Staples - Cross Sell

Staples discovered that analysing the customer journey led to an accurate and actionable understanding of customer value.

Staples offers a broad range of stationery products and services, ranging from ‘big ticket’ items such as furniture and PCs, to paper and print  supplies. With no insight, it was easy to assume that a ‘big ticket’ first purchase was indicative of a ‘high value’ long term customer.

Response One helped Staples to track and analyse the purchase journey a customer takes through its product ranges, to pinpoint how the order in which different products are purchased reveals the correlation between product type, purchase pattern and actual customer value.

The Challenge
Staples marketers face the twin challenges of a broad product range and a customer base that extends from the home consumer to the business user. Without any customer insight, the main thrust of marketing communications was often focused around a ‘big ticket’ IT product such as a PC or laptop, on the assumption that customers purchasing more expensive items are automatically more profitable customers. 

The Solution
Using transactional data collected from customers who were members of the loyalty scheme – Staples Rewards - Response One analysed customer journeys by product area. Specifically, customers were segmented by their first purchase by product area, and subsequent purchases were then tracked to identify “what the customer did next” -  i.e. what products were purchased next.

The Results
The results were extremely revealing. The assumption that a first purchase of an expensive item was a reliable indicator of long-term customer value was contradicted by the analysis. Using the results of analysis Staples were able to identify the customer segment and key product purchase that was most likely to be a leader for driving customer value and cross sell to other products. Transactional analysis  and segmentation by initial product purchase have enabled Staples to accurately understand the customer journey, and how the outset of that journey correlates to cross-sell patterns and true customer value.