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| P2P Magazine | Winter 2015
01732 759725
in terms of what they mean for office
suppliers. Both involve a rise in working
from home or away from the office, as
well as flexible working, a reliance on new
technology and doing away with outdated
office traditions. In short, solutions need
to be flexible, cost effective and adaptable
for today’s generation of workers.
“Our Avery Design & Print software
has enabled us to embrace and support
both of these trends. Small businesses
are using the software and templates to
design and print their own business cards,
merchandising and branding materials
and more, all from their home office. The
result is that there’s no longer a need for
costly outsourcing or long lead times.
Millennials, too, are fans of this quick and
simple approach to getting personalised
branded materials, whether it’s shipping
labels, marketing collateral or company
signage. This is a generation that has
grown up with social media and is used
to a faster pace – they want to be able
to bring their ideas to life at the touch of
a button and Avery Design & Print helps
make this happen.
“Across both trends, e-commerce
is a huge growth area, whether it’s
small online sellers setting up or larger
companies increasing their online
offering.We see this as a trend that’s
set to continue, especially when you
consider that e-commerce is now a daily
or weekly activity for most of us. This is
hugely significant for the industry and
has created a demand for innovative
mailroom and packaging supplies.
“In addition to the growth of
e-commerce, we see millennials
dominating the workplace and the rise in
entrepreneurialism as continuing trends
for 2015. A recent report from Forbes
claimed that in the next nine years,
41% of the workforce will be working
from home, which means a big change
from traditional office practices.We
plan to continue embracing these trends
by listening to our consumers through
multiple channels, including social media.
We’ll use these conversations with our
community to ensure Avery products and
software solutions continue to meet their
needs.”
OPINION
Looking ahead to 2015
Stuart Barker,
Marketing Manager,
Pilot Pens
“Market data, customer feedback
and sales all indicate that the writing
instruments market as a whole is in a
very healthy state and continues to grow,
while it appears that own brand writing
instruments are declining and being
displaced by branded products.
“Consumers are becoming more brand-
conscious when it comes to choosing a
pen and look for quality and technical
innovation that deliver increased writing
performance. Our FriXion family of
erasable rollerball pens is currently our
strongest selling range and year-on-year
sales growth is very positive.
“Pilot’s more traditional products, such
as our Liquid Ink V5 and V7 needle tip
rollerball pens, continue to be the preferred
writing instrument within their product
category as they are a long established
product which consumers know and trust
for smooth writing comfort.
“Consumers are also looking for
technical benefits from their writing
instruments.While Pilot is not the lowest
priced within our customer’s product
categories, our continual year-on-year
sales growth and market share gains prove
that consumers are prepared to spend a
little more to enjoy technical benefits,
such as the ability to erase offered by
the Pilot FriXion and the smooth-writing
performance of our Pure Liquid Ink
rollerball range.”
Karen Harrison
Group Marketing Manager,
AF International
“Reducing wastage is a trend that will
continue in 2015; we will see more
environmentally-friendly products,
healthier working environments and more
responsible manufacturing processes.
“In general, people are more aware
of the environment they work in and
are more interested in how the product
is produced and where. AF will continue
investment in research and development
to drive products that lead to efficiency,
productivity and environmental
protection.We are launching a ‘world
first’ to the office products market in
2015, a unique innovative product that
has zero environmental impact, zero
toxicity and zero hazards in use (see page
18 for more information).”
Fiona Mills
Marketing Director,
Avery UK
“In 2014, we’ve observed two key
trends for the industry to embrace
and learn from. One is the surge in
entrepreneurialism and business start-
ups, which has created a demand for
solutions suitable for small and home
offices. At the other end of the scale, in
larger businesses, we are seeing a rise in
the number of millennials making up the
workforce and bringing changes to office
culture with them.
“These two trends actually crossover
P2P asks leading vendors within the office products market to
summarise the biggest emerging trends experienced in their respective
sectors in 2014 and what they predict will happen in 2015.
