-house. Today we can offer
just about any printing under the sun, but relied on large commercial
print shops, like most of our competitors. Now with our new purchase
we can cut costs and speed up delivery times on the hot commodity
printing items like flyers, cards and envelopes.
I'm most excited about using the equipment for our own marketing
material, like post cards, door hangers and booklets. We are working
on some new TOP SECRET technology (coming soon!) that requires us
to make custom mini catalogues for individual customers so this
equipment will be perfect for the job.
If you would like a quote on your printing, please contact us.
Darren, our print sales rep, has over 25 years experience and will
offer you not only a great price, but ideas on how to save money
and make your print job the best it can be.
Cheers,
Calvin
July
10, 2009
I
was anxiously awaiting for the wedding photos and blog update from
Jen and Jeff's wedding on the weekend. I knew they were flying out
to Victoria after the reception on Helijet. For those of you that
follow my blog, you have seen me post about Helijet a few times.
Thanks Jay from Helijet for taking care of the happy couple!
Calvin
July
5, 2009
If
you Twitter at a wedding, you're at a Twedding!
Today Sandy and I attended a lovely afternoon wedding at the Tea
House in Stanley Park for our good friends Jen and Jeff.
Jeff you may know from Virgin Radio, a.k.a. Buzz Bishop. His blog
is quite entertaining, so add it to your favorites for some good
local perspective on pop and tech culture. Look
for his July 5th entry.
If you read the blog entry on his wedding day you'll see where
he calls it a "Twedding". You see, Jen was stuck in a
Limo that took a wrong turn, and she was 45 minutes behind schedule
while guests and groom stood on the grass outside overlooking English
Bay. What is a radio personallity groom to do while waiting? Tweet
on his Blackberry of course!
Congratulations Jen and Jeff!
Calvin
July
1, 2009
Boys
and their toys!
I'm super excited about my new TOY. Can you guess? Not a boat…
Not a motor cycle… Not a camera, video game, laptop or giant
BBQ.
No, my new toy is SOFTWARE.
SMART SCRAPER I call it. And what it does is take an Excel file
of item numbers from products we sell and tells me what my competitors
price is and item number off their web site. Very cool!! I have
worked with the company, who developed software & technology
for about 10 years on other reporting tools they have custom made
for me. When I saw this technology being used by another of their
customers, I knew I wanted it for Costless.
Today, I ran a report of the top 4000 Office Supply items we sold
last quarter, and loaded it into our new SMART SCRAPER. Then, I
pointed the software at Staples.ca website to see who had the best
pricing on each item. The results were amazing!
We had the lowest prices on about 82% of the items, some were
significantly lower. On the remaining 18%, we were now able to adjust
our sell price to beat Staples. The SMART SCRAPER will also monitor
when Staples changes a price and give me a list of the changes,
with date and new price. Also, the SMART SCRAPER will make more
matches over time, as we clean the data on items that did not have
a match: items where the pack size was different, or there was no
direct item number match. With ongoing data management, we plan
to have 8,000 matches to Staples (about the number of items they
sell), and then work on Office Depot and Grand and Toy.
Imagine, in your business, if you could push a button and see how
your prices compare to your competition?
Cheers
Calvin
June
25 , 2009
Expansion
to the Island is not the only region for Costless Express. While
Sandy and I are in Nanaimo, we got word of our very first Calgary
customer!
Once we decided to expand our service for 2009, we had three areas
to focus on and decided to expand in this order.
Calgary/Edmonton
Vancouver Island
BC Interior
The first two are under way, and we plan over the next year to
really grow sales and win new customers with our unique product
offering, fantastic service and low prices. I must say that our
management team is really doing a great job with all the extra research
and projects. It's quite an undertaking when you step outside your
current operations. We are dealing with multi locations, unique
suppliers and inventory challenges, tax codes, shipping rates, freight
carriers, warehousing, website and (whew) many other issues. I'm
sure many of you have been involved in big projects as you read
this and can agree, "Just when you think you solved every possible
issue, more pop up."
The best news is we are having fun and evolving the business.
Cheers,
Calvin
June
23 , 2009
Now
that we've landed in Nanaimo via Harbour Air, there's work to be
done. Over the next few days, Sandy and I are meeting existing customers
and visiting suppliers as we plan out our expansion to the Island.
We have shipped to the Island for years, but I now feel there is
a much larger opportunity to expand market share, since there is
very little competition. I have watched a few competitors on the
Island closely, and learned what makes the Island market different
from the Mainland. On the mainland the competition is something
fierce. Our Vancouver customers tell us they are inundated with
sales people, faxes, emails, junk mail and the like constantly,
while our Island business "focus groups" tell us they
wish there were more choices.
One area we are experts in is Office Coffee Service. Our supplier
KEURIG (the coffee machine supplier) was telling me he needed better
representation on the Island and the market was wide open with only
a water cooler company offering the Keurig
system. So with our extensive coffee and office supply inventory,
I think Costless can really win over some new Island customers.
I'll keep you posted!
Harbor Air has been a customer for many years, but we had yet to
fly with them. The weather was a perfect sunny day and it was an
amazing flight at only about 800 feet off the water. The scenery
of the North Shore, Stanley Park and across to the Island was truly
spectacular. We were in the air for only 20 minutes or so, and it
felt more like a tourist sightseeing flight than transportation
from point A to B.
The plane we flew held about 16 people and was full to capacity.
A bit of a tight squeeze, but it's only for a short flight, and
if you sit on the left, it's a single window seat with a bit more
leg room.
Service
at Harbor Air was fantastic with very helpful staff. They booked
a rental car for us and it was waiting just steps from the Nanaimo
dock for us to pick up. Well done crew!
CALVIN'S CORNER TIP: The sea planes only have
a pilot and not a co-pilot, so as you are boarding you can ask to
sit next to the pilot.
Cheers,
Calvin
June
17 , 2009
Writing from New Orleans! A city I always wanted to visit. Darren
and I are here for a conference with one of our wholesalers. Last
year was San Diego and next year is Miami Beach.
