Archive: Opinions

Large retail stores are suffering as the popularity of buying on the Internet continues to grow.  Nowhere is this more true than in the technology sector with big box stores like Best Buy trying to compete while closing 50 of its stores in 2012 and more last year.  So when a traditional big box has a winning product you'd think they'd make the most of it.  That's not what I found this week when I visited our local Staples.

I first read about Staples Connect a few months ago.  The product is a home automation hub that not only automates various aspects of your home -- lighting, security, heat, smoke alarm, door locks -- but gives you the ability to control all that not only from anywhere in your house, but from anywhere in the world using smart phone apps over the Internet.  This is a great implementation of what is being called the 'Internet Of things'.  I checked it out on the Staples Web site and was impressed with what I saw, so I wanted to go see it for myself in a Staples store.

I went to Pet Smart Sunday to get cat food and decided to walk over to see this hub at the Staples next door, as long as I was there.  There was a nice young man at the service counter, so I asked where they had the Staples Connect.

"The what?" he said.

I explained to him what it is.  Another employee came over, and he thought he had heard of it.  He walked us over to the networking equipment shelf (I had already looked there) and he pointed out two products that more or less do what the Staples Connect does.  But no Staples Connect.

I was amused, and started giving these guys a hard time in what I hope was a friendly, jovial fashion.  They asked if I would wait while they looked it up on the Internet.  They almost missed it on the Staples Web site, then were astounded to find two pages of Staples Connect products, kits, and compatible products.

So here's the thing.  A struggling big box company comes up with a fabulous product on the cutting edge of making home automation technology accessible to the average homeowner and aggregating all the various things that can be automated into one interface.  They get glowing reviews in the tech press.

While there are several competing products three things make the Staples product stand out.  First, it is compatible with a wealth of third party products.  So if you have a First Alert smoke alarm, GE Appliance modules, Phillips Hue Wireless lighting, Honeywell Touch Screen thermostat and a Yale Touch Screen Deadbolt you can control them all from your phone using the Staples hub.  That means you can control them within one app on your phone without needing to load separate apps for each thing.  Secondly, you do not need to subscribe to an online service to access all that over the internet.  So no monthly payments.  Finally, the hub is made for Staples by Linksys, which is one of the top makers of home networking equipment.

My thought is that there should be a Staples Connect display that looks like a little house you can walk into and see how easy it is to aggregate all this technology in an affordable and easily usable way.  The employees should not only be told about this great product, but trained to show it off.  They would probably sell like hot cakes.  The floor space would be more than worth it.

Instead nobody bothered to even tell the employees that such a thing exists, and the product wasn't even in the store.  I am guessing they are not selling a whole lot of these things, and that more Staples stores will be closing going forward.

This was definitely not a case of bad or incompetent employees.  The two I met were friendly and engaged.  They were good natured about my ribbing.  They did the best with what they had.  But the management failed them (and me as a customer) by not adequately training them and making them aware of a product they should want to be selling.  This incident could easily have been avoided if their management had prepared them adequately.

Remember this isn't just some product on a shelf at Staples.  It is Staples' own branded product.  And reportedly a very good one.  But there was not one lick of evidence that it even exists in the Ithaca Staples.

So you can't tell me that Amazon and Google are entirely to blame for the demise of big box technology stores.  Internet shopping is a fact of life, and it is growing.  It is not going away.  Rather than complaining that customers use the store as a showroom and then get the best deal on the Internet, the stores should be coming up with great products that people will want from the stores.  Or how about this idea: maybe the physical stores should be showrooms.  Turn a bug into a feature: Amazon sells products, but Staples lets you see them work before you buy them and you can take them home that day!

If companies like Amazon or Google do come up with the equivalent Staples' bone-headed failure to showcase its own product they will certainly face closing as well.  Glass half empty or glass half full: new shopping paradigms present new hurdles -- or new opportunities.  In the meantime, minimally sell the products you have.  Staples has what is reportedly a great product.  If you have it, flaunt it!

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