When Penguin Office Supplies owner Chris Hopkinson walks into a customer meeting, he’s never empty-handed. He always takes a packet of Penguin biscuits and over the years they’ve become an effective icebreaker and conversation starter. “It’s an immediate catchy thing that nobody else can do,” he laughs.
It’s a clever marketing gimmick, but also a fitting introduction to the dealer’s story. The Penguin name came from family rather than a branding agency and says something about a business shaped by the strength of relationships. It belongs to Hopkinson’s wife, who was randomly given the nickname by his younger brother Matt while they were all still at school. When the business launched in 2015, the name resurfaced. “Penguins work together, help each other in partnership and stay together for life. I thought it was a great analogy for how I wanted to operate the business,” Hopkinson explains.
He grew up around the workplace supplies industry. His father spent over a decade as Lyreco’s Sales Director and Hopkinson joined the company as a fresh-faced 21-year-old. A stint at Pama Office Supplies followed before he “scratched an itch” to set up his own business. As a one-man band, Penguin spent its first eight years as part of dealer services network Nectere.
Fortunately, Hopkinson sensed trouble brewing there and made the decision to leave around nine months before it completely collapsed in January 2024. It cost Penguin “some money” to walk away but ensured that it survived when many others didn’t.
Moving to Office Power brought greater structure around the business, tightening up its systems and processes. “Office Power was great and provided a really good service,” he notes. Ironically, Penguin’s decision to move on from Nectere put it in a position to assist four dealers left stranded when it went bust. They now trade under the Penguin brand, sharing its infrastructure and back-office support.
The team grew, with two part-timers joining to take on customer accounts of their own; but the real turning point came when Hopkinson’s brother, Matt, joined the business last year. “If I’m going to trust anyone with my career baby, it’s him,” he says candidly. The pair could hardly be more different professionally, which has become one of Penguin’s core strengths. Hopkinson focuses on the sales role, while Matt handles the operational side: reporting, data analysis, supplier relationships and technology. It’s the perfect front-office/back-office combination.
Building momentum
With a team of four, the business is thriving. Sales reached £940,000 in 2025 and Penguin expects to hit £1.25 million this year. Sales between April and July 2026 were running around 50% ahead of the same period last year. Even so, Hopkinson is under no illusions: “It’s a tough industry, so it’s nice to know we must be doing something right.”
Behind that growth is a deliberate investment in the infrastructure needed to support a more sophisticated operation. With Matt on board and 60% of sales now coming through the website, Penguin switched to Prima (by ECI Software Solutions) for its back-office systems, e-commerce and ENGAGE CRM. Hopkinson says that the CRM has proved genuinely useful, helping the sales team to keep detailed customer records and drill down into data at a granular level. “We work on a personalised basis with all our clients, so access to this information and the ability to do direct catalogue comparisons and check pricing have been invaluable,” he adds.
That same focus on adaptation has shaped Penguin’s product strategy. The dealer is moving away from shrinking product categories such as traditional OP and diversifying into categories such as furniture (including fit-outs), janitorial and hygiene supplies, PPE, workwear and promotional merchandise.
As it stands, furniture now accounts for 37% of total sales, with janitorial and hygiene supplies close behind. PPE and workwear are also on an upward trajectory, aided by adding new suppliers both inside and outside the normal wholesale channel and going direct to manufacturers where it makes sense.
Says Hopkinson: “We are always open to new products and supplier suggestions and welcome assistance in getting them off the ground. CTS Wholesale, for example, supports us with Beeswift workwear; but we also have a direct relationship with Supertouch, which has been excellent – especially for hairnets, gloves, beard snoods and other protective clothing and PPE for food-industry clients.”
Penguin also works with local trade-only embroidery and print firms to handle personalised branding for workwear and uniforms, and promotional merchandise. This willingness to explore new markets, products and services as the industry changes has brought the dealer a varied customer base: schools, warehouses and solicitors sit alongside food manufacturers, marketing agencies and financial advisers.
“ENGAGE has really proved its worth here,” reports Hopkinson. “We can keep tabs on who has been contacted, who hasn’t placed an order yet and so on. But we also actually talk to our customers and that means we get to ask different questions of different businesses in different sectors and find out all kinds of useful information.”
A foot in the door
Local and national partnerships have become the bedrock of Penguin’s growth, enabling the dealer to move beyond order processing towards becoming a services and solutions provider. A case in point: a large customer already buying OP and janitorial products introduced Penguin to its facilities manager, who had been let down on an urgent order for desking for 24 people. “That came from talking to the customer, who had asked people in their building, ‘Have you spoken to Penguin?’” Hopkinson recalls.
The team matched the price, agreed to the tight deadline and carried out the installation. “In short, we have now picked up the furniture business for this client, and it works exceptionally well because we have great relationships with the suppliers and their installation teams,” states Hopkinson.
Furniture installations are increasingly turning into fit-outs and office refurbishments. One recent project happened almost by accident, when a client asked whether Penguin had supplied the furniture and undertaken any other work in the office. Yes, as it turned out. The conversation snowballed into a full office refurbishment, with Penguin acting as project manager and a single point of contact between the client and a trusted local supplier: “It’s really opened up what we’re able to do and customers know they can call us at any point for guidance on the project.”
For Hopkinson, the value lies in making the whole process easy and straightforward for the client: “I like to think of us as Amazon, but with someone to talk to. We’re just as cost-effective and while customers may not need us for anything until the fifth order – whether that’s to check the right printer cartridge or match a chair bought years ago – we’re there to provide that high level of service. The same goes for the partners we work with.”
Hopkinson believes that the project-led side of the dealership is good for both profitability and job satisfaction, and he’s keen to promote its services further. Working with dealer group Superstat, Penguin is building case studies for marketing purposes to showcase what it can do and to highlight its wider range of products and services.
The dealer has also just signed up to the Carbon Neutral Britain programme, a carbon-offsetting initiative offered through Superstat. Penguin’s carbon footprint is already relatively low, but Hopkinson is conscious that working with larger clients means having credible sustainability credentials.
Doing the right thing matters to him beyond the numbers. A believer in karma, he quotes his father: “Do the right thing consistently and good things will come back to you consistently.”
Beyond carbon offsetting, small changes have already made a difference, including adding ‘eco-aware’ labels to products online and implementing a £50 minimum order for next-day delivery. That threshold has cut the number of deliveries by encouraging customers to consolidate orders, while also lifting average order value. The Penguin team is keen to point out to customers that fewer deliveries mean less time and paperwork for the purchasing and accounts departments.
Room to manoeuvre
Like most ambitious entrepreneurs, Hopkinson already has his sights set beyond this year. The next milestones are to hire another salesperson, to secure a dedicated office to support a larger team and to reach £1.5 million in sales in 2027. While the expectation is to hit that figure organically, he isn’t ruling out acquisitions, mergers or an expansion of the existing commission-sharing model. “I’m open to talking to dealers about diversifying their product range and coming to an agreement that suits everyone.”
There are plenty of options on the table, but Hopkinson is clear about what any potential deal would need to bring: a good reputation and a loyal customer base. He adds: “We’re happy if customers are just buying OP because we can help them to expand into growing categories such as workwear, furniture and hygiene – all the areas where we have found growth.
“We want to continue building the business steadily and sustainably, so customers keep coming back; but it’s equally important that the team are happy, healthy and enjoying themselves.”