The city still has many signs of destruction from Katrina, but
the French Quarter where we are was not flooded. Bourbon Street
is everything you would expect. We went out last night for a quick
stroll about 11pm after we flew in and the street was packed on
a week night. Imagine Robson Street, no cars, packed full of people
all jumping from bar to jazz club to resturant. You don't really
stay in one spot too long, since you take your drink with you. I
have traveled a fair amount, and there is nothing like it I have
ever seen. The culture, history and archatecture make for a memorable
visit, and the locals are all very excited to see the conventions
come back to town.
I
spoke to an owner of an art shop, and he told me that this was the
first year the conventions have started to come back, even though
Katrina was in 2005. Seems the planners of big conventions book
up to 5 years in advance, so for a few years New Orleans was off
the booking circuit, so to speak, and it took several years before
planners could slot the city back into rotation.
The art shop owner also told me about how his house was 7 houses
from one of the levee breaks. The house was one block OVER and the
houses directly in front of the break were washed away clear to
the foundation. His house was under 15 feet of water at the height
of the flood, and when he finally came back home, his red pickup
truck was on top of his neighbor's roof. He said he looks at life
now as just a gift every day. Here is a cool original painting I
bought in his shop.
Our
industry trade show was the main reason for the visit, and this
year was again full of new and interesting products. The number
one most interesting and progressive office supply item as voted
by industry insiders and trade magazines was, in fact, not your
traditional office supply item. In the number one spot was the KEURIG
Coffee System. I'm glad to see the industry is embracing that
office supplies go far beyond pens and pencils. At Costless Express,
we have always mixed coffee and office supplies in our offering.
Hmmmmm, seems we are on to something!
Cheers,
Calvin
June
12 , 2009
Costless Express Beats Staples Prices
by 45%!
I find that customers compare prices before choosing a supplier,
this makes sense. But with over 25,000 office supplies, what items
do you compare, and what is the item number from each competitor
so you can make an "apples to apples" comparison. Oh,
and what if one supplier sells in a different pack size? Arrgggh,
it can drive a customer crazy comparing prices!
Well, good news from Costless Express. Did you know we do all
that work for you? Send us a stack of invoices, and we will match
up our items and send you the prices. Best of all, we have a cost
comparison of the 100 most commonly used office supply items as
compared to STAPLES. We beat Staples' prices by 45%!
The reason we choose Staples is we find them to be the lowest
cost of our competitors - with Grand and Toy being the highest.
(If you buy from Grand and Toy, the lowest discount we
have seen from their catalogue prices is 45%, and the highest 69%
- most are at 56%.)
Please ask your sales rep for a copy of our current Staples Cost
Comparison or download a copy once you login to our website. It
is a great reference tool to find the top 100 common items. You
can also see the list's items online in your Favorites drop-down
menu, under the GLOBAL LIST area, on the left side tool bar.
Cheers,
Calvin
June
9 , 2009
How
are sales? How's business? Are ya feelin' it? Seems the last few
months everyone is asking me the same questions.
We serve over 3200 customers, and almost every day I hear stories
from our sales staff. Customers we have had for years just close
up shop and are out of business. We had a large customer let 800
staff go in one day. Or another had just expanded a year earlier
to 3 floors in an office tower, but now only occupy less than one
floor. The rent may actually put them under, since there are no
sub-lease tenants wanting that much space. If our customers are
hurting, they are not buying, and we feel it.
One positive the downturn in an economy brings to business is
a chance to really examine your operations and get up close and
personal with how it operates. We hired a business consultant in
January and she has helped us really streamline operations. I have
personally taken a very active role in sales and marketing, and
the hands on experience in invaluable. So much so that I hired a
Business Development Manager, and together we analyze new opportunities
and underdeveloped customer segments. She gets me the appointments,
and I close.
Prospects and customers seem to like that the owner is meeting
them. I like it also, since I can move very quickly making offers,
prices and decisions. Being on the front lines making presentations
and visiting customers has been invaluable in directing the company
through these turbulent times. As a team, we have opened 82 new
accounts and some are Fortune 500 size. Sure, we have lost a few
customers due to the recession, but won back just as many new ones.
Am I feelin' it? Yeah I am, and having more fun selling than ever.
Cheers
Calvin
June
6 , 2009
This
weekend was the BC Children's Miracle weekend. I have been part
of the Retail and Wholesale Commitee for three years now. Our group
includes such heavyweights as Costco and Overwaitea, and donations
throughout the year came from both grass roots campaigns like BBQs
and the recognizable ones like the popular Buy a Balloon you see
at Costco.
Last year, we raised $3.2 million, and due to the downturn in the
economy we set a stretch target this year of $3.2M. Basically, if
we could match last year, we felt it was a win. Tonight at 7:30pm,
a group of us from the council met outside the Hospital front entrance
to start the Miracle Weekend broadcast on Global TV. Only the chair
of our council knew the amount, so when we did the cheque flip and
the number was announced, someone next to me said "Hey, why
so glum?" I said, "We missed the target, only $2.9 million."
They said "No silly, it is $3.9 MILLION!!!!!!" Amazing.
Thanks BC for your generosity.
Later,
I donned my mask and hat and, dressed as Zorro, I sat on the Miracle
Maker Panel in studio to raise money. Our Committee decided to embrace
the SUPER HERO theme and dress up for our turn on the panel. The
idea is to call all your friends, family and business associates
and ask them to pledge money. We actually started several months
prior with our own fundraising web pages. Overall, the Miracle Weekend
was a huge success, with a record breaking $15,607,607 raised!
Cheers,
Calvin
June
3 , 2009
Summer Time! It is hot out, but I'm loving it.
Does your office have good air conditioning? We are in warehouse
style offices, so the air conditioning (and heat) are quite suspect.
So we started pulling out the fans, and I wanted to possibly
order a few more so I went online. We sell fans but I wanted a particular
one my friend had told me about. I found it, plus a ton of other
unique fans. Have a look - they're all very COOL!!
