Whether you’re an individual or a corporation, we all have the need to safely mail delicate or valuable items from time to time, and there is never a time where it’s safe transition is of no importance. In more cases than not you will be sending goods to a customer; your customer has paid for those goods and expects to receive the item in the condition in which it was described. Should it arrive in any damage or disrepair, it will be your responsibility to ensure that you either reimburse your customer, or you send them out a replacement. I most cases you will even need to pay for the costs for them to return the damaged item! In all scenario’s it ultimately cost YOU money. So of course, it is in everyone’s best interests to make sure that the item(s) arrive at their destination unscathed!

You could of course go to the effort (and cost) of posting your items using cardboard protected envelopes. Alternatively you could wrap you items thoroughly using protective packing materials before placing them inside your envelope or box. Although these are viable options, they cost you time, added expense for materials and of course added postal cists due to weight. The perfect alternative is of course bubble wrap! Bubble wrap is air filled; tiny little cushions/pockets of air used to protect your items for transportation without costing you in additional postal weight charges.

Buying bubble wrap is a very popular alternative, particularly as it comes in a recycled option now too and in large rolls for those who have a lot of outgoing packages. However an even better solution would be to use padded envelopes. Padded bags are available in a range of sizes so that there is a product to suit your every need. Each envelope has a bubble wrap lining to save you the time required in wrapping the items before placing them inside the envelope! All you have to do in stick it in the envelope and seal it!

Our 5 Star Bubble Bags are a great alternative to the more expensive Jiffy variety offering the same quality combined with an exceptional value for money! Available in sizes 170 x 245mm, 240 x 320mm, 260 x 345mm, 290 x 445mm and 340 x 445mm, you certainly won’t struggle to find the appropriate size! The featured tough bubble bags are made with a high quality white paper exterior and boast a lightweight bubble lining which provides added protection for all your contents. With an easy peel and seal closure and a saving of nearly £30 off the RRP, these envelopes are rather tempting! And it gets better; if you’d like to discuss bulk prices, we’d be happy to offer you a better price on larger orders; simply get in touch on 0870 766 1722.

Clear plastic envelopes have become an item of stationery which is commonly seen in most establishments. These are found in businesses, offices, receptions, doctor’s surgeries, schools and even homes. With so many uses and at such an affordable price, many individuals and businesses purchase them in bulk so that whenever the need arises, they have a constant supply. In our house for example, I have a pack of cheap clear plastic envelopes and whenever paperwork of any importance comes into the house, I get one out, label it and file it away. So basically, I have one which I use to store my wage slips, one used to store our family NHS cards, passports and a very handy one which I use for storing receipts until I know it’s safe to chuck-em-out!

There are so many more uses which you may find handy however, take a look at the list below:

• Storing product guarantees and manuals.
• Separating bills i.e. bank statements, credit card statements, mobile bills, utility bills, council tax etc.
• Storing children’s school reports
• Storing awards and certificates for safe keeping
• Storing letters and postcards
• Keeping your children’s special artwork and homemade birthday cards safe
• Keeping seeds ready for next spring!
• Storing photographs
• Storing newspaper clippings
• Keeping your car details safe (licence, tax and insurance documents)
• Storing vouchers and coupons

The list is endless! See what idea you can come up with, or share with us what you already use your clear plastic envelopes for by commenting on this article, we’d love to know your thoughts!

A great example of our cheapest envelopes is the 5 Star A4 Polypropylene wallets featured to the right. These premium quality envelope wallets are made from colourful, translucent polypropylene and are sealed with a press-stud closure which provides added security for your contents. Each wallet accepts 150 sheets of A4 paper and a pack contains 5 envelopes! For just £1.54 inc VAT, that really is a snip, so why not consider stocking up? If you’d like to discuss bulk orders with us, why not get in touch either by replying to this post, or calling a member of our team on 0870 766 1722!

Every single one of us has sat and stared, hopelessly, trying to read a dry wipe board (or whiteboard) which is smeared in the previous 5 years worth of text and illustrations. They tend to come featuring ‘a handy whiteboard cleaner’ however some of the time these simply move the dried ink to another area of the board! In time this can clog to an unbearable level where anything written on the board from that moment is frankly illegible. We need to be considering drywipe board cleaners.

With a little squirt and a rub down, your board can be restored to its former glory meaning that any text written upon it will stand out and will be clearly legible. A messy board only leads to a distracted eye and inevitably wasted time. When the solution is as simple as investing in whiteboard cleaners, why go on attempting to struggle through the mess?

An excellent example of a cleaning solution is the 5 Star Drywipe Wipes featured below.

