Staples 2015 Annual Report Download - page 81

PART I
STAPLES 3
North American Stores & Online
Our North American Stores & Online segment includes the
company's retail stores and Staples.com businesses in the
U.S. and Canada. Our strategy for North American Stores &
Online focuses on offering easy-to-shop stores and websites
with products that are readily available and easy to find,
and courteous, helpful and knowledgeable sales associates
to support customers. Our goals are to continue to be a
destination for core office supply categories like ink, toner
and paper and to build scale and creditability for products
and services beyond office supplies, such as copy and print
services, facilities and breakroom supplies, packaging and
shipping supplies and services. Our associates are trained to
deliver excellent service by engaging with customers, focusing
on solution selling, and encouraging customers to shop
across channels.
We operate a portfolio of retail store formats, tailored to the
unique characteristics of each location. Our North American
Stores & Online segment consisted of 1,302 stores in the
United States and 305 stores in Canada at the end of fiscal
2015. In an effort to improve store productivity and effectively
manage our cost structure, we closed 242 stores in 2014 and
2015 combined, and we expect to close approximately 50
additional stores in 2016. In 2016 we also plan to continue
reducing excess capacity in our retail store network through
downsizes and relocations. We remain committed to
improving store productivity and aggressively managing retail
store expenses.
Staples.com and Staples.ca are designed to reach a variety
of customers, including small businesses, home offices and
consumers, offering next business day delivery for most orders
in the majority of our markets. We have recently made significant
investments in talent, technology, pricing, and marketing
while significantly expanding our assortment to enhance the
customer experience online. We have successfully launched
new desktop and mobile platforms, improved site speed,
enhanced usability, and increased customer conversion.
We believe that our integrated network of stores and online
businesses provide a differentiated experience for our
customers. We have increased our focus on maximizing the
synergies between Staples.com and our retail stores with the
introduction of new omni-channel capabilities including in store
kiosks and buy online pickup in store. We have also recently
announced a ship from store offering. These new capabilities
offer customers a more seamless shopping experience,
regardless of whether they physically visit our retail stores or
our websites.
North American Commercial
Our North American Commercial segment consists of the U.S.
and Canadian businesses, including Staples Advantage and
Quill.com, that sell and deliver products and services directly
to businesses. Our strategies for North American Commercial
focus on expanding our offering in categories beyond office
supplies, increasing our share of wallet with existing customers,
and acquiring new customers, with a particular focus on small
and mid-sized businesses. We are also focused on serving
our customers by evolving our team-based contract selling
model to be more unified and collaborative. We are driving
growth in categories beyond core office supplies by adding
specialists who have expertise in selling products like facilities
and breakroom supplies, furniture, promotional products
and technology.
Our Staples Advantage contract business focuses on serving
the needs of mid-sized businesses and organizations as well
as larger regional businesses and Fortune 1000 companies.
We offer full service account management, free delivery,
customized pricing and payment terms, usage reporting, the
stocking of certain proprietary items and a wide assortment of
environmentally friendly products and services.
Quill.com is an internet and catalog business with a
targeted approach to serving the needs of small and mid-
sized businesses in the United States. Quill.com has rapidly
expanded its assortment in categories beyond office supplies to
serve the evolving needs of its customers. To attract and retain
its customers, Quill.com seeks to offer outstanding customer
service, and builds loyalty through its Quill brand products and
special services. Quill.com also offers a specialized assortment
of office supplies and products for health care professionals.
Quill.com is viewed separately from our Staples.com business
in that its customer base is somewhat different and it targets
exclusively the business customer.
International Operations
Our International Operations segment consists of businesses
in 23 countries in Europe, Australia, South America and Asia.
The markets for office products and services in these countries
are highly fragmented.
Our European Office Products businesses represent a multi-
channel portfolio serving contract, retail, internet, and catalog
customers in 16 countries. Our contract business includes
sizable operations in Scandinavia, Germany, the United
Kingdom and the Netherlands. We operate 278 retail stores in
Europe, with the largest concentration of stores in the United
Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal. We operate
internet and direct mail catalog businesses with a significant
concentration of sales in France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Our strategies for our European Office Products businesses
focus on expanding our assortment beyond office supplies and
increasing our mix of business services with a focus on copy
and print, streamlining our information technology systems,
further developing our ecommerce platform, and leveraging
best practices from our North American businesses, including
our mid-market contract selling model. We are also focused on
improving profitability by consolidating sub-scale businesses,
streamlining operations to improve efficiencies, increasing
sales of higher margin Staples brand products and improving
the performance of our supply chain.