Huffman’s Office Equipment offers personalized local service | News, Sports, Jobs

Huffman’s Office Equipment offers personalized local service

In a world dominated by online shopping and big box stores, Huffman’s Office Equipment offers an option for those looking to shop locally for their office furniture and supply needs.

“This company was a spin off of Smith Printing in the late 1940’s,” explained current owner Jim Huffman.

“In those days, it was war time and Steel was at a premium, so a dealer was only allowed to have one major metal line of furniture, and old man Smith wanted a second line, so he opened another company called Office Equipment Company, and my father bought that portion from him in around 1952 and operated it from 1952 to 1981.

In 1981, Huffman took over the store, moving the business to the former Sullivan Building downtown and adding the family name to the company, eventually setting up locations in Wellsboro, Lewisburg, Bloomsburg, Berwick and Wilkes, Barre.

“In those days, we sold office furniture, office supplies and office machines, copiers, faxes, typewriters, you name it,” Huffman explained.

“I would go and physically take orders by hand, come back to the office, write the order up, give it to purchasing. Purchasing would then buy the stuff, and a week later, the delivery guy would take that stuff out and deliver it. So that was much different than it is today,” he said.

These days, the company, which resides at 5318 Lycoming Mall Drive in Montoursville, offers online shopping options and focuses on office furniture, much of it American-made, while still dipping its toes into the stationary sector.

“What you see on my showroom floor is mostly used, but some new stuff sprinkled in,” he continued.

“I’m a Hon dealer. They’re an American company, and I like to keep a few pieces of their product around to show if anybody wants to look at sizes, shapes, colors, things like that. Hon has a great guarantee, as opposed to going to some mail order or even some big box stores, and you’re not going to get the same level of quality as you are here,” Huffman stressed.

But its not only the furniture that Huffman’s offers, but also customer assistance in determining just the right furniture for their needs.

“We do a lot of space planning, where we go out and measure the rooms, help the customer decide what they want to put in that room and what fits what the individual employee that’s going to go into that room needs,” Huffman explained.

“We have free delivery, so if you buy something here. My installers go out, install it properly, clean up afterwards, haul away the cardboard, and make sure it’s right. That’s a service you don’t get from Google or Amazon or any of the other mail order operations,” he said, stressing that the merchandise he sells is often of much higher quality as well.

“If I could make one point to your readers, its to buy American products,” Huffman said.

“The Amazons, Targets, Sam’s Clubs and the Walmarts have blown away most of the small local businesses that had local connections,” he continued.

“Those are the people that were your your basketball or soccer coach, that did community service of some kind, whether it be sports or religion or government. It’s the local companies whose employees and owners support those kinds of things,” Huffman said.

As for what keeps Huffman interested in carrying on the business all these years later, he said its the love of the work he does.

“I’m not a spring chicken anymore, but I like doing this, and I have good employees. I can trust the people that I’m working with. And so the alternative is to retire, what am I going to do that,” he mused.

And he credits the company’s “solid local service” with its continued longevity.

“We’re here. I own the business. You buy something from me, and something goes wrong with it, or it isn’t working right, or you’re not happy with it, call me.,” he said.

For a full view of catalogs and brochures, visit, www.huffmans.com or stop in to have a look at their current inventory.