With less than 2 weeks left of the year it’s the perfect time to start preparing for 2011. ‘Being better organised’ is often high up on people’s lists of New Year’s resolutions and one of the most effective ways of achieving better organisations is to purchase a suitable diary or planner. At DGOS we stock a huge range of diaries and we’re certain that you’ll find at least one which is perfectly tailored to your lifestyle and requirements.
Pocket Diaries
As the name would suggest, pocket diaries are compact diaries which are usually casebound or ringbound. Designed to be easily carried, pocket diaries are perfect for those who are always on the go and who need instant access to their appointments and schedule. Given the size constraints, pocket diaries are generally week to view or two weeks to view and offer just enough space to go into a little detail.
Desk Diaries
Generally A4 or A5 in size, desk diaries allow for more detailed entries than pocket diaries and for the most part offer somewhere between 2 days per page through to 2 pages per day. There are a number of varieties of desk diary including appointments diaries which split each day into half hour and hourly segments for ease of appointment arrangement and academic diaries which span the academic year and are particularly well suited to students. At DG Office Supplies we’re also very proud to stock a large number of diaries made from recycled paper and materials.
Ring Binder Organisers
Ring bound personal organisers such as the Filofax are available in a wide range of colours, styles, sizes and materials. With covers bound in anything from black Italian leather through to pink linen effect fabric, personal organisers are as much a style statement as means of organising day to day appointments and meetings. In addition to the standard diary style pages, many organisers also include additional features and sections including credit card pockets, an address book, notes pages and even a contents or index section for ease of reference. If you’re serious about getting organised then a ring binder organiser is your best bet.
Refills
If you’ve already invested in a high quality organiser or pocket diary then it is well worth taking a look at refill options as opposed to replacing the whole thing. With refills it’s possible to switch from 2010 to 2011 in seconds with minimum fuss and minimum expenditure.
With so many different varieties of diary and personal organiser you have no excuse to lapse into messy bewilderment in the New Year! As well as serving as a great investment for the coming year, a nice diary or planner is also a thoughtful and useful Christmas gift which will get used everyday by the recipient.
A lot of small start up Ebay Sellers and start up Ecommerce businesses can find the daily trip to the Post Office to despatch the packages sold is a tedious and unrewarding event. Not only do you get charged full retail prices at the counter but there is the long wait as normally queues are involved. This gives many eBay sellers the overall feeling of being a hindrance rather than valued customer. You can pre-pay with the Pay Pal account; but again you are paying top whack for you parcel to be dispatched and in a cut throat EBay world where delivery is given free, this can be a crucial part of your margin. What I recommend is the following:
Contact Royal Mail directly and ask to set up an Online Business Account. They will explain that there is a £5,000 per year minimum spend on an Online Account. This will level out at around £20 a day. Do not worry if you are not sending out these quantities. Many small businesses I’ve spoken to have told me due to the sheer size of Royal Mail they rarely chase up customers not reaching this criterion. It’s a service they provide so there is no fine or ‘Top Up’ fee involved if you fall short. Just tell them on the phone that the £5,000 minimum is certainly something you can see yourself heading toward this financial year and they’ll have no problem setting you up. The Online Business Account (OBA) will give the smaller Ebay seller access to business rates for the parcel traffic with no fees. These rates are what you would normally only get from a franking machine (an online account is also a good alternative to a Franking Machine as there are no fees involved). For example it’s over 50p cheaper for items between 700grammes and 1 kilo.
How the Online Business Account works: They give you a Pre Payment Indicia number which you can print as a jpeg onto Avery labels. Weigh your parcels and label them up at your place of work. Log all the information onto your Online Billing Account and drop it off your local post office.
What are the main advantages of this? This method not only gets you away from the queues but it gives you business rates. These rates are not shown on the parcel as it’s stored online. Your customers will never know how much it cost to despatch the item to them (crucial for those whiners who complain as you charged them £5 for delivery but the printed label on your padded envelope showed £1.40). All this on 30 days credit! Their online account is constantly being improved with monthly summaries to provide good visibility on your ongoing costs.
The only downside is you’re taking valuable revenue from the local Post Office, which is probably why it is not readily advertised. Still, if your conscience can handle that, then go for it.
It’s the second week of December and ever growing throngs of people are dipping into their savings accounts in order to stock up on Christmas gifts. This is nothing new; the ‘Christmas Rush’ has been the busiest time for all manner of retailers for decades and is the core time for high street shops and online stores to get a hefty boost to their revenue. In spite of the recession and widespread economic concerns on a global level, this year’s December spending is looking as healthy and high as ever. This isn’t however solely due to festive spirit but also heavily influenced by politics.
