We’re continually working with schools across the UK to help them drive down the cost of student planner procurement whilst maintaining the product quality. The Holy Grail for any purchasing professional, I guess?
It’s not always that easy so we thought it would interesting be to share some of the advice we give when talking to school Business Managers. As always, we’re here to advise on what can be a tricky purchase to make, please drop us a line to info@penstripe.co.uk if you need any help, or indeed if you’ve got any further suggestions to add to this list.
- Buy with another school. Are you part of a Trust or group of schools? You could get your heads together and come up with a standardised layout for your student planner which could save you money. Simple fact is the more we print of anything the cheaper the unit cost becomes. It’s all about the economies of scale.
- Utilise stock diary sections. As you can imagine we’ve seen a lot of diaries over the 35 years of working with schools. The most common diaries have become our stock layouts. These are the diary pages shared amongst a lot of schools in their student planners. As we print a great many of these the unit cost is minimal, which is a huge cost saving we can pass onto schools. We’ve got nine great stock diary layouts to choose from – browse our catalogue for more information.
- Buy more planners up front. Sounds a bit counterintuitive I know, but we see 50% of schools under purchase and needing to return for more planners in January. Order more than you think you’ll need for a September start and save on reorders later in the year, and the unit cost per student planner will come down too.
- Buy Student and Teacher Planners from the same source. An obvious one really but buying both from one source will mean you save on delivery, and don’t have to manage two lots of invoicing.
- Don’t have a bespoke planner at all. I know it’s nice to have a cover with the school logo on, and pages of personalised content within. But if your budget really doesn’t stretch then perhaps a stock option, which includes our best-selling diary alongside reference pages (maps, periodic table etc) and plenty of space to take notes may be a good option for you.
If you’re looking to get better value for your Student and Teacher Planners? Let’s talk and see what we can do together. Please call on 0113 2310995 or email info@penstripe.co.uk and we’ll quickly work through your requirement and see how we can help.
Olaf Surtees has been with Penstripe for ten years; what he doesn’t know about teacher planners, student planners, and lesson planners isn’t worth knowing! He’s in charge of creating our blog content, helping teachers and administrators with helpful hints and tips, as well as our socials — see the links below to find out more.