Use these little guys in addition to your normal fan. And if you
are absolutely dying of heat or need to walk away from your desk,
stick one in your pocket or maybe to the back of your neck.
Yeah, I'm not sure how well these would keep you cool, but maybe
if you held it close to your face long enough it would dry the sweat
dripping on your forehead during that boring, long meeting. Also
important is the portability option and very cheery colors.
What is it about Hello Kitty that makes her an inspiration for
every gadget? You really could have an entire Hello Kitty life if
you wanted to. Either way, she'll keep you nice and cool and be
your friend on your desk.
Now this is a winner. Great design, great colors, and it's BIG!
Did I mention it plugs into your USB? or runs on batteries? And
you can hang it on a wall?
Made
for musicians rocking out too hard, you can use it too! Stick it
on that pipe next to your desk or maybe some other cylindrical object.
It may even be powerful enough to blow your hair hard enough and
make you feel like a rockstar at your desk.
Okay, so the lights aren't super cool, but for a USB fan it is
smart. Cool down + get four extra USB slots! (or get the version
with the 7 in 1 card reader) I'm always up for plugging more things
into my computer at once.
It cools you down and allows you to spray yourself in the face
for 8 bucks. Gizmodo called it a crappy fan and I semi-agree...
except for that water feature.
Now this looks nice. Sleek design, cloth blades, it packs a lot
of punch for a small fan. Plus it's endorsed by Treehugger..for
all you green loving people.
This one wins best design for me. It has some sort of retro feel
to it that I love. It's pretty expensive, but if you're in a trendy
office it's an easy addition.
It reminds me of something creepy off of Minority Report or War
of the Worlds are something. (Anyone know what I'm talking about?)
Anyways, it's a double whamo. Get both the gadgets you need on one
stand, taking up one USB port. Just don't go to your computer at
night and get scared by it's creepy eye.
They
are cheap, but a fan that ventilates your hand does sound nice.
I'm not sure of the comfort level of the mouse in general but I
sure don't enjoy a sweaty mouse.
Yeah, this one is manual, but we all need some exercise. Plus,
could life get any nerdier? You need this fan.
Cheers, Calvin
May
28 , 2009
Support BC Children's Hospital Miracle Weekend!
I have been involved with the BC Children's Hospital for three
years now. Coming up fast is the Miracle Weekend June 6 and 7 on
Global BC.
The 22nd
Annual BC Children's Hospital Miracle Weekend is the chance
for everyone across BC to be a Superhero. This two-day celebration
showcases the best of Children's Hospital: patients, their families,
caregivers and our supporters that come from every corner of BC.
This weekend Sandy and I took our eldest boy to Science World for
his birthday party. They do a great job entertaining the kids with
lots of experiments and cool challenges. After the party, all the
guests are free to use the Science World facilities for the remainder
of the day. The cost of admission was not much less than the cost
per head for the party, so that was great value!
A couple of neat things at Science World were the whole section
dedicated to recycling and renewable energy. The kids loved the
interactive displays. But the thing that caught my eye the most
was actually not part of any exhibit. It was the hand dryer in the
bathroom. This new dryer by Dyson (same company as the
vacuum on the ball) really works! I hate the old hand dryers
with the noisy motor and big blasting nozzle. It just isn't effective.
Check out this new hand dryer, I hope we see more installed around
town soon.
Concerned about the ecological impact of the Flavia filterpacks
and Keurig K-cups used by the single cup beverage systems we sell?
So are we... and we're doing something about it!
Click
here for our info sheet to read about how we'll dispose of your
used cups and filterpacks in an environmentally sound manner!
Did you purchase a button so you can wear your jeans to work? Since
it's a Playoff Canucks game, some people embellished a bit and included
a jersey with the jeans like me. (Go Canucks!)
Costless Express has been a sponsor of the big Jeans Day BBQ held
each year downtown. This year, we were also an official retail supplier
for buttons. Thanks to our customers, we raised $1320 in button
sales!
Today
at the BBQ, we once again had "Nearly Neil" belting out
the Neil Diamond songs. Most notably, of course, was Forever in
Blue Jeans. The sun was shining this year (it rained the past two)
so the crowds were amazing. We had a line-up 180 people long at
one point waiting to purchase a HOT DOG, DRINK and CHIPS for $3.00
when you wore your Jeans Day Button. In just an hour and a half,
we sold over 2000 customers!
This
year, as in the past, we had suppliers donate the drinks and chips.
But due to the economic times, we had our two main suppliers back
out at the last minute due to budget reasons. I need to give big
thanks to Sandy in our Purchasing department and the long list of
other suppliers who stepped up fill in the gap. It was a total mix
of drinks and snacks we had this year, and I was concerned how customers
might perceive the ramshackle selection. Well, they seemed to love
choice! Instead of just one can of pop and one flavour of chip,
we had it all.
Thanks customers and staff for another successful event!
Cheers,
Calvin
April
22, 2009
Happy Earth Day!
How
time flies! It was a year ago today that Costless Express became
Canada's first Carbon Neutral Office Supply Company.
We continue to monitor and lower our CO2 emissions, but
I must say all the "low hanging fruit" efficiencies were
dealt with last year. It becomes harder to find ways to keep pushing
the environmental boundaries in business after going great guns
last year.
Over the past year we did add a few new feathers to our cap, such
as in-house shredding, less cardboard and packaging from our suppliers,
consolidated supplier deliveries (one supplier was delivering from
Seattle daily and we cut that to once a week!), and internal paper
reduction campaigns. For the first time, we did not mail catalogues
to our 3,200 customers, but instead asked that they add on to their
next order. It worked great, and saved all the extra delivery trips
and over $17,088 in postage on our giant 1000 page catalogue.
On the paper reduction campaign side, we actually had two very
successful campaigns you may see very soon.
SAVE A STAMP was one campaign where we are striving towards zero
incoming mail. After some Eco Brain Storming Sessions, we saw data
that Costless received over 50,000 pieces of mail per year. If we
could get our customers to pay by credit card or direct deposit,
then it could be possible to eliminate incoming mail. We also contacted
suppliers and asked that they not send unsolicited price books and
sample binders, as this added up too.
