Office product reviews – Frillo

Finding office supplies at the best price

We all need to keep stocked up with office supplies, but what’s the best way to buy – to pick up bits and pieces with the rest of your shopping, or go to a specialist supplier? One of our review panel tried out Frillo, the newest supplier on the block.

Frillo, office supplies and stationery

What is it?
Frillo is a new company with a website selling stationery and supplies for all your office needs, home or otherwise, and is similar to companies such as Euroffice and Viking.

Design (from 1 to 5 stars) ****
I’ve used Viking in the past and found it quite cluttered so I was pleasantly surprised by the clear, friendly and quite user-centric design of the Frillo website. I felt the navigation was well laid out with clear, relevant headings and I loved the bright colours which gave the website an appealing overall ‘look’. After all, stationery doesn’t have to be boring.

When searching for products you are initially given a few items to view, however it is only one click to view more products per page. It would be nice if the website remembered your preference for different searches though. I did note that there weren’t many search filters for some products, this might be a welcome addition for users.

One niggle was that there were not as many product images as I would have liked. For instance, I spent some time looking at Filofax products but for all of them there was only one image of the outside of the organiser and nothing to show how the inside looked. Yes, I could have gone to the Filofax website to find out more but that defeats the object a little. I do believe this is being addressed in the next month or two which is great that the company are intent on improving their customer experience.

How easy is it to use? *****
I found the Frillo website extremely easy to use. As stated, the navigation was clear and the sub-headings were well thought-out to enable users to quickly find the sections they were looking for. It has a very uncluttered design which makes the relevant information easy to read. The search box is very visible and returned a good result for whatever I searched. Contact information is only a click away on each page and there’s a handy video to persuade you why you should use the Frillo website and what makes them different from their competitors.

Pricing ****(because of delivery charge)
All the product prices were very clear to understand with the actual price and savings from RRP highlighted in different colours. I was also glad to see it clearly state on every product that the price shown excludes VAT.

I compared random product pricing with one of its competitors, Euroffice, and found that every product was cheaper on the Frillo website.

Cost Price FRILLO – £63.75 (Click on image to see larger view)

Cost Price EUROFFICE – £74.41

However, whereas Euroffice give you free delivery on orders over £30, the Frillo free delivery only kicks in when you spend over £100. My basket had a charge of £6.11 for next day delivery which made the overall total more expensive than Euroffice.

I did like the way all the charges were laid out openly on the Frillo website, including the VAT amount due and a handy link to email the Chancellor of the Exchequer to ask what the VAT is used for (should you wish to know).

Frillo encourage you to buy more but less often which, especially in light of their delivery charge, seems quite sensible – ‘The bigger the basket, the cheaper it is, so why not shop half as often and buy twice as much. You’ll save money and have to do less paperwork, win-win.
The average stationery order size is £58 and our research shows that if you order over £70 worth of stationery from us, we will be cheaper than our competitors. Buy even more, we will be even cheaper.’

Does it save money? ****
Yes, if you order over £100 of goods and, as they suggest, buy more less often, then you will make good savings with Frillo.

Worth a look? *****
Definitely. After all, if you can save money then why not try it?

Overall score **** 4

Best for
Anyone who bulk orders stationery and office supplies. If you don’t need this much, why not get together with friends and put in a joint order?

With thanks to Frillo.co.uk for supplying credit for our reviewer to try out the site.