When Staples launched its strategic reinvention four years ago, its No. 1 priority was to reposition the company for the future and return to growing sales and earnings. Staples CEO Ron Sargent reported positive news regarding the company’s omnichannel customer experience efforts during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call on March 4.
“This year we had a more targeted approach to driving profitable promotions with small business customers,” Sargent explained, according to Seeking Alpha. “We also continue to improvement customer conversion on our desktop and mobile websites as a result of the investments we’ve made to improve the user experience. Customers continue to embrace our omnichannel offering, which grew double-digits during Q4 and for the full year. In 2015, we generated nearly $0.5 billion of omnichannel sales through our in-store Staples.com kiosk, as well as our Click-and-Collect features like Buy Online, pick up in-store. During the fourth quarter, we began piloting our newest omnichannel capability, shipped from store. Shipped from store improves the customer experience. It allows us to manage our inventory more efficiently, and positions us for same day delivery. Early results are encouraging.
During the past few years, Sargent noted, Staples added nearly 300 specialists to drive growth in categories beyond office supplies, enhance its contract website, and introduce new digital selling tools to its sales team.
“We continue to benefit from those investments during the fourth quarter,” he said. “We achieved double-digit growth and breakroom supplies and promotional products; and high single-digit growth in facility supplies. In total, contract sales and categories beyond office supplies grew in the low single-digits during the fourth quarter and now account for approximately half of our entire contract sales mix. We got a lot done during the fourth quarter and the full year as we continue to transform Staples. That said, we also came up short on our goals on a few key areas, and we have more work to do.”
In North American stores and online, customer traffic was weak during the fourth quarter, Sargent noted.
“Some of these headwinds were driven by our decision to be less promotional during the holiday season and not to open our stores on Thanksgiving Day,” Sargent explained. “But beyond these headwinds, we continue to face weak traffic in our stores and our desktop website in the United States.”