Question

Staples operates in the highly competitive office products market. The office supply category specialists, including Staples, Office Depot, and Office Max (the big three), dramatically changed the landscape of the office supply industry. First, they greatly expanded the use of retail stores and Internet channels as means of distributing office supply products, capitalizing in part on the significant increase in the number of home offices. Prior to the mid- 1980s, office supply customers primarily placed their orders through commissioned salespeople or catalogs. Warehouse clubs, supermarkets, and full-line discount retailers also have begun taking market share away from the big three office supply retailers because of their ability to sell the bulk items at lower prices. Retailers such as Walmart and Costco offer low prices on office supplies, which forces the major office supply retailers to offer more than just products, such as extra services and greater customer service. The big three office supply stores have also expanded their business-to-business (B2B) efforts to sell to other companies, such as Wells Fargo or IBNM Staples Advantage, for example, offers a range of products and services to its B2B customers

Answer 1

1. A successful mutilchannel strategy is developed by Staples to attract customers. Firstly, they have presence in many places in the form of huge stores. They have presence online also. They have added personalised service for online shoppers of office supplies. Places which cannot maintain big stores, they have introduced smaller stores where customers can order their print/copy at the kiosks. An in store print specialist is also available to assist them.
The experience of Staples in areas of office supply, strong brand name and multichannel strategy have helped them ncrease/retain their customers.

2.Advantages of kiosks are that the customers who want only a specific thing in a hurry do not have to wait in queues. They can quickly get their prints. The other part is that the customers are not confused/distracted with too many options at the store.
Disdvantage of kiosks are that customers only purchase specific things and leave. This results in less sales.

3.Staples should assess based on the 3 factors:
They would have to assess the profit margins earned by the SKUs on website vs retail stores.
They would have to assess which product has more demand and popularity in the retail vs website.
Some products are more complex to sell and need an assistant. These products need to be listed in the stores.

4. The differentiation point of these Copy and Print Centres are that they are available at locations where competition has almost no presence. Thus, tapping the markets at all points.