• Drywipe Wipes
• Pre-moistened biodegradable wipes
• Designed to remove drywipe marker ink and ghosting from all boards
• Non-hazardous
• Non-flammable
• 100 wipes
• Just £3.97 inc VAT

These wipes are not only priced so that anyone with any budget can buy them, but they offer all the features you’d expect from a more highly priced brand. Made by the renowned 5 Star, you can feel assured of their quality too as each of their products come with a 12 months no quibble guarantee! There’s no doubting that you’ll be more than satisfied with the results you see on your whiteboard; if you’d like to purchase a bulk order of these wipes, remember to call us for a quote – 0870 766 1722.  

These days many individual and businesses opt for the laser printer in their homes and offices. With many companies’ now printing text and graphics it’s more important than ever before to achieve the quality that a laser printer gives. Businesses now print their own envelope designs and flyers rather than outsourcing the work, they create CD Labels and headed paper and they even send glossy print outs and photographs. And of course you have your everyday colour printing requirements such as charts and graphs and various presentation paperwork.

Thanks to inkjet, laser printers have not only a higher resolution, but they boast a higher print speed too. What’s more, when the print is complete, the ink won’t smear or bleed either, as it sometimes does with inkjets. The common misconception is that laser printers cost a fortune in ink in comparison to inkjet varieties; however it actually costs less per page to print with a laser printer as a single toner cartridge can actually last for thousands of pages!

At LA Office, not only can you get your hands on a great selection of Laser Printers, but we also have a large variety of Laser Labels too! Available from brands such as 5 Star and Avery you can choose between quality budget and superior perfection. Designed to work in sheet-fed laser printers, you can be confident in the perfect results you’ll receive.

We have a variety available in clear which are great when using coloured or patterned envelopes, plus we also have various other colours too, like blue, white, green, red, yellow, silver, neon red, fluorescent yellow and neon yellow! But that’s not all, the list goes on further! Our laser labels also come in permanent or repositionable adhesive too, along with other options such as Jam-Free, Quick-Peel, Recycled, Blackout, Price Gun, Block-Out, Anti-Tamper, Name Badge, No-Peel, Triple-Bond, Weatherproof and Pre-Printed. Phew! So before you shop, we suggest you decide specifically what it is you’re looking for!

If you’d like some help choosing, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! You can contact us on 0870 766 1722.

In the run up to Christmas we will be talking a great deal about the festive period and the effects this has on business. During this time here at LA Office we see some dramatic changes in the way our customers shop and the products they buy. Our sales of paper, envelopes, ink and labels go through the roof as companies are busy sending out promotional newsletters and offers to their customers. In accordance with this change we make sure our supplies of these items are greater so that we can meet customer demand, and what’s more, we bring our prices right down so that we can be sure that we’re ahead of the competition.

One of the best sellers is our Enveloping Machine Envelopes. With the dramatic increase in outbound mail during this season, businesses resort to envelope filling machines as they save time and of course resources. Using an envelope machine will free up people power leaving your staff to work on more trying matters than stuffing envelopes! What’s more, the envelope machine will do the job faster, without error and minus the paper cuts!

Our range of Envelopes For Automatic Envelope Filling Machines are available from the brands 5 Star and Postmaster giving you the choice of value for money or the quality you expect from bigger brands. However there isn’t much between the two and since Christmas is such an expensive time for us all, maybe it would be worth considering the 5 Star variety. Take for example these 5 Star White DL 90gsm Window Gummed Mail Machine Envelopes;

• 5 Star Mailing Machine Envelopes
• Oversized for machine insertion
• Biodegradable window film
• Trapeze style flaps to aid insertion
• Size: DL, 114 x 235mm
• White
• Packed 500
• Just £23.34 inc VAT!

At such great value for money and all the features and quality you would need and expect, why pay more? These envelopes are the ideal choice for sending out business mail; however they are also available in C5 size too for when you’re sending out greetings cards, brochures or documents that shouldn’t be folded more than once. If you’d like some assistance in choosing your perfect envelope, please do not hesitate to get in touch; call our offices on 0870 766 1722 where there is always someone on the other end of the phone more than happy to assist you.

Have you ever;

• Suffered the burden of a ‘sticky’ or worse still ‘silent’ keyboard key?
• Wasted a morning (or afternoon/evening) trying to get the dust and general gunk out of your keyboard (or any other computer peripheral nook)?
• Taken all the keys off your keyboard so that you can clean it?
• Damaged your keyboard by pushing dust and grime into is orifices?

Well worry not, technology has come on leaps and bounds and the value of our electronic goods has gone through the roof. Manufacturers have come up with various concepts which will help us to maintain the condition and working order of our gadgets and now you’ll find a great selection of cleaning products from many manufacturers. Here at LA Office time and time again we feel that our value brand 5 Star – although a budget brand – really holds its own. When it comes to computer cleaning requirements, do we really need the top brand, surely that’s just a waste of your money?

