Advice and Information. Our partnership approach provides you with advice and support on ways to reduce your costs and work more productively. We can help you make the right choices based on suitability for purpose, cost and value for money.

Seamless Procurement. We make the procurement process as easy and seamless as possible with systems designed to fit the way you work… face-to-face, e.mail, phone or fax. We can manage your business services and your stock control so you never run out of critical items.

Global Purchasing Power. As a member of the largest buying group, our pricing is always very competitive. We offer everything from big name brands to specialist products for every area of the workplace.

Outstanding Value. Initiative and Harvest are our exclusive ranges designed to deliver great quality and performance at an everyday price, offering genuine savings on hundreds of office products from consumables, furniture and catering to cleaning, janitorial and sanitation supplies.

Ethical and Sustainable. Our business is founded on care; care for our customers; care for our staff and care for the environment. We work with our customers to reduce carbon emissions through intelligent ordering and delivery systems and we offer a range of fairtrade and sustainably sourced brands such as Harvest, manufactured from agricultural waste and developed as a sustainable alternative to recycled papers in response to our exacting social and environmental criteria.

We offer a range of easy and seamless procurement methods giving you the option to choose which is best for you. You can place orders by phone, fax, online or in person through one of our dedicated representatives. We make it easy for you to monitor and track orders with real time reporting, and we offer the flexibility of bespoke procurement and reporting systems based on your specific needs.

By understanding your business and identifying the products you use regularly, we can help you to effortlessly maintain stock levels and give you the flexibility to order extra supplies or one-of items, whenever you need them.

We provide dedicated account management and support through a single point of contact, offering you a consistent service delivered by knowledgeable staff who are invested decision makers with a wealth of industry expertise..

We offer unrivalled fulfilment rates for next day delivery. Unlike many of our competitors, Bates Office is committed to holding stock at multiple locations across the UK, with our fleet of vehicles providing on-demand daily deliveries from headquarters in Kent and each of our five regional hubs.

Choice. As part of a larger buying group, we are able to approach international markets and a global supply base with enhanced buying power. By doing so, we offer our customers the widest possible range of office products at highly competitive prices. We further enhance product choice with dedicated expert sourcing for specific products.

Quality. Bates Office was founded on, and remains true to, the principals of exceptional service, quality and value. With a portfolio of over 35,000 products, we have established robust supply chains and maintain a rigorous programme of Corporate Social Responsibility auditing; requiring suppliers to meet our exacting standards for quality, service, fair and ethical trading..

Value. Our own brand Initiative is manufactured according to the same rigorous supply chain auditing, offering our customers genuine savings on essential office products, while supporting fair and responsible trading.

Bates Office was one of the first independent companies to obtain ISO 14001 for Environmental Management and we are fundamentally committed to working with customers, suppliers and employees to minimise the environmental and social impact of the products and services we provide.

We apply rigorous CSR standards across our sourcing, procurement, delivery and reporting systems, to monitor and maintain the quality and integrity of our products, and to deliver them in the most efficient way possible; achieving both direct and indirect cost savings to our customers across their procurement operations.

We publish our own guidelines, The Green Initiative, to help our customers create more efficient and environmentally friendly workplaces through the adoption of ‘greener’ systems, products and procedures.

We offer practical services to help minimise your business waste and maximise recycling opportunities, such as free collection and recycling for printer cartridges, toners, mobile phones and batteries – whether or not we originally supplied them. We provide a closed loop service for paper and cardboard; collecting waste as we deliver new supplies to minimise vehicle journeys, and we offer free shredding for the secure destruction of confidential material to BS 15713.

Clear and consistent pricing, continuous monitoring and transparent reporting are at the heart of our account management. We understand that a complex and convoluted system can generate a disproportionate amount of administration and associated costs, so we keep things simple, consistent and, above all, transparent.

We achieve aggressive but fair procurement through our supply chain management teams and work with you to identify your purchasing patterns, proposing potential cost savings against both the products you buy and the way in which you buy them.

We are committed to a clear pricing structure and will hold the price quoted on contracted lines to agreed periods, with all prices remaining 100% tender compliant.We offer significant savings against RRPs and will apply your existing pricing structure to all core list additions, with significant discounts to non-core and one-of items. We don’t restrict you to a minimum order and operate a ‘no quibble’ free returns policy.

Bates Office is committed to on-going service review and improvement through our audited ISO9001 and ISO14001 management system. We provide real-time reporting across 40 separate KPIs; offer bespoke requirement-based reporting; regular customer focused reviews; alternative product savings reporting and regular engagement with stakeholders and end users.