Taylor Business Products - A Little-Known Local Link in the Industrial Supply Chain

From Local Print Shop to Regional Industrial Supply Chain

If you’ve traveled much along Madison Boulevard in Roxboro, you’ve undoubtedly seen the iconic blue sign for Taylor Printing and Office Supply. Most likely, you’ve visited the retail center atop the hill at the corner of Madison Boulevard and Clayton Avenue to purchase office supplies, make high-quality photocopies, or order a print job for a special event.

What you may not know is how expansive their product lines are or how broad their market base.

Adapting and Innovating for Over 80 Years

The origin of the business goes back to 1943, when Jake Taylor set up a printing company to serve the needs of the local community. Fast forward to the late 1970s and current owner, Ray Wilkins, entered the story to buy the business from the retiring Taylor, at the urging of friend and fellow business owner, Jerry Clayton, Publisher Emeritus of The Courier-Times newspaper.

At the time that Wilkins took the reins of the print company, the business was already selling a few office products. Wilkins saw an opportunity and, by 1980, Taylor Printing became a full-fledged office supply store, complete with its own product catalog.

Taylor Business Products A Little Known Local Link in the Industrial Supply Chain — Zimmerman and Wilkins working in the Taylor Warehouse By Sherry Wilborn

That was in the era of Person County’s manufacturing heyday, when textiles were at their peak. Top customers included Tultex, Crown Crafts, Collins & Aikman, and several parachute companies, as well as Eaton Corporation and Carolina Power & Light.

When textile industries closed, Wilkins sought out new corporate clients, and Taylor expanded its territory into the Raleigh-Durham area, serving industry in the Research Triangle Park, Treyburn, and other areas surrounding Roxboro.

To further bolster business, Wilkins took advantage of being part of a network of independent office supply companies to expand its reach. As a result of this network, Taylor Business Products is able to service accounts all across North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina, and even as far away as Texas and Colorado.

As the office sector became more digitized, office supply revenue began to diminish, and Wilkins again set out to diversify. As he looked to what would come next, a customer asked if he offered vending. Wilkins had a close friend in the industrial supply space who suggested the sector would be a good fit for Taylor’s customer base. Wilkins soon invited that friend, Kent Zimmerman, to join his team and lead this new venture.

Today, Taylor Business Products carries industrial supply items that range from janitorial supplies to nuts and bolts, safety personal protective equipment, (PPE) and even certain types of pumps and small engines. When speaking with prospective customers, Zimmerman says, “You name it, we sell it!” Taylor’s customer base includes the office, education, technology, manufacturing, medical, and government sectors.

Specialized Service, ‘We Taylor Our Business to Meet Your Needs!’

Taylor’s agile approach to personalized customer service is a big part of how the company has secured relationships with large manufacturing operations in the Research Triangle area.

“They can get generalized delivery from other places, but we’ll deliver it right to the end user’s desk,” Zimmerman boasted.

Further, corporate customers share their needs with Ray and Kent, who then go to work customizing vendor-managed inventory systems, mainly through onsite stockrooms or actual product vending machines, complete with card readers or keypads to create more efficient inventory stocking and tracking.

According to Wilkins, “All the customer needs to do is provide the space. We’ll take care of design, setup, and maintenance from there on out.” In fact, Ray personally visits each stockroom on a weekly basis to ensure that things are in order.

Vending machines can be stocked with virtually anything the customer needs and uses often. Some locations have machines in multiple departments with one stocking safety glasses, nitrile gloves, and earplugs, while there may be another for the IT department with cables and cords.

They work much like a snack or soda vending machine. Taylor stocks them according to the customer’s needs, tracks the inventory, and replenishes the stock, as needed, and at least weekly.

Tracking and supplying inventory through these vendor-managed systems reduces the customer’s need for internal tracking by employees, eliminates under- and overstocking, and helps to reduce waste, thereby creating greater efficiencies for the customer on all fronts.

These systems consistently save customers 20 to 30 percent on their inventory costs, according to Zimmerman, who has spent more than a dozen years in this field. Plus, the customer has real-time access to inventory counts, data about which employees or departments are using which supplies, and can track costs down to the penny.

Other examples of personalized service and cost savings include free installation of product dispensers for janitorial supply customers and the creation of customized online ordering sites called punchout catalogs. Through these sites, customers can log in and order industry-specific or frequently used products with ease.

In fact, new to the Taylor website in January 2024 are seven online catalogs for Fittings, Industrial, Safety, Welding, Construction, Oil and Energy, and Janitorial. Combined, these catalogs feature more than 700,000 items.

Support Local, Support Local

Taylor Business Products provides local jobs for 17 employees. When area businesses utilize Taylor for office supplies and furnishings or janitorial and industrial supplies, they support a local business that in turn supports other local businesses, invests in local nonprofits, contributes to the tax base, and creates local jobs.

Where to Find

Whatever the size of your operation, you’ll want to do business with a company whose motto is, “We Taylor our business to meet YOUR needs!” Taylor demonstrates this with each customer through a focus on personalized customer service, flexibility, and generating savings through cost efficiencies.