After over 100 years, office-supply business Rogards is closing | Retail

CHAMPAIGN — After serving the region for over a century, a company that specializes in business-to-business sales of office supplies is shutting its doors.

“During that time, we have served thousands of local businesses, made many great personal connections, and shared in the success of our community,” said President and CEO Tonya Horn. “Unfortunately, I have made the difficult decision to close Rogards, effective immediately.”

However, Horn said there are still “a lot of furniture and some office supplies” for sale at the business’s showroom at 2901 Boardwalk Drive. 

“We’re planning to have the office open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Friday next week for a clearance sale, and then continuing the following week if we still have things remaining to sell,” she told The News-Gazette on Friday.

According to a timeline provided by the business, Rogards was originally a division of Twin City Printing, which was founded by James Garrard in 1906.

“Garrard had established two additional businesses: Garrard Publishing and an office-supply business,” company officials said. “James’s son, Robert Garrard, who was now in charge, wanted a way to distinguish the stationery and office supply business from his family’s publishing company. He pushed his first and last name together, and Rogards was born. So when someone calls and asks for Mr. Rogard, we know it’s a telemarketer, because that person never existed!”

Bernie Dunn became the head of Rogards in 1961; it was later bought by Horn’s father, Terry Poindexter, and Jim Beyer in 1998.

Horn, along with Chad and Catherine Hoffman, took over the business from her father in 2011. She bought the Hoffmans’ shares in 2016 and became Rogards’ sole owner.

In discussing the decision to close, Horn said that the business “never really recovered” from the pandemic.

“Since we provide supplies to business customers for the people who work in their offices, when everyone went home and stopped going to the office, well over 50 percent of our business disappeared overnight,” she said. “Recovery was very slow in 2021, and even now, there are many employers who never returned to their 2020 staffing level.”

For example, a customer who needed office supplies for 50 people prepandemic might only have 30 employees now — and perhaps 10 of them might be hybrid workers who aren’t in the office every day.

Horn added that Rogards covers “a fairly large geographic territory,” which became an issue as order sizes shrank and transportation costs rose.

“Finally, I would say we have historically done our best work with other local businesses who are able to make local purchasing decisions, and the nature of the business world right now is that there’s a high level of consolidation,” she said. “Our core customer base was shrinking as more of our customers were purchased by larger firms who no longer made purchasing decisions locally, and didn’t have any particular loyalty to us as a supplier.”

As operations wind down, staff will be in touch about the status of orders that have not yet been filled, and customer service will still be available by contacting customercare@rogards.com or 217-359-1795.

“I would just say again how grateful we are for the opportunity we have had to serve the Central Illinois business community,” Horn said. “As we’ve made calls to our customers letting them know of our news, all of them have been so kind, gracious and concerned for our team. That’s one of the things that makes our community great.”