Tonnex gets preferred supplier deal with Office National

Victoria-based consumables distributor, Tonnex International, has become a national preferred wholesale partner for corporate supplies reseller, Office National.

Tonnex International director, George Solomon, said it had been dealing with select Office National members for some time, mainly on the eastern seaboard, but did not previously have a relationship with its head office.

The new arrangement came into effect on September 1 and was expected to add $15m-$24m in annual revenue, Solomon said.

“We have a strong relationship with Brother, which helped us get into Office National as they are a big reseller of Brother products,” he said. “It also gives their members more exposure to more vendors.”

Office National CEO, Andrew Boath, said Tonnex offered its members a great range of programs including rebates and rewards schemes as well as access to key vendors such as HP. While the office supplies group will mostly source consumables from Tonnex, he said there would also an opportunity to access IT hardware further down the track. The distributor is also providing marketing support.

“Tonnex now has a national capability, which has improved service and logistics capabilities,” Boath said. “With 170 members, logistics and service levels are important to us as we don’t have central warehouses ourselves.”

In other news, Tonnex has brought on former Epson sales manager, Dean McGrath, as its national sales and operations manager. Solomon said the “critical” role had been created to help drive its national strategy.

The distributor has also recently relocated its Victorian office to the Melbourne suburb of Tottenham. The new warehouse measures 1500sqm, making it nearly five times larger than its former location, Solomon said.

“We had outgrown our old premises – this [new facility] now gives us a platform to build on for the next three or four years,” he said. “In the long term we hope to build our own state-of-the-art distribution centre.”