Have you found that one major office supply store works best for your company, ie Staples, Office Max?

Yes. Complete an RFP among the top companies. As Christine said, look at service issues in addition to price. You should be offered a bigger discount on a core list of items you buy most often with a lesser discount on everything else. Educating your users will help direct orders to the core list. There may be different structures for different types of spend, paper, toner, supplies, etc. Most have online ordering capability to sreamline the process. Depending on your volume, you may have a rebate as well.

By going the "prefered" vendor route, there may be occasions where a special or ad hoc deal with another provider will be better than your contract price. You will need to educate your users of the long term benefits of a contract versus chasing spot buy discounts.

Ways to reduce costs include promoting the core list, scheduled deliveries on certain days, online order controls, data analysis from the system and a refresh of the core list at least annually.

After spending a few years with the top providers Staples and Office Max, we found that WB Mason actually has provided us the best pricing and service. We're a mid-sized company, so that may not be the case if you're a really large organization, but at least in our case we pleasantly surprised to find a third vendor that worked out better to meet our needs.

Maintain two relationships with two providers that are competitive on price. The ordering process is vey easy on-line. In this way you can switch providers quickly and easily.

I had a billing question which was not being answered to my satisfaction from one of the big names. After continually placing an order every week, I stopped and placed my order with my back-up. My billing question became a priority and was resolved in 24 hours.

Prices are low for office supplies, so I find that an RFP does not help. One company will be competitive on pens today, with one competitive on pads. This relationship changes continually as manufacturers offer discounts.

Costco has good prices and they deliver to your office. Office Depot has coupons on the internet. Shoplet has fair to good prices but a big selection.