January 4th 2011 – V(AT) Day
On Tuesday 4th January 2011 VAT will be increased from 17.5% to 20% in the UK. Although a 2.5% increase may not sound like much, when you consider that VAT is payable on the vast majority of products and services that you purchase from stationery supplies through to online recruitment services– it all adds up. In most cases, retailers will pass on the increase to the consumer which means an extra penny or two on grocery items, all the way through to several hundred pounds more for a new car. In light of the potentially large additional costs when it comes to high value goods, many people are looking to buy larger items sooner rather than later. This rush to spend money before January 4th on top of the Christmas rush is a great short-term boost to the economy.
Potential Concerns
Aside from the obvious downside that a VAT increase impacts upon the less affluent as much as it does upon the more well off, there are other potential negative ramifications on a broader scale. For starters, the slightly higher cost of certain items may hit retailers hard – with the option of absorbing the increase themselves or passing it on to the consumer they risk either eating into their profit margins or losing business. It could also adversely affect charitable organisations – charities do not have to be VAT registered such that the maximum sum goes to the cause they represent. The flipside of this arrangement is that charities are unable to claim back the VAT they spend on items or services – as such the VAT increase could well have a noticeable impact upon the amount they ultimately raise.
The Upsides
Although 20% may sound like a high figure to many, it is in fact very much in line with the VAT levels of other European countries – on a par with Italy, Austria, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic and considerably lower than the 25% charged in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Hungary. VAT also serves as a means of keeping income tax down, by providing a governmental revenue stream which many consumers don’t even notice.
Whether you’re for or against the forthcoming VAT rate hike in the New Year, there is nothing that can be done about it on a personal level- apart from leaving the country, and to do so for the sake of 2.5% seems a slight over-reaction!
DGOS are proud to announce that due to company expansion and a further focus upon supporting businesses of all sizes; a number of areas in the North of England are now able to benefit from an increased level of service. Previously only offered to companies based in the North West region; the DGOS local service offers unparalelled customer service and same day delivery when and where possible.
So if you’re a company looking for Office Supplies Leeds, Office Supplies Stafford, Office Supplies Bradford or Office Supplies Stoke: then DGOS look forward to offering you the benefits, value and efficiency of their local area speciality service.
Happy Shopping!
Search Engine Optimization is a science which is perpetually in flux. With each new day come fresh announcements which claim to revolutionize not just the industry but also the internet at large. Alongside these announcements are an almost limitless stream of blogs and articles written by self-labeled ‘SEO Experts’ which purport to provide guidance as to the definitive strategy to put your website at the top of search results. Opinions differ greatly as to the importance of various on-page factors, the worth of links from directories and all manner of other factors, whether minor or major. The one thing which is consistent throughout all of these competing claims and assertions is that they should not be the basis of a complete overhaul of your existing SEO strategy. Not only is Search Engine Optimization a highly competitive arena but also one in which nothing can be known for sure: in fact there are so many variables that it is nigh on impossible to ascertain for sure why a website is or isn’t ranking as well as it apparently should.
Rather than claim that I have it from an informed source that Google’s search algorithm contains a specific command or that I can obtain your website as many back links as there are stars in the sky: I purely wish to share one idea, and it is by no means a new or original concept, just something which I fear many people have neglected in order to pursue quick fixes or forum derived trends. That one idea is that you spend some time on your website content. By this I don’t mean contact an overseas organization who will string together reams of text for next to nothing, nor am I referring to the practice of syndicating the work of others blindly. Using a word or page count as your only measurement of quality will count for nothing: in the long term, the short term, or any other time constraint you wish to consider.
Spending time on your website content will not only mean that your website is more likely to be visible in the results pages of searches for relevant long tail phrases (which as we know account for more than 70% of all searches made through Google), but actually makes your website itself considerably ‘better’. By ‘better’ I mean that people will be glad to have found it, visitors are more likely to pay attention to your message, and a prospective customer is considerably more inclined to make the transition to satisfied customer. In short, your website content is key in terms of getting people to your website, engaging them and converting them. Great content can serve the role of ‘link bait’ and engage people to the extent that they link to it, it can be published as an article or blog to elicit interest from 3rd party publishers, it can be used to generate traffic through social media sources and can persuade the undecided potential product purchaser of your credibility and service.
Personally I can think of no other factor which has anywhere near the same impact on the success of a website than its content. Best of all: it’s been that way for years and won’t be rendered pointless by the ‘next Google update’.
Written by Jamie Lyons-
SEO Manchester in association with DGOS
Office Supplies
Thank you for visiting our brand new office supplies blog. From this point onward, OfficeSuppliesInfo.co.uk is here to serve as your one stop shop for all things related to office supplies, stationery, office furniture and even office politics! We will be regularly posting up to the minute news and guides which address all aspects of office life alongside the best office supplies articles and blogs from leading websites including the blogs of OfficeYoo Office Supplies and DGOS Office Supplies Liverpool…not mention exclusive office supplies offers and discounts.
Happy reading!
