Sunday, February 28, 2010

The Greenest Office Supply Store in the World

It was 2007 and after ten years at 500 Washington Street and close to 40 years on the 500 block of Washington Street, we decided to make the move to a smaller, more centrally located base of operation. There we could start from the ground up as the "greenest office supply store in the world."

First and foremost, we wee going to build our new store entirely of reused material and fixtures from our previous location. We took apart several fixtures, the cash wrap area, mirrored slatwall and, along with our greenest of inventory, put it all into storage until we could move into our new place. My father in law Peter, a retired engineer, was instrumental in the dis-assembly and re-assembly of the materials for reuse. Key to Peter's operation was the effective use of Avery 3/4 inch fluorescent dots, carefully placed to ensure successful reconstruction.

We rebranded our business as Waldeck's-Office Supplies for A Small Planet to better highlight our eco-orientation.

We provided free recycling of laser/inkjet cartridges, cell phones and batteries.

Next, we retrofitted all our light fixtures with low mercury, compact fluorescent tubes through the SF Energy Watch program. Soon, we became green certified by the SF Department of the Environment (our 500 Washington Street store was green certified as well).

We loaded the store with as many eco-friendly products as we could get our hands on. It was fun!

With a vibrant Starbucks directly across from us, a robust e-commerce platform called ECinteractive and a potentially lucrative State of California office supply contract, we felt we were entering a golden age of Waldeck's. All seemed wonderful, all was wonderful....

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Where Have All The Waldeck's Gone?

Recently, I was reflecting upon the over half century of Waldeck's existence here in this wonderful city of San Francisco. Since we always rented space during our fifty five years in business, I wanted to compile a list of "Where have all the Waldeck's Gone?" and who replaced them.

The first spot, 200 Davis Street, the old Produce Mart, is now Three Embarcadero Center.http://www.embarcaderocenter.com/ec/

The next location, 542 Sansome Street, is now Station 13 of the San Francisco Fire Department. http://www.sf-fire.org/index.aspx?page=176 We moved because the fire station was being built.

Moving across the street to 501 Sansome, the Niantic Building built atop the old Niantic Hotel is now 505 Sansome Street with a plaque commemorating the site of the Ship Niantic. In Waldeck's actual location is the yummy Specialty's.http://www.specialtysdirect.com/home_stores.asp

After 501 Sansome was condemned we moved over to 524-526 Washington Street. Today, our good friends at Speedway Digital Printing www.speedwayprinting.com occupy 524 Washington Street and, at 526 Washington Street, is Kvanum a Swedish Home/Office Fixture Company founded in 1923
http://www.kvanum.com/showrooms/usa/san-francisco

We then opened a second store located in Three Embarcadero Center (the site of Waldeck's first location). After fourteen years there giving it our best shot, we decided to close. Today, in the Waldeck's space is Phoa Hoa Noodle Soup, the largest Vietnamese restaurant Chain in North America. http://www.phohoa.com/locator_01.html#Anchor-USA.

After learning that 524-526 Washington Street would have to go through seismic retrofitting, we opted to move down the street to 500 Washington Street. A few years later, our wonderful upstairs neighbors, the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), bought the building. Today, the space once occupied by Waldeck's will now become a conference center for PPIC. I think that's really cool!

Monday, January 18, 2010

The Dreams of An Office Products Eco-Retailer

Happy New Year! As Waldeck's enters 2010, I find myself fantasizing about products that I'd love to stock but I don't think they exist. Hey, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and all these items are available, I just haven't found them yet.

Here are my Top 10 Eco-Friendly Products that could make Waldeck's customers world that much more wonderful.

1) A rechargeable battery display that reflects the true cost and environmental savings of rechargeable battery usage. It's apparent that the major battery companies would prefer not to sell or promote rechargeable batteries.

2) A battery recharger that could recharge 24-36 batteries at a time. That way batteries can be reused in a more industrial environment.


3) A refillable pen kit. A roller/gel/ballpoint pen with 5-10 refills in a handy storage case. Currently, pen refills are sold in individual packaging. Similar to recharging batteries, the writing instrument industry doesn't seem to really want their pens to be refilled.

4) A handcranked or squeeze-action powered laser pointer. They can do it for flashlights and radios, why not laser pointers and other electrical devices.

5) Recycled content toilet paper in a denser triple or quad rolled format. No core on the inside would be nice as well.

6) A device, like a soda fountain, that can dispense a variety of eco-friendly cleaning liquids into reusable personal dispensers.

7) A similar dispensing device that could be used for powdered cleaning products as well.

8) A hand pump powered compressed air duster for computers. The aerosol cans seem so inefficient and wasteful.

9) Recycled content Scotch tape. I've found it in packaging tape but not in the regular desk top rolls. Come on 3M, it's called "Magic Tape", work your magic and make it eco-friendly.

10) An affordable duplex printing multifunction machine. Yes, printing on both sides of the paper is eco-desirable but for the smaller user, it's cost prohibitive.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

It's Been A Wonderful Year

Great news...December was our best sales month the entire year. Looks like we're starting to hit on all cylinders. Hmmm, if Waldeck's strives to be the latest and greatest in eco-oriented click and mortar businesses, can we use the internal combustion engine as a metaphor? Do plug in hybrids even have cyclinders? Us green businesses, we have to be very careful with our messaging.
Anyway...

