Adding jan-san, PPE, workwear and catering to an office dealership
Your office accounts already buy cleaning, kitchen and safety supplies from someone. Where to source them, the rules each brings, stock or supplier-direct, pricing by category and the website.
The office manager who orders your copier paper also buys hand towels, bin liners, milk, coffee, first aid kits and, if there is a warehouse, gloves and hi-vis. Often from three other suppliers. Every one of those orders is spend an office dealer could be taking, from a customer who already trusts you with a delivery.
The trade's software houses say the same. ECI, which supplies ERP and webstores to office dealers, heads a section of its business products page "Diversify or risk ‘goodbye’" and offers dealers a guide to expanding into new categories (ecisolutions.com, checked 29 October 2026). This guide is the practical side for a UK dealer who wants to diversify an office dealership online: which categories fit, where to source them, the rules each brings, whether to stock or have suppliers deliver direct, how to price each category and how to show them on your website. Disclosure: we build Orbit Commerce, so we have a stake in this. Orbit gets one section near the end.
Why are office dealers adding jan-san, PPE, workwear and catering?
- Same buyer. In most small and mid-sized businesses, whoever orders the stationery also orders cleaning and kitchen supplies. One supplier for all of it means one account, one invoice and one delivery.
- Same buying routes. Public buyers already group them. The Government Commercial Agency's Office Solutions agreement (RM6299), open to all UK public sector organisations, "can include items such as stationery, paper, electronic office supplies (EOS) and janitorial products" (gca.gov.uk, checked 29 October 2026). Our guide to selling to schools, councils and the NHS online covers that route.
- Often the same wholesaler. When VOW Wholesale joined the Federation of Wholesale Distributors in December 2022, it was described as distributing more than 24,000 products to 4,000 resellers, with specialisms including "catering and breakroom supplies, cleaning and hygiene products and office supplies" (wholesalenews.co.uk, checked 29 October 2026). Many dealers can start from a trade account they already hold.
- Repeat spend. Toilet rolls, hand towels, coffee and gloves run out every month, which suits a website built for reordering.
- Defence. Specialist distributors sell these lines into your accounts. Once they hold the cleaning contract, they are one conversation away from your stationery.
Which categories fit an office account's spend?
Our view, category by category. Start with the one closest to what your customers already buy from you.
| Category | Typical lines | Fit with office accounts | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breakroom and catering | Tea, coffee, milk, sugar, biscuits, cups, stirrers, disposables | Closest: every office has a kitchen | Prices compared with the supermarket; food business registration; mixed VAT rates |
| Jan-san and paper hygiene | Hand towels, toilet rolls, bin liners, washroom dispensers, cleaning chemicals | Close: regular, repeat, delivered with the stationery | Heavy and bulky to move; safety data sheets and hazard information for chemicals |
| PPE | Gloves, hi-vis, safety eyewear, first aid | Good where accounts run warehouses, workshops, schools or sites | UKCA or CE marking and documents; buyers check standards |
| Workwear | Polo shirts, fleeces, trousers, safety footwear, branded uniforms | Good for accounts with staff in uniform | Size and colour runs, embroidery lead times, size exchanges |
Where do dealers source jan-san, PPE, workwear and catering?
Usually from three places, in this order. The businesses named here are examples, not recommendations:
- Your current office wholesaler. Ask what it already carries in these categories, on what terms, and whether its product data covers them as well as it covers stationery.
- Specialist distributors and networks. Jan-san has its own trade. Jangro describes itself as "The UK & Ireland's largest network of independent janitorial distributors", with cleaning chemicals, paper products, catering disposables, workwear and PPE on its site (jangro.net, checked 29 October 2026). Instock describes itself as "one of the largest independent distributors of cleaning and non-food catering supplies in the UK" (tuco.ac.uk, checked 29 October 2026). Some specialists are possible suppliers, some will be competitors in your accounts, and some are both, so ask how each treats resellers.