EMAIL
INVOICES was the other campaign just rolling out. By eliminating
almost all outgoing invoices and statements we were able to reduce
our paper consumption by eliminating two pieces of paper from each
order we process in our system. Also, we switched all remaining
paper we needed to print to 100%
recycled Harbor 100 copy paper. This effort netted us a savings
of 4420 pounds of greenhouse gases, 2240 pounds of solid waste,
28 million BTUs of energy and 20,104 gallons of water!
Cheers,
Calvin
April
21, 2009
Tomorrow
is EARTH DAY! Go hug a tree or something.
We have 30 of these very cool "picker upper thingies"
that we are giving away tomorrow. We have been having a blast around
the office with them. They are the best tool for picking up trash,
so a bunch of staff ran around outside cleaning up. It was amazing
what is littered! It really is disgusting that people just open
their window and toss bags of empty fast food and old newspapers
- ash trays of cigarette butts were the worst!
Also
there is promise that the world may be left in better hands than
our generation. My 5 year old is so excited about EARTH DAY tomorrow.
His school has many special things happening, and he is so well
versed on environmental issues. If this is the start they get in
Kindergarten then I hope the moral consciousness will stick as they
grow up. He says he wants an electric car one day, and keeps asking
when our delivery trucks will be electric. I'm sure it's a lot closer
than we all think. Breaking dependence on OIL will change the world
in so many ways.
I'm
42 and happy to say that technology has not left me in the dust.
Sure, I am way off in left field when it comes to Facebook and MySpace,
but honestly having my life displayed for all to see sounds a bit
creepy to me. Then along came Twitter. I was on a plane and read
an article of how BEST BUY was on Twitter and posted short updates
about their company and even some hot deals. The article explained
how they once posted a DVD Player on Twitter for 4 hours at $9.99
and sold thousands. I'm not sure if they made any money, but it
shows how social networking technology can connect you to your customers.
That article was a few months ago, and today you can find all
types of companies, universities, news organizations, and yes, even
celebrities using Twitter. I feel the technology is leaning more
to a communication tool of relevant info in the corporate world
than to personal. The California wild fires over the past few days
were updated on Twitter by the fire chiefs on their iPhones right
from the front lines. I think that is so amazing.
For our company, we try to post relevant information a few times
a day. Things customers may want to know about here at Costless,
like new products, charity work, holiday hours and also our Twitter
Deals. We will be posting Twitter only coupons and specials, so
please follow us closely.
The
power of Craigslist!!
I am constantly impressed with the philosophy and integrity of the
founder and controlling owner Craig Newmark (yes, there is a Craig!)
His "community service" grass roots, no advertising, anti
corporate approach has made it such a phenomenon.
Watch Craig get grilled by Charlie Rose in this 19 min. interview
from 2007. Is Craig a billionaire? Is Craigslist putting the
newspapers out of business? Watch his answers.
Need to buy or sell something? Craigslist
probably has it posted. For example, I wanted to buy a Xerox Docucolor
12 printer for our marketing and print shop this week. A good printing
friend said these were the best for our needs, but Xerox stopped
making them a few years ago and "most people will never part
with them, they are THAT good." So I searched Craigslist, and
voilà.
This
is even more amazing. I posted a new warehouse position on Craigslist
Friday the 3rd, and as of today, I have received 175 resumes! Seems
we may be one of the few companies adding staff! What does that
do to other sites, like Monster? I used to spend $400 for an ad,
and now I can post on Craigslist free and get incredible results.
Thanks, Craig!
I see Buysell.com has now changed its web site advertising rates.
You can now post an ad for FREE.
Amazing, dynamic times we are living in. I remember the old paper
Buy and Sell at the news stand, do they still print that? Recently,
there are several stories of newspapers going out of business, some
over a century old! Just south of us, the Rocky Mountain News in
Denver closed in February. The Seattle P-I is the second newspaper
to shut down in 2009, next could be the Boston Globe? I guess on
a positive eco note, there would be less paper waste.
Cheers
Calvin
April
1, 2009
Today was no April Fools joke! I and 5 other brave souls did battle
at a charity Dodgeball tournament. Hey, this was serious business,
so no snickering!
The Power of the Dodgeball - Together We Raised $4,811.08!
OK, one of our great customers invited us to enter their first
annual charity Dodgeball event, with proceeds going to to the construction
of the Atsemba Community School in Africa. 100% of the contributions
will go directly to this project, which will provide quality primary
education to up to 400 children every year.
We arrived early to the UBC Student Union building to set up some
food and drinks we donated for the 100+ players in the tournament.
After that, our team of 6 walked over for a pre-game meal consisting
of Subway sandwiches and pizza. (Baddd idea before strenuous exercise,
we found out!) When we came back to the gym, there before us were
some serious, organized, semi-pro dodgeball teams. We let out nervous
laughs, and then got very quiet. You see, we had never played dodgeball,
never touched a ball, and most definitely never practiced.
I
am so glad we actually made shirts and looked like a team (The
Costless Crushers - We came to crush your _ _ _ _ s) since the
other teams were sizing us up as possible competition. As Captain,
I tried to motivate the team with tactics like "Swing your
arms and look like you're warming up" and "Here, come
back here, the balls are not that hard" or, "Can you play
without your glasses?"
Round One: We played against some pro team in
matching black tank tops and before you know it, we had won game
#1 and tied game #2. This leaves us at game #3 - SUDDEN DEATH. Loser
is out and winner advances to the Semi Finals. The whistle blows
and balls are flying. Then, in a moment of brilliance, Wendy from
our team hands me two balls, I double fire and get out a fellow
on the other team. Wendy decided to just retrieve balls and "reload"
the other people on our team. This allowed us the throw more, and
in under two minutes we had won the game!
Round Two: Now I know why some teams had 10-15
people (we had the bare minimum of 6). We all were gasping for air
and chugging water (remember the Subway and Pizza?) and my arm felt
like it was about to fall off as Round Two began (best of three).
