US stationery giant Staples has moved to expand its staples.com.au online stationery business across Australia. Here is the press release they have issued today about the move:
STAPLES.COM.AU EXPANDS ACROSS AUSTRALIA
May 20, 2011, Sydney: Staples.com.au has announced plans to expand its online business into Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. The expansion follows its recent launch into New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.
Offering a wide range of office products, Staples is dedicated to making it easy for small businesses to buy office products online.
The expansion to three new states sees staples.com.au now servicing 68 per cent of the small business population, a potential of more than half a million small businesses. Staples plans to continue its national roll out over the coming months.
Richard Haigh, head of staples.com.au, believes Staples can offer a truly differentiated service by focussing on the needs of customers:
“We are committed to listening to our customers and what they want. When we launched in Australia we knew that customers wanted an easy to use website, fast delivery and low prices so that’s been our main focus since Staples.com.au went live.”
“The SME feedback we’ve received so far has been positive; we have to work hard to earn our place as a supplier partner with Australian small businesses and we believe that listening to their needs is the best way to achieve this.”
Staples has developed its service offering in response to extensive research undertaken with the Australian small business community.
While a not unexpected move, many newsagents will be shocked by the move. Staples does online well, having cut its teeth on this in the US.
Is this an online
like officeworks selling to SME’s for their inhouse
consumption or is it
possible for newsagents to purchase wholesale goods for re-sale which would mean big changes in our industry
Mark
As an exercise I tried to sign up for a Staples account but Queensland doesn’t exist. I had to put in a NSW address to get one . I recently started an account with officeworks also.
I have been comparing our prices with theirs. On most products we are cheaper, sometimes by a large margin. What has been very clear is some product/company names that are usally cheaper.
Most HP consumables are cheaper at Officeworks and a quick look at Staples reveals its could be the same. The HP57 cartridge featured on the Tower Blog shelf label article at $55.85 is $51.48 at Officeworks and $36.42 at Staples. By contrast all Canon products are higher than ours at Officeworks and the couple I checked out at Staples where too. While there are no alternatives to stocking these brands you can actively not promote them. There are some where you can find alternatives. I found many Acco (Marbig ) products cheaper at Officeworks and Spirax products also (haven’t checked Staples yet). There are companies with a fair pricing policies regardless of retailer size as we saw recently in the refusal by Fosters to sell beer to Coles. We need to seek them out and support them.
Peter well done on your exercise. I think it is smart to learn what competitors are up to.
I agree that we are cheaper. The challenge is that they have deeper pockets with which to tell the world that they are cheaper.
This is where a strong local shopfront presence, local area marketing and a smart online strategy can combine to tell your customers (prospective and existing) that YOU are cheaper and that you offer BETTER SERVICE.
I did the same as Peter re opening a Staples Account and found much the same. I also did a thorough comparison with Office works a few years back and found that at my normal retail marginsabout 70 % of my product was cheaper than Office Works sometimes by large percentages, about 20 I was dearer but I could rectify with slight drop in mark up and the remainder required high drops in margin as these were generally their loss leaders and heavily advertised products. My online prices with GNS should beat almost all of the online prices by these two, the challenge is promoting this and educationg customers.