Ease of Online Shopping

I'm the head of the purchasing department for a growing elementary school. Over the past few years we've been buying more school supplies online. We didn't get into it quickly. School administrations are pretty conservative by nature, after all. They don't get into anything very quickly, and like many consumers, they didn't trust online shopping in the beginning. The biggest concern whether the transactions would be secure. Despite those concerns, I started looking at what was available online, from time to time, and who sold what.

We finally started buying from a discount school supply after one of our local suppliers ran out of some folders which we use regularly. They said it was back ordered, and it would be a couple of weeks before they could get it to us. Our other supplier couldn't come up with the quantity we needed, so I persuaded the principal to authorize a purchase order with this online store. I called their toll-free number and talked to a customer service representative right away. He assured us the transaction would be secure. They had what we wanted, shipped it the next day, so we received the folders within several days.

The principal was impressed, and authorized me to start ordering a few other classroom supplies from the same store. That earned me a few points with him, for sure!