Welcome back everybody.

This is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Anne Mazinga coming to you from day two of E TAIL here in Palm Springs.

Before we get started and I introduce my next guest here, I just want to give a big shout out and thank you to Net Elixir who's making all of our coverage here at Etail possible.

You can stop by and visit Net elixir in booth 501.

All right, with that, let's introduce my guest.

Here to my left is Kevin Moffitt.

Kevin is the president of Office Depot and Office Max joining us today.

Welcome Kevin.

To meet you face to face.

I know, face to face.

Yes, we finally get to meet.

Yes, we've tried to connect a couple of times.

It's great to meet you here at eto.

Yeah, of course.

Well, tell me a little bit too about maybe what's all included in your role with Office Depot and Office Max, if you don't mind.

So I lead our, our B2C business, but I like to put a little twist on that and call it B2C and B2SMB.

We have a tremendous number of small business customers and you know, it's a market that is, it's underserved typically because, you know, B2B companies are looking at much larger organizations and enterprises and in traditional retail the focus is on end consumers.

So that middle tier is a really, really interesting group of folks and their needs are so complex.

They have very similar needs to large businesses and they're often doing many, many of the tasks that would be generalized in a larger company themselves.

And so anything that we can do to help, you know, increase their efficiency, increase their effectiveness at juggling multiple tasks at the same time is usually very appreciated.

And what does that look like, Kevin?

Like, do you have an example of that?

Just so like our audience at home can kind of get a sense of just how you're doing that.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely.

95 plus percent of businesses in the U.S.

are small businesses.

Less than 20 employees.

And a huge chunk of those businesses are sole proprietorships.

Just one person.

Right.

Often, you know, kind of bringing in their friends and family to help support when, when needed.

But the small business entrepreneur is really the backbone of our communities.

Right.

They're the local, you know, the local restaurants, they're the local insurance companies.

They're, you know, they're providing services that are so important to all of our lives.

Yeah.

And so creating a real focus from an assortment perspective, from a go to market perspective, even our services, I mean most people know Us for paper, ink, toner, you know, the basic office supplies.

But not everyone knows that every single one of our stores is a full service print facility.

Interesting.

That can do custom flyers, signs, business cards, you know, you name it.

We really can support many, many different business needs.

Well, Kevin, you were on the stage earlier today with a few other individuals and I think this session is really interesting.

You know, talking about how legacy brands like Office Depot and Office Max, who've really been embedded in their communities for years, how you can get that next generation of audience that started their lives in some of them, they're taking over the family business, they started their lives online.

What does that look like for you at Office Max and Office Depot?

And then tell us a little bit about what some of the other panelists shared.

Yeah.

So, you know, for us, it's, it's such a fascinating time as we've, we saw just an incredible transformation in workspace management.

Right.

Remote hybrid.

I mean, people were working remote before the pandemic, but we're still seeing only about 50% occupancy in office buildings across the country.

So there's a tremendous amount of momentum behind flexibility in managing your own work environment and your own.

It used to be called work life balance.

Some people are still using that term.

I find it very interesting because I just think work and life have blended together.

You're absolutely right.

You know, for us, trying to really think through as folks enter the workspace now, most of whom will have experienced remote learning for at least a full year during the pandemic.

You know, we're working, we're learning from home in makeshift classrooms, on their bedroom floors.

Not that my daughter did that or anything, but, you know, I have, and, and you know, they just have a different perspective of how to integrate technology into their workday.

It's so naturally, what I think we're really focused on is just how do you avoid completely taking the human factor out of your work?

Right.

And even how we take it out of retail.

You've seen the trends in retail that many, even large retailers are moving away from.

Even that final mode of human face to face interaction.

At checkout right now, you have self checkout.

You don't even have a smile and a hello anymore in a retail environment.

And we're really proud that, you know, the vast majority of customers who are going to walk into one of our stores, at least they're going to have someone welcoming them, someone asking them what brought them in that day, how they, how we can help them.

And you know, it very Often goes way beyond that as well into really getting to know their business and their.

And their needs.

And I think that that in real life factor.

Yeah, right.

Is we dismiss it as the younger generations are pure digital.

I'm not so sure.

I mean, I have four children, and luckily they keep me connected to what's going on out there.

And I think that, you know, this need for human to human interaction as well as tangible experiences, I think does not go away.

In fact, it may be more important to the younger generations.

So, Kevin, would you go as far to say as like Office Depot and Office Max are turning into more of a service business than they are a goods business?

Well, I wouldn't go that far, but I would definitely say we are much.

We're much more of a balance than you might think.

Right, right.

And certainly we know we have tremendous growth opportunities within the services side of our.

But here's a great example.

I bet you don't know that you can get your TSA PreCheck done at our store.

No, I didn't.

But now I do need to renew.

