Decade of service carries Nixa office supply company

Founders Bruce and Charlene Gabbard started out remanufacturing Hewlett Packard toner cartridges. Today, the company sells 27,000 office supply products, from staples and paper clips to janitorial supplies.

Gabbard started the business with her late husband, Bruce, in 1995 as CB Laser. The name pays homage to the founders – she is the C, and he is the B – and its initial purpose.

“‘Laser’ was for the laser toner cartridges,” the company remanufactured, Charlene Gabbard said. “When we went to full office supply we incorporated the two names as CB Laser-Home of Nixa Office Supply.”

The new name was registered with the Office of the Missouri Secretary of State in September 2001.

Home-based

CB Laser began in the Gabbards’ country home, but a year later they expanded into a storefront in Nixa’s Westside Center to accommodate a growing delivery business. A few years later, customer demand prompted the addition of office supplies.

“Our service has been what has kept us going,” Gabbard added. “Orders in by three o’ clock will be delivered the next day; there is no delivery charge. We are small, so we get to know people over the phone and our delivery people get to know the customers.”

Gabbard said the personal relationships built over the years have maintained a steady business. Gabbard declined to disclose figures, but she said revenues have increased annually and are up 50 percent over CB Laser’s first year of operation.

She employs two full-time employees and two part-time employees.

“I have a strong clientele, a lot of them I have had for 10 years,” she said. “A lot of individuals who have moved on to other businesses have taken me with them to their new business, so I am pretty proud of that.”

One such longtime customer is David Manning, who manages inventory for the information technology administrative support office of The General Council of the Assemblies of God. Manning found CB Laser through exhaustive cost comparisons, and has used its services for approximately eight years. In particular, Assemblies of God makes use of CB Laser’s toner cartridge remanufacturing service for hundreds of the organization’s printers – both current and dated models.

“I order from (CB Laser) weekly. Other vendors from around the country have tried to get our business, but they can’t even take care of us in a day’s time much less in a few hours’ time,” Manning said. “Plus, they are friendly, and they deliver a good product at a good price. When you find that, you don’t look for other vendors.”

Cartridge remanufacturing has attracted business clients “from Branson to Bolivar,” with quite a few in Springfield, Gabbard said.

Remanufacturing cartridges for Hewlett Packard laser printers still makes up 20 percent of business.

“We take the cartridge completely apart; clean them, empty the waste hopper, and replace all of the replaceable parts. We put a pre-measured amount of toner in for that specific toner cartridge, test it, re-box it and sell it,” she said. “We are putting together the cartridge all over again just using the shell.”

Printer supplies, primarily toner ink and ribbons, and general office products comprise the other 80 percent of sales, Gabbard said.

Moving forward

Bruce Gabbard died four years ago, leaving Charlene Gabbard with a big business decision.

“I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to keep the business and run it all by myself, but after some soul searching” Gabbard said she decided the business would continue. The Gabbards’ son, Erik, who works with her full time, was instrumental in the discussion.

“We decided number one, I could do it. Number two, I didn’t know and didn’t feel good about potential buyers and whether they would care about and take care of my customers the way that I would, so I decided to keep going,” she said.

While 90 percent of its clientele is businesses, Gabbard said the 600-square-foot showroom is drawing in more individuals.

“Since Nixa has grown so much, our walk-in store traffic has increased through the years. We are getting to be a little bit better known in the community,” Gabbard said. “I used to joke that we were the best kept secret in town because nobody had heard of us, nobody knew where we were, but we did all right.”

Gabbard said that she had suspected that Nixa was primed for growth when she selected her storefront location – 2,400 square feet including storage and offices – but this anticipated growth was not the only factor in her choice of office space. “Being halfway between Branson and Springfield, it just seemed like there was the possibility for this. We lived out in the country at the time, so this was a good place for a base,” she said. “But I have since moved into town in Nixa, and I am very glad to be a part of the community.”

[[In-content Ad]]