Many online and offline office supplies stores fall into two main lines: stationery and office supplies. This allows you to attract a different target audience and expand the range. In our today’s article, we’ll talk about the features of each group of products and tell you how to open an online store for office goods.
We study the office and stationery market
What is the market for stationery and office art supplies? In short: a couple of years ago everything was fine. Demand was growing, sales were growing, but now the situation has changed somewhat. The incomes of Russians are not particularly increasing – in such conditions, they save on minor things. Executives are cutting back on office supplies and supplies, and retail consumers are holding back from buying themselves more stationery.
Note that the drop in demand hardly affected office supplies. In many ways, this market is kept afloat thanks to the school bazaars. Millions of schoolchildren in the country buy school supplies for thousands of rubles during the season, and they constantly replenish stocks throughout the year.
If you do decide to work in this area, let’s take a closer look at the market.
The target audience
To determine the target audience , you need to understand what products we sell and for whom:
Parents of children who need school supplies. It is a large category that sweeps away all office supplies between June and August. They need pens, notebooks, scrapbooks, colored paper and cardboard, paints, plasticine, and so on.
Educators who order paper, stationery and art supplies on behalf of their institutions or as individuals. They buy everything the same as the previous category, but sometimes they ask for discounts. It is also possible to carry out a barter transaction if the store and educational institutions find points of common interest.
Creative people, needlewomen. Now hand-made fashion is in vogue: crazy pens make fresh flowers, scrapbooking albums and books, photo books and other works of art. Not only do they need materials for manufacturing, but also consumables: knives, glue guns, and so on.
Office management. For normal office work, a lot of items are needed: office equipment, furniture, printers and scanners, telephones and faxes … Not to mention stationery: notebooks, diaries, pens. All this is purchased and issued to employees on account.
Students, employees of companies themselves and people who just love all these beautiful notebooks, daddies, colored stickers. They buy them for their own pleasure and with their own money.
the target audience
Competitors
Like any other market, office supplies have long been distributed among several major online retailers. This is a disadvantage: you have to win buyers back from them. But there is also a plus: unlike other areas of online stores, few people know the brands of stationery. Can you, without peeping, immediately recall five names? So I can’t. This may be in your favor: users are unlikely to search for the name of a specific brand in a search engine, they simply fill in the “online stationery store” and look for great deals. Reduce prices, announce promotions , advertise more and attract traffic – this should help.
Another danger crept up from offline stores. School supplies and stationery are sold in every second point in the summer. The greatest danger is posed by retail stores: you can shop there at low prices. It is clear that parents, who already benefit from every penny, will buy where it is cheaper.
What to do in this situation?
Raise the average check . Offer related products to the user who visits the site for a specific purpose.
Conduct discounts and promotions , seasonal sales.
Expand the range. In addition to stationery and office supplies, offer gift items: this is the third line that is also in demand.
Increase the markup on goods, especially during the season.
Suppliers
We advise you to cooperate with wholesalers, especially at the beginning of creating an online store. As a rule, they can fill the initial assortment: buy everything you need at affordable prices.
When the essentials are purchased, pay attention to unusual items and novelties. There are tens and hundreds of novelties on the stationery market. Unusual design, versatility, some completely insane objects that schoolchildren and students squeak in delight – do not rush to dismiss it, you can make it your own chip or simply introduce more new products into the assortment. To do this, actively cooperate with Chinese suppliers – they are the ones who take the lead in terms of new products.
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