We had moments of brilliance, like 6 players on the other side trying
to knock out our last player, Jim in one game and Wendy in another
game, but it took a few minutes and dozens of balls. It was hilarious
to see our player doing a version of the "funky chicken"
and not getting hit! But overall, we were slaughtered three games
to zero..
Round
Three: see the pictures of us at the PUB! Yup, there's
our team on Round Three! (except our driver).
Great times at dodgeball, and we are starting to train already
for next year. If the staff can dodge my stapler already, then I
think we are in good shape.
Cheers,
Calvin
March
24 , 2009
You
heard it here first! On top of their $1.00 fuel charge, Grand and
Toy is adding a minimum order fee! Any orders under $50.00 will
be charged a $5.00 handling fee. This charge adds them to the ranks
of Staples and Office Depot, who have always had a minimum order
fee.
G&T has done a good job of spinning the fee under the cloak
of some environmental initiate.
G&T is right though, less orders delivered equals less trucks
on the road. Something I have been preaching for years, and why
our customers value our single source service (with NO MINIMUM order,
I might add).
Only
Costless Express can supply Office Supplies, Coffee, Janitorial,
Food, Snacks, Milk, Fruit and Furniture all in one delivery. Try
that, G&T!
Cheers
Calvin
March
16 , 2009
Ladies,
need a new dress for a special occasion? Low on cash?
Follow the lead of the Project Runway Show designers, and fashion
your next frock out of Post-It notes! We sell every size and color
you can think of. May I suggest the Super Sticky as a safe bet!
Actually, all kidding aside, 6 talented designers created fashion
masterpieces out of Post-it Notes and the dresses are being auctioned
off to support Breast Cancer.
Welcome to the Project Runway Canada Charity
Auction.
Six Designers from Project Runway Canada
were challenged to create an artistic evening gown using many
variations of a single innovative product - Post-it® Notes.
The designers were paired with women affected by breast cancer,
who modeled the creations that are now up for auction to raise
money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.
March
12 , 2009
Here are a few more memorable customer service and business (non)
brilliance from our SOCAL trip so far.
Universal
Studios: For those of you who have taken the famous tram
tour, do you remember the Subway Earthquake inside the sound stage?
The effect that has all the water pour down the stairs and the tanker
truck falls thru the roof? Well, as we left the sound stage after
the effect, back out into the sunshine, someone pulled the emergency
rope and the tram screeched to a halt. The driver proceeded all
the way back to the end of the 10 car tram and a few rows from us
a lady had lost her sunglasses inside the sound stage. The driver
said he couldn't go back inside, due to safety reasons, but he would
"call someone". Yeah, lady, that was the end of your sunglasses,
I thought. But wait! Not more than 2 minutes later, as we drove
up the hot set of Desperate Housewives (Hot Set = filming was actually
in progress), a pick-up truck pulled next to our tram and a gentleman
raced out, holding a pair of sunglasses! Other riders Ohhhed and
Awwwed at the incredible customer service. It was actually quite
amazing how the driver could radio about the lost glasses, have
someone go into the sound stage and locate the glasses, and then
catch up to us in such a short time - all with a smile. Very memorable.
San
Diego Zoo: We had our stroller parked at the entrance to
a wild animal show at an outdoor auditorium that held about 300
people. The designated "Stroller Parking" area was jammed,
and I was as much to blame, since everyone just parks any which
way and heads in. The show was great, but when we came out to get
our stroller, every single one was organized in parallel fashion
and turned to face towards the exit. Spectacular! Oh, and to my
buddy Scott who owns Baby's World: You are in the right business,
my friend.
Captain
Kidd's Buffet: It is amazing what viral information can
do to a business. We stayed in a hotel directly outside the gates
of Disneyland and there is an IHOP right next door. Also, there
is a restaurant called Captain Kidd's Buffet. Before we ever left
Vancouver, we had 3 people tell us "Don't eat there!"
for all sorts of reasons I won't go into. My point is, a business's
reputation is so far-reaching in this world of Twitter, FaceBook
and other social sites that, along with old fashioned "word
of mouth," it can make or break your success. Sure enough,
when we saw both restaurants, Captain Kidd's was sparsely filled,
and IHOP had a line up. We ate at IHOP, but also tried The Captain
for a breakfast one morning, just to be fair. Mmmmmm… I love
IHOP! Check out the
comments I found online - some are hilarious!!
Cheers!
Calvin
March
9, 2009
Here
is my ECO TIP for the day:
Don't take the toiletries from your hotel. Those are mainly plastics
that will go to the landfill. Instead, fill small bottles with your
own shampoo from home. For some reason, we packed our full size
bottles from the shower at home and put them in Ziploc bags. (Ahhh,
that's why our one bag weighed 85lb and we were given heck
at the airport!) Anyway, I'm proud to say we didn't touch the hotel
toiletries.
Perhaps we can all encourage hotels when we stay to source eco-friendly
toiletries that use recyclable or biodegradable packaging instead.
I also noticed widespread use of Styrofoam in restaurants down
here. Our hotel had a continental breakfast included each morning,
but everything is disposable Styrofoam! Plates, bowls,
cups — all Styro. The staff was emptying the trash bins every
20 minutes. Why not use that labour to wash proper dishes??
It was sad to see the massive amounts of landfill each day out
of just that one restaurant. Actually, I felt quite guilty about
our own trash consumption while on the trip. Each time we made a
day trip in the car and I cleaned out everything once we returned
to the hotel, it was shocking. There was so much trash from drive
thru fast food, it was mind boggling. Bags, wrappings and cups for
everything. What do you do? "Ya just pass me my BigMac and
hold the box?" Maybe I can save my styro plate from breakfast
and reuse at lunch?? ;-)
Calvin
March
8, 2009
Not to drag on Electric Vehicles, but you just have to see what
the French are up to!!!
One of the main concerns that people
have when you talk to them about electric cars and trucks is "where
to charge your batteries when you're not at home?". The city of
Paris, France, has started to address that by installing many
charging stations (some just for electric bicycles, some for cars,
and some for bigger trucks and vans) in the city proper and in
the near suburbs. But even if the stations are there, they're
not very useful if nobody can find them...
