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Marketing class
STAPLE S: THE BIG-BOX RETAILER THAT’S REALLY A B2B POWERHOUSE
Probably every reader of this book has visited a Staples store or its website at least once, needing to stock up on back-to-school supplies, grab a roll of packing tape, or take a look at the newest printers available in the market. Clearly, selling to individual consumers is Page 230 important to Staples. But some of its greatest growth, and some of its most important marketing efforts, relate to its Staples Advantage division, which provides business customers with services and support.
This support may be most valuable for small businesses, which often lack the resources to manage all their various functions on their own. Most straightforwardly, Staples Advantage provides companies with the behind-the-scenes supplies that are necessary to keep the doors open: coffee machines, sugar, and creamer to stock employee break rooms; janitorial supplies and floor mats that keep the place looking clean; paper towels and soap dispensers in restrooms; and office equipment to ensure that workers can keep their files organized and their workspaces productive. To facilitate these offerings, Staples has begun equipping all its B2B sales associates in the field with iPads that are loaded with a virtual assistant. Thus, rather than relying on their recall or a bulky product catalog, they can depend on the virtual tool to determine which type of furniture polish will save their business clients the most money while still enabling them to keep all their surfaces free of dirt.
To appeal even more to these small-business owners and provide them with not just office supplies but also ideas on how to run their offices, Staples has introduced the Quick Wins app. The app tracks the small businesses’ performances on a range of measures, including social media engagement, website traffic, and financial metrics, all in one place. In this case, the innovative offering is a clear response to customer demand. Through its research, Staples determined that approximately 41 percent of its small-business customers expressed their need for help with these measures of performance, but they also did not know which metrics were most important or how to measure them accurately. Worried about their ability to keep up with the information, respondents to Staples’ surveys also noted that they would prefer for all the information to be available in one easy-to-read dashboard. In helping business customers track key data regularly, Staples promises to develop customized, specific suggestions for how the business customers can expand their firms and increase business. Furthermore, through the Quick Wins app, users can interact with other small-business owners, seeking answers and support from their peers.
Once they determine their performance, small-business owners likely identify sources of improvement. Pursuing such improvements often requires new investments, especially monetary ones—a resource that small-business owners usually lack. Therefore, Staples’ latest service introduction is Lendio, an online financing arm that facilitates loans for these customers. Accessing the loan forms through Staples’ main website, business customers can provide the necessary information. Lendio then forwards the information to a relevant lender and maintains the financing agreement. In just a few months, Lendio had facilitated close to $1.5 million in loans to small firms, such as Bubba Nubb’s Lunch Wagon, which used the loan to equip its food truck, or Hitt Medical Writing, which spent the money to hire new employees and expand its capacity to provide content to medical publications.
By spreading and expanding its B2B offerings, Staples effectively protects against upheaval in any one market. Sales that it categorizes as B2B account for approximately one-third of its $23 billion in annual revenue. The revenues earned through Lendio, for example, are still just a tiny percentage of those totals, but by adding this service, Staples achieves two critical goals. First, it establishes itself as a source for such services, so the contributions to its bottom line might grow over time. Second, it makes sure that it is available for every need that a business customer might imagine. By doing so, it becomes a true partner that businesses turn to so that they can serve their own customers.
1. Imagine a small business that has long bought its office supplies from Staples. It reads about Lendio and considers whether to solicit a loan. What kind of buying situation has this small business entered?
2.What attributes should this small business use to evaluate Staples as vendor? What about Lendio? Using those attributes for Staples and Lendio, perform two separate vendor analyses.
