Office Supply Trends Australia
Office Depot and OfficeMax have announced a merger, teaming up to fight industry big boy Staples and competition from general merchandise juggernauts Walmart and Amazon.The move will buy time, but it won’t save the office supply chains.
Not Office Depot, not OfficeMax, not even Staples, which analysts are touting as the post-merger winner.
These office retailers will all be destroyed unless they fundamentally change how they do business.
The biggest threat is the fact that workplaces are going digital, making the decline of the office supply industry a reality.
“All three companies [OfficeMax, Office Depot, and Staples] could soon face an even larger existential threat than Amazon,” wrote Ryu Spaeth at The Week. “The rapid digitalization of a workforce that has grown less reliant on notepads, pens, and printers. And that may be a trend no merger can solve.”
For instance, paper shipments have continued to plummet as offices go digital and become more efficient.
Just look at this chart from the Federal Register:
paper chart
Picture: Federal Register
The shift to the paper-free cloud is not only affecting paper and printers.
It also means that people don’t need mega-packs of highlighters, because they’re going through data on their iPad. They don’t have to buy pens to jot down notes, because they’re typing them out on Evernote. They don’t need staplers, because a file on a computer monitor doesn’t need to be stapled.
“This is a cloud- and tablet-based and paper-free world,” wrote Cody Willard at MarketWatch. “We’re already there, and all those trends are only going to get bigger.”
Derek Thompson at The Atlantic points out that there are only few retail segments more doomed than office supplies.
Here’s a chart of percentage change in jobs in various retail segments that Thompson got from EMSI. All of the segments worse off than office stores have been infamously decimated in recent years and office stores are poised to follow:
Not Office Depot, not OfficeMax, not even Staples, which analysts are touting as the post-merger winner.
These office retailers will all be destroyed unless they fundamentally change how they do business.
The biggest threat is the fact that workplaces are going digital, making the decline of the office supply industry a reality.
“All three companies [OfficeMax, Office Depot, and Staples] could soon face an even larger existential threat than Amazon,” wrote Ryu Spaeth at The Week. “The rapid digitalization of a workforce that has grown less reliant on notepads, pens, and printers. And that may be a trend no merger can solve.”
For instance, paper shipments have continued to plummet as offices go digital and become more efficient.
Just look at this chart from the Federal Register:
paper chart
Picture: Federal Register
The shift to the paper-free cloud is not only affecting paper and printers.
It also means that people don’t need mega-packs of highlighters, because they’re going through data on their iPad. They don’t have to buy pens to jot down notes, because they’re typing them out on Evernote. They don’t need staplers, because a file on a computer monitor doesn’t need to be stapled.
“This is a cloud- and tablet-based and paper-free world,” wrote Cody Willard at MarketWatch. “We’re already there, and all those trends are only going to get bigger.”
Derek Thompson at The Atlantic points out that there are only few retail segments more doomed than office supplies.
Here’s a chart of percentage change in jobs in various retail segments that Thompson got from EMSI. All of the segments worse off than office stores have been infamously decimated in recent years and office stores are poised to follow: