By George Anderson
Ahold's Stop & Shop and Giant-Landover supermarkets are getting ready to go back-to-school.
The supermarket chain announced a deal to put office supply areas under the Staples brand in its 550 stores by July. Departments will receive between 40 and 80 feet of dedicated shelf space and feature between 500 and 1,200 school and office products.
The decision to rollout Staples' departments to all of Stop & Shop and Giant stores comes after a 60 store test at Stop & Shop. Staples is doing a similar test with Kroger in Las Vegas, Nev. and Salt Lake City, Utah.
In addition to the standard assortment of office and school supplies found in many supermarkets, the Staples' section will also sell printer ink cartridges and technology products.
Marc Smith, president and CEO of Stop & Shop and Giant Landover said in a released statement, "This is a great way for us to bring added convenience to our customers. Staples has created a model that is easy to execute and fits perfectly with what our customers need."
Burt Flickinger III, managing director at Strategic Resource Group, sees more branded store-within-a-store deals happening in the future. He told US Today, "Stores with collaborations do an average of $5 per transaction more, which is about an 18 percent to 20 percent higher spend per shopper."
Ted Taft, partner at Meridian Consulting said, for supermarkets, "Just having your traditional core products isn't enough anymore, because one of the strategies that Wal-Mart used against supermarkets was breadth of products."
Moderator's Comment: What is your reaction to the Stop & Shop/Giant-Landover and Staples announcement? Is the traditional supermarket, for all intents and purposes, dead? Can stores be successful just selling traditional grocery store products? - George Anderson - Moderator