Monk Office

Great place for office supplies and office furniture

Love it. Would buy from again :) Online store is clunky though.The good• Friendly staff• Locally owned in Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver Island. So better for the local economy. Compare to Staples. Which is U.S. owned.• Price are equal or roughly equal to major competitors• Live chat with the online store is very useful, fast, and friendly. Which is very useful for quick questions when ordering items• Check out is easy• Free shipping from online store. If requirements are met.The bad• Online store has poor usability, feels clunk, and is ugly. It seems to be made by IBM WebSphere. I prefer Drupal Commerce or other open source software. Which are community-owned, no lock-in, license free, either with free or paid support, and large community of contributors around it.• Search engine with online store is very basic. It’s hard to find items. You can't sort the result. Clunky.• Minimum security. Password are only 20 characters maximum length. No two-factor authentication. So riskier to get your accounts hack with the online store.• Email address with the online stores does not support the + symbol. That symbol is a web standard. It reduces spam.

Staff is always friendly and very helpful

A bit more expensive than Staples. Usually have what you need. Parking can be a bit tight.

Monk's Office now stocks art supplies!

Called to ask about an obscure item that I use and they had it in stock! Purchased that and some supplies for my file cabinet efficiently with the assistance of the staff person (thank you). I like supporting small local businesses but it really makes it so much more appealing when there's good service, decent stock and reasonable prices (and a couple of options for choices) which I find that Monk has. Bonus is the atmosphere - no hiking into a huge store and I think there's carpet - in any case it's much more calming than shopping in giant stores with high ceilings.

I have been shopping at Monk for many years, well before Staples came to town. Although I occasionally go to Staples for items/service Monk doesn't carry/offer, I will normally wait for them to get an out of stock item. Monk is a family owned business that started in Victoria and grew organically. I don't see a big price difference. I am self employed and am willing to pay a premium to buy local. Who is Staples?....I don't know them. I know the Monk folks and always get good service.