S Star are good competitors, they provide all the quality you need, they meet the current trends and designs and what’s more, they suit every ones pocket! 5 Star are now firmly established as one of the best-known office products brands in the UK and with 15 years experience behind them, they are now experts in their field! You can feel confident in their quality with a 12 month no quibble guarantee, plus they’re also one of the most widely available ranges of office products with over 22,000 products on offer!

Take the 5 Star Air Duster featured for example. This HFC free compressed gas can is carefully designed so that it can reach all the most difficult to reach places.

• Use on all printers, keyboards and office equipment
• Compressed gas to remove debris and dirt from hard to reach areas
• Extension tube included HFC free Flammable
• 400ml can
• Just £1.86 inc VAT

It’s very hard to find a negative side to 5 Star, they even have attractively designed packaging for clearer product display and product information, plus they also have a fantastic choice of ‘Green’ options for companies and individuals who are economically aware. If you’d like any more information about 5 Star or about air dusters for that matter, please get in touch on 0870 766 1722.

With technology at a peak, calendars on computers, memo’s and reminders on our phones and all kinds of applications on our phones and computers to help us be organised, it’s an absolute wonder that we’re steel using thinks like white boards, memo boards and cork boards. In my opinion our phones have become over complicated and now anyone who wants just a phone (and maybe one with a built in camera) has to learn how to use the most over complicated and fussy gadgets! Theme big phone giants can stick memo and reminder applications on them all they like, but nothing beats a written reminder, up there in your face and impossible to forget. It must be for this reason that the cork board is still so popular! In both the home and the workplace a cork board plays such an important role; you’ll find a cork board in your cafeteria or break room filled with notices and things like Health and Safety Posters, sales tips, for sale and wanted items, training opportunities and other like notices. In the home a cork board will be a valuable tool in remembering the crazy schedules of the councils bin men, your children and their school activities, local events to remember, invitations, shopping lists and so on. So jog on iPhone, the cork boards the one for me!

Here at LA Office we have a vast selection of cheap cork boards available so that you can kit out your entire office with one at every station. Carefully placed a cork board in every working station will offer each individual group or team use the same board. This may come in useful for targets and deadlines, holiday planning, group memo’s and team building or moral boosting exercise incentives. Our 5 Star Office Cork Board is the perfect solution if you’re looking to buy a few! At less than half the RRP, it’s just a snip at £4.17 inc VAT! With a board as cheap as this, you can afford to give your staff the implements they need to be organised. Featuring;

• Resilient cork pinning surface
• Pine frame
• Supplied with fixing kit
• WxH: 600 x 400mm (2’x1’4”)
• Just £4.17 Inc VAT!
• Quotes on bulk orders!

5 Star achieved 1st place in our Best Supplier for Price category and are a brand who have continued to serve our every need at a price we can all really afford. 5 Star products are now firmly established as one of the best-known office products brands in the UK and with 15 years experience behind them, they are now experts in their field and even offer a 12 month no quibble quality guarantee! Each 5 Star product now has attractively designed packaging for clearer product display and product information, plus they also have a fantastic choice of ‘Green’ options for those who are economically aware.

Treasury Tags (or India tags) are commonly used in school all over the globe. In fact I remember oh so well using these little things in school when making project books. However by the time I had trimmed my ‘topic cover’ and stuck on a fabulous picture, aligned and punched the holes with a hole punch, I was always left with those extra long treasury tags which are only any good if you’ve made your topic project book using sheets of cardboard, that or using about 300 pages! So a tip for you schools…your best off ordering the shorter ones :)

A treasury tag or India tag is basically a piece of strong string with two metal long ends that are used to thread through paper, the metal ends hold the paper together. By using treasury tags you can add or remove pages that you have placed inside the cover. Just remember that treasury tags need to be the right length in order to hold your paper together in the appropriate way. In order to make sure you purchase the right length without having to go through boxes and boxes of different sized treasury tags, just remember that the string of is usually around 3 to 8 cm or 1 to 3 inches long. The idea is that the strings of different lengths are designed for paper of different quantities or thickness. The more the quantity of paper, the longer the string will need to be, the same goes for the fewer the sheets of paper, the shorter the string will be. This may help;

·         Paper thickness up to 25mm - 25mm Treasury Tags

·         Paper thickness up to 51mm - 51mm Treasury Tags

·         Paper thickness up to 63mm - 63mm Treasury Tags

·         Paper thickness up to 76mm - 76mm Treasury Tags

·         Paper thickness up to 101mm - 101mm Treasury Tags