Grand & Toy launches ‘brand refresh’ as it narrows focus to business customers

Grand & Toy invented next-day supply, so the story goes.

In 1882, lengthy earlier than on-line shops and big-box retail, the Canadian workplace provides firm loaded items onto a wheelbarrow or horse-drawn wagon and delivered objects to business prospects inside a day.

The firm grew steadily for a century, opening dozens of shops and turning into a family identify in Canada for workplace catalogues and back-to-school provides.

Then, after a interval of mounting competitors from U.S. retailers like Staples and Walmart that noticed the corporate offered to a U.S. agency, Grand & Toy closed all its retail places in 2014.

While the corporate’s legacy as an workplace provide retailer within the mall stays within the minds of some shoppers, Grand & Toy has spent almost a decade returning to its 141-year-old roots as a business-to-business provider of workplace services and products.

“People grew up with the brand and remember buying school supplies at Grand & Toy,” stated Chris Henwood, senior director of promoting and product administration.

“But those stores were an insignificant portion of our total revenue. Business-to-business sales have always been a very substantial part of what we do.”

The shops, which as soon as dotted malls throughout Canada, additionally weren’t reflective of the corporate’s enlargement into expertise, well being and security and workplace furnishings, he stated.

“It became increasingly difficult for us to demonstrate all of those capabilities in stores with a small footprint,” Henwood stated.

So the retailer shuttered its shops, moved totally on-line and centered on assembly the wants of companies.

Grand & Toy now has 30,000 business prospects in 20 totally different industries throughout the nation, starting from giant retailers and monetary establishments to the federal authorities and small companies.

Yet for shoppers who see a Grand & Toy supply truck or stumble throughout its web site, the shift to serving business prospects hasn’t all the time been clear.

The retailer’s web site has added to that confusion, Henwood stated.

“We have historically had an ungated website with consumer street pricing on it,” he stated. “We may have confused the marketplace a little bit.”

The firm’s web site will turn into totally gated within the subsequent month. Only business prospects with an account will have the ability to log into the location to purchase items.

It’s additionally launching what it calls a “brand refresh” with the slogan Give Work Life to assist make Grand & Toy’s raison d’etre extra clear within the market.

It’s shift precipitated partly by growing competitors and the digitization of labor.

Indeed, the workplace provide sector has suffered “consistent revenue declines” for the reason that early 2000s, in keeping with a 2022 report by business market analysis agency IBISWorld.

Grand & Toy’s shift into new services and products was additionally accelerated through the pandemic’s work-from-home mandates and the event of hybrid work fashions.

While demand for Grand & Toy’s conventional product classes like printer paper and toner slowed through the pandemic, it was offset by corporations’ need to create extra linked, versatile and clear workspaces, Henwood stated.

“People were working on La-Z-Boys and sofas. Some of our largest customers said, ‘No, we need to help people create spaces in their homes where they can work efficiently through desking, seating, technology, monitors, webcams … so all of that stuff skyrocketed,” he stated.

“It offset the erosion in traditional core categories. Surprisingly, those categories have now bounced back, but they’re certainly not high-growth categories long term.”

Grand & Toy is now increasing in classes like well being and security, expertise, workplace design and furnishings and break room experiences.

“I don’t think the return-to-office transition has completely settled yet,” Henwood stated. “Most organizations are still struggling with finding the right balance … many people got very used to working from home and it’s tough to get people back into the office.”

Grand & Toy desires to assist its business prospects remedy the continued dilemma of methods to make workplace life extra interesting to staff.

“We want to help our customers create an office space that is more like home,” he stated. “It could be creating spaces for people to collaborate, rethinking a break room or outfitting meeting rooms with technology that allows you to operate in a hybrid world.”

Henwood added: “Having the amenities of home in the office is what gets people excited about being there.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first printed April 30, 2023.