Staples seeks to broaden its appeal to small businesses

Brad Kane Staples executive Peter Scala

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While it was fighting an ultimately losing battle with the Federal Trade Commission for approval of its $6-billion merger with Office Depot, Framingham office supply retailer Staples was locking down a deal with Boston coworking space firm Workbar to put the flexible office spaces inside of Staples stores. With the Office Depot merger officially killed by regulators in May – and costing Staples $340 million in the process, part of $766 million in second quarter losses – Staples executive Peter Scala discussed how the three Workbar locations in Staples stores in Danvers, Norwood and Brighton that opened in September will diversify the retailer's offerings while still catering to the small business market. Membership at the Workbar locations costs $130 per month.

With the Office Depot merger falling through, how does Workbar give you a new opportunity to strengthen your brand for the customer?

We have been collaborating with (Workbar CEO) Bill (Jacobson) for a little over a year, and this is a concept – the movement of coworking – we have been studying for long before that. As we continually try to offer new and innovative solutions for our customers, this is another way to do that.

Why did Staples want to open coworking spaces?

Our concept here is to take the concept of coworking and providing it as an additional solution for our small business customers that shop Staples today.

What type of business people do you expect to come in here? Entrepreneurs? Established small business owners?

It is going to be a mix. You see from the space where you can have individual quiet space or larger collaborative space for a team. As you know, Staples has served small business and all the way up to Fortune 100 business, so we think it is going to be a mix.

It is another offering for our small- to medium-size business, providing a solution for them. It also connects very, very well with our strategy of delivering more value to our customer base.

Where is the value for your customer base?

It takes advantage of a movement that has been going on for the last several years.

Coworking is not new today, but it is certainly the way that business owners are going to want to do business now and in the future. Working with Bill and Workbar has been an adventure to bring that to life.

What separates the Staples Workbar from other coworking spaces?

It is not a normal workspace. It has got a lot of great detail that makes your personal workspace exist within a retail environment.

One of the goals from this was to work hard to create a separation from the retail and the workspace that we have created here. I think we have done a good job doing that.

What are Staples goals for the Workbar locations? More revenue? More members?

Our goal today is to kick off and grand open the three locations that we have. From there, we want to listen to our membership base and to learn from our membership base.

The whole concept is built off a hub-and-spoke, so Bill has got these great hubs in downtown Boston that he has been operating very successfully. The concept is using a network of spokes out of an urban setting, and Staples is a great partner to do that.

How does this fit into Staples core products?

We have a got a lot of great assets we want to leverage, whether it be our sales force, our contract channel, our Staples Business Advantage, our public website in Staples.com or our retail network. The combination of that gives us a great advantage.

This partnership just allows us to extend that value proposition for our customers by providing another advantage, another solution for them to achieve their goals and objectives in their business.

We sell tools to help customers succeed in their business, and this is another tool, so to speak, for them to leverage and utilize in their network.

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