Salt Lake office supply retailers were girding their loins to do battle this week as a new competitor swept into town.
BizMart Inc., an office supply discounter based in Arlington, Texas, opened its doors over the weekend in a renovated 25,000-square-foot former supermarket at 410 S. 900 East with a million-dollar inventory of everything from ballpoints and desk organizers to fax machines and document shredders.The kicker, claims BizMart President Ron Stegall, is that anyone can shop at BizMart - no clubs or memberships - and the goods are discounted 40-60 percent off manufacturers' list prices.
The new store is the 25th in the BizMart chain, which is not particularly remarkable until you consider that there were no BizMart stores before the first one opened in Dallas in May, 1988 - 19 months ago.
"Yeah, we're growing pretty quick," conceded Stegall, whose company now has retail operations in Utah, Arizona, Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Colorado.
"Our long-term plans are for the company to grow rapidly in our target area, which is west of the Mississippi," said Stegall. "We figure that gives us plenty of room to expand over the next few years."
BizMart, said Stegall, is a warehouse retail concept, an office products "superstore" selling 7,000 different items. "Everything you ever dreamed of," is the way he puts it, including fax machines, copiers, word processors, personal computers, software, office furniture and a good deal more.
Most discount stores coming into the Salt Lake area have opted to open operations well south of Salt Lake City, but Stegall said he chose the 4th South and 9th East location because of its proximity to downtown, the University of Utah and the many small businesses in the central core of the city.
"We target our business toward the business customer - although about 18 percent of our sales are to consumers - and especially the small-business owner, companies of 100 employees or less," said Stegall.
"Obviously, it's for those small companies that we provide the greatest savings because they seldom buy large quantities of any single item." BizMart, he said, provides the economies of bulk ordering for them, gleaning savings through buying direct from the manufacturers.
"The small-business market is extremely prosperous with new businesses being formed every day and existing ones expanding. And the emergence of new technologies has contributed to the viability of the home office as a business environment."
Stegall said the company uses no distributors and the store is also its warehouse. "It's a very efficient system," he said.
He said the company is planning a second BizMart store in Murray next year with a scheduled September opening.
Stegall joined the company early in 1988 after 17 years with Tandy Radio Shack. He lived in Salt Lake City for about three years in the late '70s heading the expansion of Radio Shack stores in Utah, Idaho and Montana. He left the company as a senior vice president in charge of the company's computer division.
Stegall said the best-selling Christmas gifts at BizMart include fax machines, telephones and phone answering machines, personal copiers, high quality pens, executive desktop accessories and the book "What They Still Don't Teach at the Harvard Business School." Best-selling stocking stuffer is a box of high density, double-sided computer diskettes.