Image: Google Maps
That's why the city of Paris has decided
to create a
website with a map
of the EV charging stations. Since it's online, it's easily
accessible, and it can be updated in real-time.
OK,
now that I told you yesterday's story, I can share today's picture.
Here is a one of the famous Electric Vehicle Charging Station signs
that were posted all over California as part of the pending Electric
Car boom.
It is eerie and strangely odd why the California Government keeps
the signs posted. The last electric car was crushed in 1996.
Optimism? Nostalgia? Naaaah, probably just that no politician wants
to have anything to do with Electric Vehicles or lowering emissions.
Who would be stupid enough to open that Pandora's box? Just let
the signs rust off the posts!
Of note, there is a new resurgence of Electric Vehicles on the
horizon. Let's see if we can keep them out of the crusher this time.
Cheers,
Calvin
March
7, 2009
I
need to tell you this story so I can tell you the next one.
Funny enough, I brought a movie with me so I could watch it (5th
time) on the computer after the kids go to bed on our holidays here
in SOCAL. Read my handy cut and paste job about the movie below.
It is an incredible documentary actually. Read away...................
What would you say if I told you that General
Motors (GM) created an electric car for the Californian market
that was easy to use, looked great and was so efficient that it
made the Toyota Prius look like a petrol guzzler … and then
repossessed all the cars from owners who loved them … and
had them crushed to prevent anyone else finding out about them.
This is a true story told in the 2006 documentary
film “Who Killed the Electric Car?” narrated by Martin
Sheen, which explores the birth, limited commercialization, and
subsequent death of the battery electric vehicle in the United
States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s. The
film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry,
the US government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers
in limiting the development and adoption of this technology.
It was among the fastest, most efficient
production cars ever built. It ran on electricity, produced no
emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront
of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted
to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1
electric vehicles in the Arizona desert?
The year is 1990. California is in a pollution
crisis. Smog threatens public health. Desperate for a solution,
the California Air Resources Board (CARB) targets the source of
its problem: auto exhaust. Inspired by a recent announcement from
General Motors about an electric vehicle prototype, the Zero Emissions
Mandate (ZEV) is born. It required 2% of new vehicles sold in
California to be emission-free by 1998, 10% by 2003. It is the
most radical smog-fighting mandate
With a jump on the competition thanks to
its speed-record-breaking electric concept car, GM launches its
EV1 electric vehicle in 1996. It was a revolutionary modern car,
requiring no gas, no oil changes, no mufflers, and rare brake
maintenance (a billion-dollar industry unto itself). A typical
maintenance checkup for the EV1 consisted of replenishing the
windshield washer fluid and a tire rotation. But the fanfare surrounding
the EV1’s launch disappeared and the cars followed. Was
it lack of consumer demand as car makers claimed, or were other
persuasive forces at work?
Fast forward to 6 years later… The
fleet is gone. EV charging stations dot the California landscape
like tombstones, collecting dust and spider webs. How could this
happen? Did anyone bother to examine the evidence? Yes, in fact,
someone did. And it was murder.
The
family and I are off to Southern California for Spring Break over
the next two weeks. Our boys go to a school that is all year round,
so the break is a bit earlier than public school. I hope we beat
most of the Spring Break rush at the major attractions. We'll see.
Although I am excited to spend some quality family time, I'm also
excited about getting some quality customer service and stories
for my blog. I wonder it the travel industry is taking their game
to new levels with the economy in the toilet. Especially repeat
destinations like SOCAL. I expect Disney to be incredible as usual
(I'll keep my eye out to see if there is any garbage on the ground
:-) )
Right off the bat, when we landed at LAX, we picked up our rental
car from Budget. I had pre-booked a midsize vehicle online and was
given a "FastPass" membership. At the time I had no idea
what the FastPass was. Well, I need to give high marks to Budget
- when they mean fast... they mean it!
We were directed over to a group of about 50 cars and SUV's, and
told to just pick any one in area "6" and drive away,
the keys are inside. We had such a choice of vehicles that we were
the only ones not being too fast. We actually picked a vehicle and
then when all our luggage didn't fit (double stroller too) we unloaded
and picked a larger SUV. After loading up, we drove to the end of
the parking lot - to a gate where a Budget staff member took a card
off our rear view mirror, proceeded to scan it with a bar code reader
and said "Have a safe trip, do you need directions?".
That was it, we were driving off, without filling out any paperwork
or any line ups.
I quickly jotted down my experience and observations about Budget
in my handy notebook. (Sandy rolled her eyes with a smirk)
Next we hit Burger King a block away... back to reality... ahhhh,
fast food service.
Cheers,
Calvin
February
26, 2009
One
of my all time favourite movies - Steve Martin in The Jerk.
"THE NEW PHONE BOOK'S HERE, THE NEW PHONE BOOK'S HERE!!!!
That's how we felt today when we FINALLY received our 2009 catalogues
from the printers. We delayed printing the catalogue in December,
because of all the price changes suppliers had waiting for January
2009. I decided it was best to hold production and have a more accurately
priced catalogue.
I can easily say our 2009 catalogue is the best yet. Some quick
highlights are:
Cool finger pointing cover!
Free Starbucks Gift Cards - Page A5
A
welcome letter from me - Page A6 (My kids' eyes almost popped
out seeing me in the catalogue: "You're famous, Daddy!")
