Office managers looking to color coordinate their desks with hot pink or turquoise tape dispensers and in-box trays will now be able to find those products, previously available only from e-retailer Poppin.com, at the stores of retail chain Staples Inc.
The two companies announced today that Staples will be the first bricks-and-mortar retailer to offer products from Poppin. The items will be displayed on simple white tiered displays, organized by color. Each display will feature four colors, and each store will have two displays, offering products in eight of the 10 colors Poppin offers online. On its e-commerce site, Poppin offers such items as staplers, rulers, scissors, pen cups and inbox organizers in white, yellow, orange, red, pink, lime green, aqua, pool blue, purple and black.
Staples will introduce the Poppin products in 30 stores this month, Poppin says. Staples will offer about 25% of the products available on Poppin.com.
“By partnering with the industry leader, we are able to introduce Poppin to millions nationwide who are looking to inject design and color into their workspaces—whether at home or in a corporate office,” says Randy Nicolau, Poppin’s CEO. “We have constructed a shopping experience that makes it easy for customers to coordinate their stapler with their tape dispenser, notebooks and organization products to truly customize their own space.”
Staples will offer items that range in price from $2 for a Pebble Eraser to $24 for a set of stackable inboxes. A selection of Poppin products are also now available on Staples.com.
“Together we have created a truly special shopping experience designed to assist customers in coordinating their ideal workspace,” says Mike Edwards, executive vice president of merchandising at Staples, No. 2 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide.
Poppin, which launched in September 2012, as a web-only retailer, has nowhere near the market share of Staples.com, which sold $10.3 billion online in 2012. But the design of its e-commerce site, which lets shoppers choose to see items by color, earned Poppin.com a place in Internet Retailer’s 2013 Hot 100, which highlights the most innovative e-retailing sites. Almost all of Poppin’s products are designed by the online retailer.
Poppin, which raised $6 million last year, attracted another $11.1 million in investor capital last month.
Staples, meanwhile, has been seeking new ways to bring the Internet into its 1,536 U.S. stores. The retail chain last week unveiled two new, smaller-footprint “omnichannel stores” in Dover, DE, and Norwood, MA, where consumers can buy online products not available in stores, either from web-enabled kiosks or employees carrying tablet computers. Staples says it plans to introduce 45 of the stores nationwide.