You know where to come.

Yeah.

200 of our stores actually offer that service.

Okay.

And more to come.

But we're just constantly thinking about how can we leverage our f assets to help support customer needs.

Obviously, business customers, they're traveling.

Right.

And now it seems like if you've been to an airport lately, they're traveling more than ever.

Right.

And so just being able to help facilitate that process is just another example of how we can use our real estate to support our customers.

I think it's really smart how you're thinking about it, because I think we just covered, you know, Joanne, closing all their stores today and what, you know, really is another legacy brand that everybody's so sad, sad to see this.

This retailer kind of die off.

But I also think that based on, you know, research that we've done, there's not.

There's not a lot of effort to kind of convert the business to what the demands are of the community.

What do you think are the biggest roadblocks or challenges that you.

You found in your work?

Or, like, what hurdles do retailers and brands.

Who are those legacy players?

What.

What do they have to get over in order to make their business continue to succeed with this next generation?

I think, look, having spent a lot of time in retail and more time in digital and E commerce, I think the constant need to evaluate how you can leverage technology not just as a solution in and of itself, but really how it helps to transform the customer experience.

And we have been major advocates of omnichannel integration for many years.

We are a leading edge provider of those capabilities.

I mentioned it during my panel.

We have the fastest in store pickup program in the world.

Wow.

And at least I think we do until someone proves.

Now, I need a stopwatch.

I got a timer.

There you go.

Well, it's 20 minutes.

We have a 20 minute promise.

So if you place an order on our website, you will within 20 minutes, often very much faster.

You'll get an email saying it's ready to pick up.

And if you don't, we'll automatically send you a $20 coupon off your next order.

And how do you do that?

We leverage technology very smart ways.

Here's one great example.

We partner with Zebra Technologies.

All of our associates carry mobile devices with them at all times.

And so as part of our just operational efficiency, we leverage those devices to do everything.

Inventory management, you know, controls, making sure the right products are on the right shelves, making sure our pricing is updated, but importantly, making sure that customer needs are taken care of as the first priority.

So as soon as an in store pickup order comes in at any given stores, alarms are going off, it's ready to go, and it's often taken care of, you know, within minutes.

I, I have to give you kudos, Kevin, because you're really hitting on all the things that we've been talking to retailers about that they're trying to do to create an omnichannel experience that works for the customer.

To not bog down your associates with multiple devices and platforms in order to do this work.

And it, you're, you know, for a legacy brand, it's really impressive the work that you and your team are doing.

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to under underestimate the challenges that are out there.

Retail is transforming, it's changing all the time.

Customer expectations are changing.

You know, you really obviously have to stay focused on that experience.

And what I really am very proud of is our, we have incredible NPS scores in our stores.

Our associates genuinely focus on making sure that our customers walk out of the store happy.

And I think that is a big differentiator for us.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, let's conclude with this question.

Sure.

You're already using a lot of really cool technology to help with those experiences.

But we're at Etail.

There's a lot of new content being discussed about new retail technology.

You can walk the floor and there's tons of information for new partners.

What's kind of top of mind as you look ahead to 2025 for you and your team.

What technology or challenges are you going to try to tackle this year?

Yeah.

There's really two big things that I say we're focused on.

One is leveraging AI for very clear use cases.

Okay.

One way that we've leveraged AI is to digitize all of our user manuals, our SOPs, all the associate facing documentation, and put it into a model where AI will help them just get to the solution that they need right away.

Yeah.

Remember, with any complex retail organization, you're going to have thousands of things.

Oh yeah.

Are possible.

Right.

For any customer walking in one particular thing may only happen in your store once a year maybe.

Right.

So being able to quickly figure out how to accomplish that task is really important.

So I think that's one interesting use.

And that's like generative AI or LLM.

Based leverage is, you know, basically put everything, all of it into the machine.

Yeah.

And then the machine parses back out to individual associates, the answers to their questions.

So as a pretty amazing new associate, I could be like, what are the closing procedures for my store?

Exactly.

Or you know, small use case in our print center.

Right.

That may be relatively uncommon.

So that's a great example.

And then the other one is really around personalization.

Obviously we've been talking about personalization for a very, very long time, but we are actively working with our marketing partner, platform partner right now on revamping all of our promotional emails.

Really looking to increase the amount of targeted content that we have out there.

We have a really diverse customer base and we know, right.

A teacher just.

They're going to have different needs from.

From a small business owner.

Right.

So being able to leverage that information is really important to us.

Well, Kevin, this has been quite an impressive conversation.

Relatively short, but hard hitting.

Right?

Oh my God, yes.

This has been great.

Thank you so much for sharing all of the updates from your team.

Thanks for taking the time with us here.

Quick thank you again to Net Elixir for making our coverage possible.

And until the next interview, be careful out there.