- Manufacturers that sell through distributors. In workwear and PPE, Portwest says it "welcomes enquiries from new and existing Agents, Distributors and Wholesalers", for a range of over 1,500 styles across hi-vis, flame-resistant clothing, workwear, foot protection and PPE (portwest.co.uk, checked 29 October 2026).
Ask each new supplier the questions you would ask a stationery wholesaler (the full list is in our guide to getting supplier catalogues onto your website), plus three for these categories. Will they deliver direct to your customer, in plain packaging? Do safety data sheets and declarations of conformity come with the product data? And are sizes and colours set up as variants of one product, or as hundreds of separate codes?
What rules come with each new category?
Each category brings a rule or two that stationery doesn't. This is a summary, not legal advice:
- Cleaning chemicals. HSE's guidance is that if you supply chemicals to others, "you must pass on information (as safety data sheets) to those whom you supply" (hse.gov.uk, checked 29 October 2026). GB CLP also requires any advertisement that lets a member of the public buy a hazardous mixture without first seeing the label to mention the types of hazard on that label (Article 48, checked 29 October 2026), so put the hazard information on the product page.
- PPE. HSE says most new PPE placed on the GB market "must be UKCA or CE marked, supplied with a declaration of conformity and instructions in English", and that distributors have duties alongside manufacturers and importers (hse.gov.uk, checked 29 October 2026). Get those documents from your supplier before a line goes live.
- Food and drink. GOV.UK says that if you sell, store or distribute food, including online and through distance selling, you may be a food business, that registration is required at least 28 days before trading, and that it is free (gov.uk, checked 29 October 2026).
- VAT. Breakroom ranges mix rates. HMRC's food notice zero-rates tea, coffee, milk and most plain biscuits, while chocolate biscuits and confectionery are standard-rated (VAT Notice 701/14, checked 29 October 2026). Set the rate product by product, not per category.
- Carriage. Couriers restrict some chemicals and aerosols. Check your carrier's rules before you promise next-day delivery on them.
Should you stock new categories or have the supplier deliver direct?
Stock is where diversification usually goes wrong, and each category brings its own kind of risk. Workwear multiplies codes: one polo shirt in eight sizes and six colours is 48 SKUs before any embroidery. PPE needs size runs too, in gloves, footwear and coveralls. Catering has best-before dates. Jan-san is heavy and bulky: cases of hand towels and 5 litre chemicals fill a stockroom fast and cost more to move.
Supplier-direct delivery removes most of that. You list the range, the customer orders from you at your price, and the supplier delivers to them. The cost moves elsewhere: a drop charge per order, carriage-paid thresholds a small order won't reach, and a customer who gets three deliveries for one order. One middle way is to hold the fast movers that ride on your own van (paper hygiene, bin liners, tea and coffee) and have suppliers deliver workwear, footwear and specialist PPE direct. Either way, the website should raise the supplier's order as soon as the customer's order is paid, keep stock in step and bring tracking back. Dropshipping with Orbit shows how that works on Orbit.
How should new categories look on your website?
You don't need a separate janitorial supplies website or workwear supplier website. Departments on the site your customers already use keep the account in one place:
- Give each category its own department in the main menu, named the way buyers say it: Cleaning and hygiene, Kitchen and breakroom, Workwear, Safety and PPE. Under "Other", a range might as well not exist.
- Build a landing page per department with your own words above the products: what you stock, who delivers, how fast, where you deliver, and answers to the questions buyers ask, such as which glove suits which job or which towel fits which dispenser.
- Cross-sell from what they already buy. Bin liners and hand towels beside the paper, milk and cups beside the coffee, gloves on the chemical pages. A line in your order confirmation emails ("we now supply cleaning and kitchen supplies too") reaches the people most likely to buy.
- Show what a trade buyer checks: pack size and price per unit, prices ex and inc VAT, sizes in stock, delivery time, and the documents: safety data sheets, hazard information and the standard each item of PPE meets.
- Make reordering quick. Consumables are bought again every month, so a reorder button on past orders saves the buyer hunting for everything again.
