These two photos, which I took in an Officeworks in Sydney a couple of days prior to Christmas, tell the story of an engaged, fierce competition for back to school business. This first sign is what you see as you enter the business:
This is places deeper in the business, with a terrific range of school supplies:
They make it look easy, like they have everything and that their prices are competitive.
Mark,
Also had reason to visit Office Works 2 weeks before Christmas. 9.45am on a weekday and the place was heaving, 4 people working check outs, families making multiple purchases.
Expecting your benchmark survey to reveal accelerating decline of 20% or more. Supermarkets anf Office Works have carved this market up and left the dregs. Game Over.
Colin I agree with you. I visit Officeworks regularly to watch. They had a terrific 2018 and are set for a good 2019 – in-store and online.
There is no focused strategy for regional newsagents to continue to build the stationery offering. All the focus is on gifts and plush, which is fine, as we do those as well, but we are very strong in stationery, and have lots of opportunity to build that. I have customers returning to our business after trying Officeworks and reporting a bad experience. They cherry pick, offer very poor customer service, and don’t do text books? Seriously you can drive a truck through there short comings.so frustrated with these conversations, why do we continue to roll over to the bigger advertising budgets?