Lots of Eco Products - See Page A7
New Toner Club saves you 20% off copy paper - Page A8
New super low water prices - Page A21
New Keurig and Flavia Coffee Machines - Pages A22-A23
Seattle's Best and Ethical Bean Coffee! - Pages A26-A27
All Island Farms Dairy ("So long!" to our last unreliable
dairy supplier) - Page A40
FRUIT EXPRESS check it out - Page A45
Two Bite Party Trays and muffins - YUM! - Pages A47, A48, A69
Wally Biscotti - to die for! - Page A67
Big Bags of Chips - you asked for it. - Pages A72-A76
Bulk Candy - another request - Page A79
Recycled Paper products at new lower prices - Pages A86 - A92
Cups and Cutlery made out of PLANTS! - Pages A92 + A95
Lots of new Eco Cleaning Products - Pages A102-A111
Thousands of Recycled Office Supplies - all pages
Super Low Prices on House Brand SPARCO office supplies - all
pages
Our largest selection of writing instruments ever - pages 749-834
Super low prices on Recycled Toners "Elite" House
Brand - Pages 855-856
You will automatically get a new Costless Express 2009 catalogue
for free on your next order. We also have our drivers delivering
them as fast as possible. If you just can't wait, like Steve Martin,
then give us a shout, and we will hand deliver one to you ASAP.
Cheers,
Calvin
February
24, 2009
Just
My Opinion
I'm feeling a bit sad lately about what I think the economy has
driven some competitors to reduce themselves to.
Yesterday I wrote about a new company selling office supplies
in Vancouver, called E. Madill from Nanaimo BC. Recently they sent
out a price sheet to random businesses in downtown Vancouver boasting
they were "The Cheapest!" and guaranteeing "We beat
all competitors prices" on their catalogue cover. Then last
week I had a complaint from a good customer about them.
Now I have been in business for 20 years, and have seen many competitors,
including Staples, Corporate Express and Office Depot, come to Vancouver,
so I'm OK with competition. I support small business, and believe
there's room for everyone in the marketplace, especially when it
comes to other local independent stationers like Mills Basics (good
job on beating out the big guys and being the official office supplier
to the Olympics BTW). So when a small office supply company resorts
to big statements like E. Madill has, it sets a bad tone for what
a local office supplier should act like.
My good customer of 12 years called to let me know she had a sales
person from E. Madill drop off a catalogue. She said she kindly
told them she was not interested and had a great relationship with
Costless Express. Since that day E. Madill had called her repeatedly,
to the point she say is almost harassment. She said they keep telling
her they will under cut anyone's prices by 10% and sent a HOT SHEET
showcasing their low low prices on the top selling items. This sheet
was faxed over to me by her, and we used it in our recent cost comparison.
What I found is the prices on their top selling items were not
as competitive as Costless Express, and in most cases not even as
low as Staples (ask for the comparison if you would like to see).
Second was that many other popular items not on their HOT SHEET
but on their website were priced exceptionally high in comparison
to the average market price (we priced out 700 items). I can only
assume that they plan to win customers by marketing they are the
cheapest, undercut a few items to appease unsuspecting customers,
and then make it all back and then some on the other items when
the customer isn't looking.
I have known the owner of E. Madill (Ehren Madill) for a few years
now. I see him a few times each year at industry trade shows, and
he is about my age - 40, with a young family. So I gave him a ring.
What I tried to mentioned to him was how his sales people used tactics
that left a negative impression on customers. Also, I explained,
independent stationers usually support each other. Hey, all is fair
in yadda yadda... but if Costless were to go into battle over a
customer, it would be against Staples or G&T, not trash-talking
an independent like Mills. Why fight against another local business,
when it's Staples selling a billion dollars each year in Canada?
While Ehren and I chatted, he said he lets his sales people win
business however they see fit. No prisoners. They were on commission,
and as long as they brought in the sales, he was fine with how they
did it.
Like I said, I'm feeling a bit sad that this is the service a local
independent office products supplier has been reduced to. Good luck,
Ehren.
Calvin
February
23, 2009
Who has the best prices on all office supplies in Vancouver? Is
it Costless Express, the big American giants like Staples or Grand
& Toy, or other local independent stationers?
(Drum roll)... None of the above!
Let me explain.
There
are over 25,000 items in our catalogue, and I would be hard pressed
to tell you Costless Express has the best price on every single
item every single day. The same is true for all our competition.
No one company has the best price on EVERYTHING all the time (although
some competitors' marketing would seem to differ). How do I know?
We check.
Each quarter at Costless Express, we research each competitor
and look at their sell prices on the top few hundred items (sometimes
up to 500 items). That's all most offices ever buy; the top few
hundred items, like file folders, sticky notes, pens, staples, copy
paper and the like. These are the items where a customer wants to
know their office supply company is saving them money. After the
top items are out of the way, a customer wants to know pricing is
competitive on the remaining 24,800ish items and if they happen
to find it at a lower price somewhere else - that their supplier
will beat the price. Costless Express and most other competitors
offer a "we will beat anyone's price" policy, but the
customer may need to do a bit of leg work first to find the lower
"delivered" price. Possibly they saw it on special somewhere
else.
So I bet you want to know how we stacked up to the mighty STAPLES
on price. How about 42.9% cheaper on the top 130 items!
How about against a small company from Vancouver Island called
E. Madill Office Supply? 39.7% cheaper on the top 130 items!
If you would like to see the side by side comparison in an excel
file, please call your Fantastic Account Manager and they will email
you a copy.
On a side note about Grand and Toy - I recently won a nice sized
account away from them by doing a cost analysis of their purchases
and comparing the prices to our own. What I found was this customer
received a 58% discount on the catalogue items not marked NET (if
it is a NET item, the G&T discount does not apply). The customer
had given me his web user name and password so I could collect the
data in real time.
When I met with him, I said I could save him 10% in three words.
DON'T LOG IN!
If he were to just use the street prices online from G&T,
he would have been farther ahead than with his discount. Don't ask
me why G&T did this, but I want to offer a big THANKS to them
for a nice new customer.
To wrap this up, I guess what I'm saying is I try to offer our
customers a sharp price on the items that matter most and fair prices
on everything else. No games or bait and switch like some other
competitors seem to try. Costless Express customers save the most
and get the best prices everyday.
Cheers,
Calvin
February
18, 2009
Have
you seen our latest emails and the front of our website? We have
our yearly INVENTORY BLOW-OUT SALE on right now. Get the deals while
they last!
