Competition from online retailers means Staples must work magic to charm customers.
Staples is upping the ante for the back-to-school shopping season as it works to come back from its failed plans to merge with rival Office Depot, Bloomberg reports. To help woo customers away from its online competition, the office supplies retailer is adding more than 1,000 items to its offerings, including an expanded range of tech products. Studies have demonstrated that back-to-school shoppers are spending an increasing amount of their dedicated dollars on tech products like laptops and tablets this year. Staples is also offer wider online selection and same-day delivery options to better compete with its main rivals, Amazon and eBay.
Amazon is becoming a larger player in the back-to-school shopping season, according to the latest research, which means that Staples must work some magic to charm customers. In fact, the Rubicon Project found that Amazon is the number one tech retailers for major back-to-school tech shopping for the first time ever. Additionally, mobile shopping is growing, with 60 percent of parents planning to use mobile devices to make at least some of their back-to-school purchases. Back-to-School is larger than holiday shopping for the chain, according to Staples executives. And research firm Customer Growth Partners project that back-to-school sales this year will rise 3.3 percent to $540 billion this year, up from $523 billion a year ago.
While Staples argued that competition from Amazon and eBay was substantial, and that therefore the proposed merger with Office Depot would not pose a monopoly on the office supply space, the judge in the case did not agree. Now, however, plenty of evidence suggests that Amazon’s incursion into the back-to-school market poses a real threat to traditional office supplies merchants: Amazon just pushed past Staples as the third most popular destination for school supplies. Just last year, Staples was the preferred back-to-school shopping option for 39 percent of parents, ahead of Amazon at 38 percent, according to research from tech-based ad firm Rubicon Project.
“Back-to-school shoppers in 2016 will be cautious in spending, but relentless in searching for value,” Customer Growth Partners President Craig Johnson told Bloomberg. “The retail winners will be those that provide real newness, relevant to consumers and how they like to shop today—at a great price.”
Steven Matyas, Staples' president of North American retail, told Bloomberg that the retailer is confident that it can take on challenger Amazon because Staples has the advantage of physical stores as well as an e-commerce presence, and because it’s offering deals well beyond 24-hour events like Prime Day. “We don’t really care what customers buy, if they want to buy online or in-store,” Matyas said. “As long as they buy from Staples, that’s all that’s important.”
