By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Pallets Business Supplies owner Brian Snyder launched his online catalog Pallets4biz.com a year ago. A few customers knew about it, but he wanted to be sure the store could process the orders and make deliveries to his satisfaction before going public.
Apparently everything’s working because Snyder publicly announced the online store last month, after the test phase became the fastest growing aspect of the business and more than doubled overall sales.
The Pallets physical store at 239 W. Fulton St. in Grand Rapids, (Snyder always has to add “next to Kinko’s) opened in December 2005 as a 500-product office supplies shop catering to downtown businesses.
But now, with an online catalog offering over 30,000 items from office furniture to paper, ink and toner cartridges, and with next-day delivery (90 minutes if you need it right away), the small shop competes with the big box suppliers.
“We’ve leveled the playing field,” Snyder says. "Each week, our web site scans Office Max, Staples and Office Depot and takes the lowest price of the three stores and goes below that to establish our price. We list their prices as comparison so our customers don’t have to go from site to site.”
Pallets now has a delivery truck and employs several GVSU students because of the proximity of the store to the downtown Pew Campus and the dedicated bus route from the Allendale campus. They pull the orders, pack them and deliver them. Since the online store launched last year, Snyder’s added two full-time equivalent positions.
“The big thing is that people were definitely underserved before we got here,” Snyder says. “There are a lot of companies that deliver, but they tend to go for the larger businesses. There are a lot of small businesses that got overlooked.”
Source: Brian Snyder, Pallets
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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