Office Depot B2B Marketing
Introduction Office Depot’s website objective is “to give the user an ever more integrated experience, seamlessly moving among us and our partners with the ease and speed of navigating on a single site.” (Staufler) From notepads to computer software, Office Depot offers a wide selection of supplies needed to keep businesses running smoothly at a very affordable price. ... Many businesses heavily rely on Office Depot who offers everything imaginable to accommodate any office environment, small or big. Since it’s not as easy to deliver customer service over the Internet, Office Depot has had to work extra hard in developing strategic plans to deliver the same products and services offered in stores worldwide. While conducting a research on this website, we have been able to identify their target segments, the implementation of the 4 P’s of marketing for each segment, and the benefits to the company and their customers. Business Markets The biggest segment targeted by Office Depot’s website are commercial businesses. The website is also known as a B2B location that serves over 100,000 business customers. ... Office Depot tries to help accomplish these goals by delivering products and services that are affordable, high in quality, convenient, and reliable. In return, Office Depot hopes to establish an ongoing relationship with these businesses because future purchases can increase the profit margin in the long run. Office Depot will also continue to research the buying behavior of many businesses online to determine what parts of the website needs to be worked on in order to satisfy their customers as well as to gain new business relationships. Office Depot is one of the biggest office suppliers in the industry. ... ”(Murphy) The profits on pen and paper aren’t as good as accessories for office equipment like PC adapters or printing cartridges. Not only does Office Depot offer office supplies for a business, they also provide helpful services as well. In order to ultimately satisfy their customers, Office Depot offers services such as custom printing for letterheads, envelopes, business cards, and etc to meet their needs. ... Office Depot has been able to recognize that market potential and has taken advantage of it by offering businesses with the fastest way of connecting to the Internet. ... The primary reason why businesses go to the website maybe to purchase office supplies, however, it’s the value added-service is what customers keep on coming back for. Products that Office Depot offers vary in price depending upon the type of brand selected. One of the most common machine found in an office would be a printer which a customer can find for about $100-$2,000+ on Office Depot’s website. ... Office Depot’s products are a little bit more expensive than it’s competitors. However, Office Depot is gearing toward being a more service oriented company rather than trying to win customers over with low prices. While customers loose very little in switching over to a new company to buy their products, it cost Office Depot a lot more money in gaining a new customer. ... Besides offering discounts on contracted office supplies, Office Depot has teamed up with Chase to promote a credit card that allows customers to earn points that can either earn them free products or discounts at Office Depot. Businesses earn a point for every dollar charged with the card and 2 points for every dollar spent at Office Depot. ... The more businesses that Office Depot can get to commit to opening a credit card account, the more chances they will get to offer these businesses other services that are offered on the website such as the Business Service Center. Currently, Office Depot has 850 stores nationwide, 25 delivery centers, 60 local sales offices, 8 regional call centers and over 100 stores operating outside of the United States. However, office managers hardly ever go to the store to buy products for the office simply because it’s very time consuming. ... Now Office Depot’s website gives business customers a virtual location that can be readily available within a matter of seconds.