It's been a wonderful year. Waldeck's was selected by the California Air Resources Board for their first ever "Cool California" Award. We substantially upgraded our e-commerce platform for easier online ordering for our customers. We landed the contract of the San Francisco Mayor's Office and had a festive 55 year anniversary celebration.

In 2010, we look forward to serving our current customers even better, bringing lots of new customers into the fold and, as always, making the purchases of office supplies a joyful, community-oriented, eco-friendly experience.

Happy New Year!

Clifford Waldeck

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Loma Prieta and Waldeck's--20 Years Later

1989, it was a wonderful time for Waldeck’s, I’d been working with my dad for eight years, business was good, we were looking to expand and we were excited about becoming the first office supply store ever in the Embarcadero Center (EC). My high school friend, Karin Young of the Edward Plant Company, was the leasing agent for EC and we found a reasonably priced site with high car traffic visibility. With my brother in law as the contractor, we began construction on the store and the excitement and anticipation was building. Waldeck’s was opening a second store!

On the baseball front, these were wonderful times as well. My friend Bill, had a friend named Bill who had a friend Chris who worked for one of the TV networks and he had many, many tickets to all the playoff games. My friends and I were in playoff heaven as we attended most of the A’s and Giant’s playoff games that lead to the World Series.

My high school buddies Bob and Doug came with me to Game Three at Candlestick. Great seats, twenty rows behind third base. I was getting some food before the game and while returning to the seats, standing at about the top of the box seat section, I felt a sensation like I was standing in a canoe trying to balance…wobbling for a few seconds. I thought “hey, it’s an earthquake…what a trip!” Bob, Doug and I were reveling in the novelty of the experience and expecting the game to start any moment, unbeknownedst to the realities of the outside world. Bob was listening on his radio and heard that the Bay Bridge had collapsed. A collective “Whoa…that’s gnarly!” and seriousness quickly set in. We stuck around Candlestick for a quite a while and when the stadium cleared out we knew it was time to leave.

We first drove to Waldeck’s Embarcadero store, which was to open in three weeks. Aside from a few broken glass shelves, the store was fine. Our flagship 526 Washington Street store experienced more damage, the window above our front door had shattered, lots of merchandise was all over the floor and a few fixtures has toppled.

Next we went to the St. Francis Hotel to find our friend Chris. Walking around the darkened interior, we ran into Chris Berman of ESPN, had a nice conversation and gave him our flashlight. A few weeks later, I received a nice note from Chris Berman thanking us for the flashlight. We found our friend Chris, he was okay and at about 11:00 p.m., Doug, Bob and I headed home driving past the glow of the Marina fires on the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge. What a day of transition.

And the 20 years since October 17 1989 have been years of transition, too. We opened the Embarcadero store on schedule. We invested in large signs that could be seen by the thousands of motorists that would pass by our store as they entered the Embarcadero Freeway - needless to say, the motorists never came! Although Waldeck’s was in a remote outside corner of the Embarcadero Center where some customers would comment “I didn’t know you were here…but we’re glad you are!", we had many great customers from law offices, insurance companies and investment firms housed in the Embarcadero Center, as well as the warm, friendly, retirees living in the Golden Gateway Center apartments.

Unfortunately, Waldeck’s remoteness had its downside as well. With two armed robberies, three break-ins, and a landlord request to remodel, we decided to close the store after a 14-year run; Waldeck’s location there is now a Vietnamese restaurant.

Now in 2009, just a few blocks away, Waldeck's is still in business, a leader in the greening of the office supply industry and through the effective use of the internet and all its tools like e-commerce and e-marketing, Waldeck's is reaching many more potential customers than any freeway on ramp ever could!

Monday, September 14, 2009

It's Nice Having Friends Around the State

Over the past few years, I've had the pleasure to work with other small businesses around California on a statewide office supply contract. Shawn and Oz in Campbell, Tim in San Diego, James in Santa Monica, Bonnie in Rancho Cordova, Mark in Roseville, Tim and Susan in Lafayette--it continues to be a wonderful collective groove as we share stories of our businesses, our great customers and even what we do when we're not wearing our office supply hats. I consider them my friends. Best of luck to all us...I look forward to working with you for years to come!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

I Love Being In The Sentiment Business

I contend that no green office supply store is complete without a large assortment of eco-friendly greeting cards.

Yeah, I know there's Facebook, Linkedin, e-mail, blogs, Twitter...hey, I use 'em all but, with all due respect to the electronic era, nothing beats a nice hand written note...it's personal, tactile and kind of shows that you care about someone. They can be humorous, warm, serious, caring, loving and just downright silly.


All Waldeck's greeting cards are either made of recycled paper or tree free paper...some are even made with hemp (put THAT in your pipe and...).

Perhaps, the most wonderful feeling is when two people are looking at the cards together, start chuckling, laughing harder and then start laughing and chuckling about the next card before they're done laughing and chuckling from the previous card. It's a joyful sound that brings alot of positive vibes and great spirit into Waldeck's and that's why I love being in the sentiment business.