Most industries experience consolidation - there are few exceptions, and the office products and supplies industry is certainly not one of them. Part I of this series explained my rationale for believing the aftermarket has passed a significant tipping point.
Independent office products and supplies resellers have been on the defensive for a long time. Entrepreneurs who started 25-30 years ago as laser and then ink took over the office imaging industry, figuring out the only way to participate was to recover used toner and ink cartridges and then offer a value proposition based on refilled cartridges, which was the height of entrepreneurial spirit.
There's a preoccupation, almost an obsession, with e-commerce these days. Amazon is constantly in the news as it continues to set web traffic and sales records and finally make some money. Resellers are flocking to the platform to join their marketplace in a search for e-commerce after the widespread failure of their independent efforts. I, along with many others, have written numerous articles on e-commerce and its importance for the future survival of small independent resellers.
For veterans in the office supplies industry, patents and the potential for disputes have been a way of life for 25 years or more. I recall my first experiences in the early nineties and the steep learning curve that followed. Working for one of the more prominent aftermarket manufacturers, patents, and the potential for litigation became a daily concern.
Is the Amazon Marketplace a healthy business environment for resellers or not? This is an important question that needs to be addressed and better understood by all merchants, not just those involved in the office products and supplies vertical.
So, I'm a (fictitious) office products reseller that recently worked on an opportunity to develop a proposal for a new prospect that buys around $10,000 of office products and supplies a year. About 60% of this spend is on paper, pens, binders, folders, etc.; the other 40% is on ink and toner. My competition for the business was one of the big-box high-street retailers.
For one office products reseller (A), it's possible to feel upbeat about the business prospects; for another (B), it's entirely possible to feel pretty beat-up and pessimistic about the future: the same industry and business model but opposite ends of the spectrum.
As readers of my blog will know, I'm a strong advocate for information technology and its role in helping achieve profitable sales growth in a local market. I'm an advocate because I don't think it's realistic for an independent office products or equipment reseller to improve its value proposition or develop the web traffic volume necessary to build sufficient awareness without information technology.
The content we've been publishing over the last few weeks has been focused on the path to digitally transforming a business by deploying 21st-century marketing techniques designed for generating new and sustainable sources of web traffic. The competition for web traffic is intense, and a poorly designed site lacking helpful content will neither attract nor sustain traffic.
Did you do a double-take when you saw this news? Frankly, I'd have been less surprised if the headline had been the other way around! Not long ago, I wrote about the lack of consolidation at the OEM level in the office products and imaging industry. Not anymore!
