Small Business Spotlight: Blue Summit Supplies Bringing a Personal Touch to Local Buisnesses

Huntsville officially became Alabama’s most populous city in 2021. In order to accommodate this rapid growth over the last few years, countless companies have started, expanded or relocated within the city. And in order for them to accommodate Huntsville’s ever growing population, someone has to accommodate the needs of these newfound business entities. That’s where Blue Summit Supplies comes in. 

Starting in 2016 with just 500 boxes of envelopes to be sold on Amazon, Blue Summit Supplies quickly grew into a leader in office supplies online. Huntsville resident and former Lockheed Martin engineer Owen Franklin grew the company from $60,000 in sales in its first year of operation to over $3.3 million in 2017. Blue Summit never stopped growing and the company achieved a rank of 654 on the Inc. 5000 in 2021. 

Blue Summit Supplies Owner Owen Franklin

The next step for Blue Summit Supplies is to use their online success to help local businesses in the city in a more direct and personal way. Director of Marketing for Blue Summit Supplies Shannon Miller sat down with HBJ and elaborated on this next phase for the company and their future goals. 

“We’ve never wanted to think small so we’re always looking ahead for ways to innovate and continue to grow,” Miller said. “We realized that we can’t work on Amazon forever. So in order to create a longer lasting business model, we’re using the profits from Amazon sales and branching out into local business to business distribution as well. We’ll start in Huntsville and then expand into other cities from there.”

Blue Summit Supplies aims to use the scale and resources they have acquired from their large online operation and combine it with a “mom and pop” touch to help businesses in the Huntsville community that can be underserved in the office supply industry according to Miller. 

“There’s a lot of places to buy office supplies. One thing we found that some small to medium sized companies don’t have when buying is that one on one touch because people aren’t taking the time to go out and talk to them,” explained Miller. 

“A lot of people we talked to will buy a few things from Staples, a few things from Amazon and a few things from other various places. What they are missing, that we will provide, is a one stop shop where someone will come to them with all the product knowledge, do all the pricing, do all the shopping and even test out products for them.”

By focusing heavily on personal and professional development and building an engaged culture, it is Owen Franklin’s vision to establish Blue Summit Supplies as a long-lasting company that will be able to give back to the city in both service and profits. 

“Our goal is to focus on communication,” said Owen. “We don’t just want to go to our clients and tell them that their goals matter. We want them to already expect that from us by how we interact with clients during every step of the process.”

When asked about the major goal of the company, Owen responded that he wanted to impact the Huntsville community in a way that reflects the core values that Blue Summit practices everyday.

“Eventually, once we have grown, we want to be a part of the conversation that is moving and growing the City of Huntsville,” said Owen. “In order to do so, we shape our office space around this mentality, make hires from people who actually care about investing in Madison County, and create an office culture that is both personal and professional.”

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