Each year at about this time, it's "out with the old and
in with the new" when it comes to our inventory. We need to
make room for all the new and exciting products that were added
to the 2009 catalogue, so we deeply discount the remaining stock
that didn't make it. I know it sounds like some cheesy line from
a furniture commercial: "Everything Must Go, Blah Blah Blah!"
But it's true, we only have so much space so... Ahhhh, everything
must GO! Some items just changed in pack size or flavour, while
others just didn't make the cut due to slow sales. Whatever the
case, the customer gets a great chance to pick up some hot deals.
We update the Blow-out Sheet daily with what's sold out and what
new items have been added. The info is always as fresh as we can
make it.
We also added a new section at the top of the sheet, and I
wanted to get some feedback from you on if you like it.
We added items where the "Best By" date is close or at
expiry. Think of it as our scratch and dent sale, in a way. These
items like Starbucks coffee have very short dates (too short, in
my opinion) and sometimes we have to pull the items off our shelves,
since we promise customers a reasonable amount of time on any Best
By date. The products are absolutely fine to consume - it really
is just the manufacturer setting short dates to help boost sales
volume, in my humble opinion.
Here's the question: Would you take a deep discount on an item,
if the date was close or at expiry? To be clear, I'm talking about
items in tin cans or foil pouches, not week's old nasty bread or
chips. Items are JUST near or at expiry, and NOT months over date.
Seems part of my question has been answered, because the items
are selling like hot cakes. Starbucks Coffee regular $54.99 - clearance
$29.99 (Expires February and March 2009), now there's a deal!
Cheers,
Calvin
February
11, 2009
Heart-y foods
If
you want points for being a cook and creative with your sweetheart
or coworkers, simply make them a meal or a snack for Valentine's
Day. And then carve it into a heart. It's as easy as heart-shaped
eggs, pizza, pasta or a PB&J. (Or as complicated as the amazing
ventricled cupcakes pictured.)
Inspirational heart-shaped food photos are here
from Threadbanger. Ladies will like the last picture on the site
as you scroll down. Awwwwwww.
Eat your heart out.
And speaking of heart-y foods, since it's American Heart Health
Month (not sure if there is a Canadian one, I guess I'll Google
later) here are 25
foods that are good for your ticker , whether it's pulsing with
love for a certain valentine or not.
Cheers,
Calvin
February
5, 2009
Stop
Using Staples!
You
place a stapler
over a pile of paper that needs to be stapled, and as soon as you
press on the stapler, nothing comes out. While you were expecting
to organize your document, you have to abort your plan because you
just ran out of staples.
Introducing the stapler that does not use staples. This invention
has been around a quite some time, but not a lot of people understand
the magic behind this.
There a few models of stapleless staplers out in the market nowadays,
but this model in particular punches a whole onto your stack of
paper, it then folds and unlike most models out there, nicely tucks
the flap into the paper itself. Smart, huh? Although the trick is
pretty nifty, it works only on a stack of 5 to 7 pieces of paper,
but again, if you have a stack of uncountable amount of paper that
you want to bind together, you might as well use a 3-ring
binder or use a hot
glue gun to make a book out of it, right?
Cheers,
Calvin
January
29 , 2009
When you're first introduced to Google
Earth, as my mom recently was, it can become an obsession to
find your home, the home you grew up in, your best friend's place
and the Beijing Olympic Stadium among other hot spots.
With plain old Google
Maps, you can do some fancy things too, like making
a collaborative map for your cycling, hiking, driving or jogging
buddies to share.
Keep up with Google Earth tips on the blog and with
GE's own user guide.
To be in perennially in the know about all things Google, download
its Tip
of the Day gadget.
Congratulations to our great friends over at Ethical Bean Coffee
in Burnaby!
Here is an email from Jeff, the marketing Master. I'll let him
explain.
I
just thought I would drop you a line to let you know that we were
outstandingly successful with our December fundraiser! We have
donated $1 from the sale of every bag of coffee toward sending
kids to school, and building a children's village in Guatemala.
In total, we donated $21,949, some of which was thanks to the
purchases of your customers.
If you would like to pass along our thanks
to your customers, please let me know.
Jeff
Well Jeff, you just thanked all our customers. All of us here at
Costless Express are glad we could help in any way.
To see more about what Ethical Bean is doing, go here.
To buy Ethical Bean Coffee at great prices - shop our site online
or call into our sales center for pricing.
Cheers,
Calvin
January
9, 2009
Well,
we finally snapped a picture of the elusive marketing genius Erin!
She is responsible for the 2009 catalogue, and here she is celebrating
the completion of another job well done.
There was a new popular culture saying added to our office vocabulary
during the project. Hovering - as in "Calvin,
STOP hovering and I won't stick this pen in your neck!"
Seems I had a habit of looking over Erin's shoulder while she worked
on the catalogue and since she works best listening to her iPod,
I just stood there watching.... ehhhem HOVERING they say.
Hey, we were under deadline and I just thought I could "proof"
over her shoulder.
I just hope the staff don't call me the HOVERER. In my defense,
there is a management style I was taught by a successful entrepreneur
- MBWA. Manage By Walking Around - that's my story and I'm sticking
to it!
Great work Erin!
Cheers,
Calvin
January
12 , 2009
You know when you see something and you love it because it describes
your life soo perfectly? Well, I found my life in graphs today.
Thank you GraphJam.com.
There are tons that are just plain funny.
Cheers,
Calvin
January
5, 2009
Here is a great question below from our friends at Kettle Brand
Chips.
Check out the new line of tasty chips in our 2009 catalogue (due
late February)
Q:
How many Kettle Brand chips does it take to run a car?
A: On average, for every 7,600 bags of
Kettle Brand® potato chips we produce, we create one gallon
of waste vegetable oil. This waste vegetable oil is stored in
a tank and, when enough accumulates, it is picked up and taken
to a biodiesel production facility. That facility can make one
gallon of 100% biodiesel for every gallon of waste oil we give
them. 100% biodiesel can be used in any diesel engine, like in
our fleet of bio-beetles!
Have
a peek at this environmentally friendly Costless Express supplier!