Research Preview: The State of the OP Industry 2016-17

The past 12 months have seen the global office products industry continue to change substantially. Overall demand for traditional OP is steady at best and in decline in many countries, and the need to venture into alternative product categories and services is becoming ever more pressing. 

E-commerce is firmly established as the dominant OP ordering method in many countries and Amazon is now widely recognised as a fast-growing player in this market. 

Reliable yardstick

In such turbulent times, senior industry executives need a reliable yardstick against which to assess their own perceptions and strategies. For the fourth time, Martin Wilde Associates (MWA) – specialist researchers to the global OP market – and OPI will be producing their annual research study, The State of the OP Industry 2016-17, which aims to be a ‘must-have’ authoritative sourcebook for the OP industry.

The report investigates the OP markets in the US, Canada, Benelux, France, Germany, UK and Australia in detail and is based on insights and data collected from in-depth phone and online interviews with senior OP industry executives in those countries. It also comprises the 2016 financial performance of the key 15 OP distributors in the US and Europe, as well as the main industry events of 2016.

The data gathered from these senior OP industry executives will aim to answer the following questions for each country market covered by the study:

• What was the value of the core OP market in 2016?
• What are the core OP market growth trends in 2016 and 2017?
• What will be the value of the core OP market in 2017?
• What was the value of the addressable facilities supplies market in 2016?
• What are respondents’ overall revenue and margin trends in 2016 and 2017?
• What share of respondents’ sales are accounted for by jan/san supplies, breakroom supplies, workwear/PPE, promotional products and MPS in 2016 and 2017?
• Which product categories are growing or declining overall in 2016 and 2017?
• Which distribution channels won or lost in 2016 and 2017?
• What are the shares of respondents’ sales in e-commerce and own label products in 2016 and 2017?
• What share of the core OP market does Amazon now have, and which customers is it being most successful in capturing?
• How will the OP industry look once Staples and Office Depot have divested? 
• What will be the effect of Brexit and the Presidency of Donald Trump in 2017? 

This authoritative industry-wide report is available for £850 (approximately $1,080) and will be available in April 2017. To order your copy, please visit www.opi.net/soti2017