Supplier Spotlight | A conversation with BCD Supplies

In this month’s Supplier Spotlight, we catch up with BCD Supplies, an Ink and Toner supplier who first featured with us 2 years ago when they joined Prima Marketplace. Since we last spoke to BCD Supplies, they have gone from strength to strength, growing their business and their team.

Prima customers now benefit from full EDI functionality with BCD including stock check facilities. I caught up with Paul to see how things have been moving for them in the past couple of years.

Tell us a little bit about your business. What do you offer? 

During 2020 BCD have seen a significant amount of growth. We’ve expanded our team, increased our sales and our recognition within the industry.

In November we had a record month, won a BOSS Award for Industry Community Heroes and partnered with Office Friendly.

Office Friendly have added us to the supplier list as both sides realised there was a lot of synergy in areas outside of the normal business of EOS supplies. Our commitment to CSR through our work with Paperworks, a charity supporting adults with learning disabilities, autism and complex needs, coupled with the cartridge recycling offering complimented directly with Office Friendly’s own CSR focus and especially their social sustainability programme Weaver. Indeed BCD have entered the Weaver programme and will be working towards the award as a sign of the further commitment of both businesses to a sustainable, socially focussed future; this is unique amongst our competition.

BCD have been partnered with Paperworks, a social enterprise, for our warehouse needs since 2018. We work daily with their trainees providing opportunities for them to enhance their work skills through our storage and fulfilment while providing funding for Paperworks via an income stream monthly. Working with Paperworks is vitally important to us, as it allows BCD to step outside of the commercial nature of business and put something back into the community, not just occasionally but every day. The trainees pick, pack, re-box and re-label products among the duties and tasks they perform for us. Our business provides these opportunities for the whole of the trainee team, something which Paperworks have said is unique amongst their partners. We are very proud to be in partnership with Paperworks and our staff get immense satisfaction from knowing that our company is about more than just business.

In January we begin supporting the not for profit organisation Pure Sea. Pure Sea is dedicated to protecting and replenishing the future of our oceans. You’ll hear a lot more on this in 2021. The support for Pure sea is in addition to the award winning partnership with Paperworks. As we exit lockdown there will be further announcements of other partnerships within the industry.

What benefits do you bring to the Prima Marketplace and our Community? (E.G product portfolio, ease-of-use, next-day deliveries, company etc.)

BCD Supplies supply aftermarket products to the trade: while the mainstay of the business is toners, we also supply inks, drums, ribbons, labels, tapes and staples. Recently we have expanded our range to include the full Ricoh OEM listing with some of the best prices in Europe.

We have a wide range of products with the options of cartridges in either a generic box or our EXPERT brand, along with a premium range of toners.

We use Prima as our back office system so Edi is available to those who wish to implement it with us, and our catalogue is available to download via the Fusion Data feed. Live stock is available either within Prima, via FTP or on our full SITC listing. This will also add live stock levels to your Prima Go or EvoX websites.

Deliveries are next day with fulfilment levels running at 99%, accounts and credit facilities are easy to set up, we have low return rates, lifetime warranties on aftermarket products, a streamlined returns process, and no restock fees.

Our growth this year has been underpinned by our high retention rates on customers driven by our commitment to customer service and product quality.

Do you offer electronic trading capabilities with Prima? If so, what would you say are the main benefits of using EDI for our Community? If not, is this something you will look to do in the future?

We offer fully integrated EDI to all Prima users which includes stock check facilities.
Edi cuts out most of the opportunities for human error though luckily is tech that doesn’t actually replace us!

Getting Started