Staples: The B2B Powerhouse 1

Staples: The B2B Powerhouse

Caleb Saylors

Department of Business Administration, Averett University

BSA310: Principles of Marketing

Mr. Benjamin Potter

February 12, 2021

Staples: The B2B Powerhouse 2

Abstract

Selling to individuals is important to Staples, but some of its greatest growth, and some

of its most important marketing efforts, relate to its Staples Advantage division which provides

business customers with services and support. This support may be most valuable for small

businesses, which often lack the resources to manage all their various functions on their own.

Staples Advantage provides companies with supplies that are necessary to keep their doors open.

To appeal to even more small businesses, they provide them with not just office supplies but also

ideas on how to run their offices.

Keywords: New Buy, Initiator, Distributor, Influencer

Staples: The B2B Powerhouse 3

Staples: The B2B Powerhouse

The main conclusion for this paper is ​

the kind of buying situation that this small business has

entered is called a New Buy scenario, and ​the attributes that the small business should be looking

for in both Staples and Lendio should be Product Quality, Pricing, Delivery, Competency,

Commitment, Cash resources, Cost, and Consistency.​​The main reasons for this conclusion are:

● Buying Lendio product for the first time

● Issues

● Performance

Buying Situation

The kind of buying situation that this small business has entered is called a New Buy

scenario, which is where the business is buying the Lendio product for the very first time. Every

buying process depends to a great extent on the situation. This firm is buying a product from a

different company for the first time which is a new buy. This process is much more involved

than if it is engaging in a straight rebuy because they are not purchasing the same item again.
 Staples: The B2B Powerhouse 4

Vendor Analysis

The attributes that the small business should be looking for in both Staples and Lendio

should be Product Quality, Pricing, Delivery, Competency, Commitment, Cash resources, Cost,

and Consistency.

Key Attributes Importance Performance: Importance X Vendor’s Importance X

Score Staples Performance Performance: Performance
= Total Lendio = Total

Customer Service 0.4 5 2 5 2

Issue Resolution 0.2 5 1 4 .8

Delivery 0.1 4 0.4 4 .4

Product Quality 0.3 4 1.2 4 1.2

Total 1.0 18 4.6 17 4.4

Staples: The B2B Powerhouse 5

References

Grewal, D., & Levy, M. (2007). Chapter 7 : Business-To-Business Marketing . In

Marketing​(pp. 210-231). Dubuque: McGraw-Hill Education.