These are lines people search for by product, so they belong in your shopping feeds too; see Google Shopping for office supplies and furniture dealers.
How should you price jan-san, PPE, workwear and catering?
By category, because they don't behave alike. Tea and coffee get compared with the supermarket; branded PPE and embroidered workwear are bought on fit, standard and service. One flat markup across all of them either loses the breakroom work or gives margin away on workwear. The table shows different target margins on the same £10 trade cost. The margins are assumptions for illustration, not market data:
| Category | Assumed target margin | Selling price ex VAT on a £10 cost | Same as a markup of | VAT rate (check each line) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tea, coffee and breakroom | 15% | £11.76 | 17.6% | 0% for tea, coffee, milk; 20% for chocolate biscuits |
| Paper hygiene and bin liners | 25% | £13.33 | 33.3% | 20% |
| Cleaning chemicals | 30% | £14.29 | 42.9% | 20% |
| PPE | 35% | £15.38 | 53.8% | 20% |
| Workwear | 40% | £16.67 | 66.7% | 20% |
Two traps. First, margin and markup are different numbers: price a range at "40%" as a markup when you meant a margin and you make 28.6%, on every sale. The arithmetic is in markup vs margin on trade price lists, and our margin calculator does the sums ex and inc VAT. Second, carriage: if a supplier charges you a drop fee on small direct orders, build it into the price or the delivery charge, or a £15 order of gloves can lose money.
How does Orbit help an office dealer add new categories?
Orbit is ours, so read this with that in mind.
- Supplier connections, on every plan. Connect a supplier that is on Orbit, tick the products you want, and they import with images, variants, brand, category and specs. Stock syncs. Cost and content changes wait in an Updates inbox, or can be set to apply automatically, and a connection can be set to add the supplier's new products as they are published. When a customer's order is paid, Orbit raises one purchase order per supplier, as a draft for you to check or sent straight to the supplier, and tracking comes back to the customer's order. This works with suppliers connected on Orbit, and you can invite one that isn't from your dashboard. Orbit doesn't move money between you and the supplier.
- Pricing rules per category. Each connection prices by your rules: a percentage markup, a percentage margin or a fixed amount, rounded to .99 or .95 if you like, matched by brand, by the supplier's category or your own, or by cost band. Rules run in the order you set and the first match wins, so breakroom, jan-san, PPE and workwear can each carry their own margin, with a catch-all underneath. For a shop that shows prices inc VAT, a connection can add VAT to the supplier's ex VAT prices and match its VAT classes to yours.
- CSV import for ranges from suppliers not on Orbit, through a column mapper, and Shopify and WooCommerce product CSVs import as they are. The selling price comes from the file, so work it out in the spreadsheet first.
- VAT, delivery and reorders. UK VAT at 20%, 5% and 0% is set up for you, and each product carries its own rate, so zero-rated tea and standard-rated chocolate biscuits sit in one basket. Shipping classes, conditional rates and postcode rules charge a case of hand towels differently from a box of pens. Customers can reorder a past order, and a Buy it again element keeps their usual lines one click away.
- Department menus. The office themes on Orbit's theme store are built for broad catalogues: Apex has a department mega-menu, Index a dense department grid with an A to Z category index, and Depot price-first tiles and a bulk-buy band. Each is a £120 one-off.
How Orbit fits a supplies dealership is on Orbit for office supplies dealers, and the wider picture is on Orbit for the office industry. Plans start at £25 a month ex VAT (£19 billed yearly) after a 14-day free trial.
Questions dealers ask about adding categories
Do I need to register as a food business to sell tea and coffee online?
Probably. GOV.UK says businesses that sell or distribute food, including online, may be food businesses and must register with their council at least 28 days before trading, free of charge, so check with your council's environmental health team before the first order ships.
Can Orbit price each new category differently?
Yes, for products from suppliers connected on Orbit, on every plan. Pricing rules match by brand, supplier category, your own category or cost band, and the first matching rule sets the price, so each category can carry its own markup or margin.