Staples 2012 Annual Report Download - page 74

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supplies. We continue to make investments in information technology to enhance Staples.com to improve the usability, efficiency
and overall customer experience.
We believe that our network of stores and online businesses enhances our profitability by allowing us to leverage marketing,
distribution and supervision costs. We have increased our focus on leveraging the synergies between Staples.com and our retail
stores with the introduction of new concepts including ship to store, online retail store inventory lookup, reserve online pickup in
store, as well as mobile and tablet optimized websites. We believe these new concepts will more seamlessly offer options to shop
our products and services, regardless of whether customers physically visit our retail stores or our website.
North American Commercial
Our North American Commercial segment consists of the U.S. and Canadian business units that sell and deliver office
products and services directly to businesses, including Staples Advantage and Quill.com.
Our strategies for North American Commercial focus on expanding in categories beyond core office supplies, providing
customers with a broad assortment of core office products, increasing our share of wallet with existing customers, and acquiring
new customers. We are also focused on serving our customers by continuing to improve our perfect order metric, which measures
the number of orders that we fulfill on time and without error, and has led to establishing industry leading customer service
standards.
Our Staples Advantage business focuses on serving the needs of mid-sized businesses and organizations as well as Fortune
1000 companies. These customers often require more service than is provided by a traditional retail, online or mail order business.
Through our contract sales force we offer full service account management, 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 servicing the needs of small and mid-sized
businesses in the United States. To attract and retain its customers, Quill.com seeks to offer outstanding customer service, Quill
brand products and special services. Quill.com also operates Medical Arts Press, Inc., an Internet and catalog business offering
specialized office supplies and products for health care professionals. Quill.com is viewed separately from our Staples.com
business in that its customer base is different and it relies on its direct sales force.
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 balanced 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 283 retail stores, 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 optimizing our assortment, strengthening our value
proposition with customers, streamlining our information technology systems, further developing our ecommerce platform,
expanding our mix of business services with a focus on copy and print, and leveraging best practices from our North American
businesses, including our mid-market contract selling model. We are also focused on improving profitability by closing certain
stores that are not achieving the desired financial returns, 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.
Staples Australia serves primarily contract and governmental customers in Australia and New Zealand. In addition, we
operate a public website which targets small business and home office customers. Our strategies focus on improving sales force
productivity by increasing customer acquisition and retention, and by providing customers with a broad assortment of products
and services, including office products, IT solutions, business furniture and print management.
We continue to build a foundation for growth in Asia and South America. We operate retail and delivery businesses in
China, a delivery business in Taiwan, a delivery business and 2 stores in Argentina and a delivery business in Brazil. We also
have a franchise arrangement in India with our former joint venture partner.