Yuletide Office Solutions adapts to changing industry
Small Business Spotlight for The Memphis Daily News
Oct. 26, 2013
Paperless office. It’s a phrase to strike fear in the heart of any office supply provider.
“I used to sell ‘While You Were Out’ pads in the two-part books every day,” said Chris Miller, president of Yuletide Office Solutions. “I might sell a dozen ‘While You Were Out’ pads once every three months now.”
Despite this environmental shift, Miller has risen to the challenges and changes in his business to embrace it as opportunity. For instance, what he doesn’t sell in note pads and printer paper now, he more than makes up for in office furniture.
Chris Miller, president of Yuletide Office Solutions, said the company has evolved over the years as businesses’ office needs have changed.
(Photo: Andrew J. Breig)
Though furniture long has been available in the company’s catalog, the focus switched to full-service design in 2012 when Yuletide’s new showroom was opened on Sycamore View Road at Interstate 40. Two designers were hired to keep up with increasing demand, and the team works from the beginning to the end of projects with clients and architects to provide layouts for existing space and new construction. Because of such attention to detail and their longevity in the business, Miller said, “We were up 55 percent last year in our furniture segment.”
Yuletide was begun in 1972 by Miller’s father, Paul Miller, whose family has owned Miller Wood Trade Publications, a niche publisher for the forest products industry, since 1927. The elder Miller, says the younger, began the office supply company to “teach all of his sons a sales background so that they could go into his publishing businesses, and then he was going to close it.”
Miller began work at 16 and began running the supply venture in 1985 at the age of 28. His first order of business was to join a national buying group, which allowed him to buy more inventory direct from the manufacturer at lower prices, and pass those savings along to his customers. Yuletide now has 34 employees and a client list that includes notable local entities such as Duncan-Williams Inc., Vining Sparks IBG, Delta Medical Center, Porter-Leath and the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority . . . (read more)