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Staples wants to turn its Easy Button from a toy to a useful tool (SPLS, AMZN)
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Office supply retailer Staples is beginning to develop machine learning technology to be added to its physical Easy Buttons.
The buttons were originally developed as a toy to keep around the workplace and when pushed, a voice said, "That was easy!" However, Staples is ready to bring the devices from toy to tool. Easy Buttons will eventually become a tool for automated ordering and reordering of products for sale via Staples' e-commerce portal.
For example, an Easy Button owner could ask the device to reorder printer ink that was purchased a month earlier. We expect that the devices will be connected to the owner's shopping account on Staples.com, allowing them to seamlessly pull payment and shipping information.
The technology sounds very similar to Amazon's Dash Buttons, which are small, branded devices with an embedded button for one-click ordering. The Amazon buttons are linked to customers' home Wi-Fi and the Amazon Mobile App, allowing shoppers to instantly place orders for delivery. Staples is likely hoping to get in on the ground floor of automated ordering, and Amazon's early numbers are a good indicator of future success for the technology as a whole.
One year after launching the devices, Amazon now offers over 150 different Dash Buttons. And brands are joining or expanding within the Dash Button program four times faster than in 2015.
If Staples can develop its machine learning technology and deploy the new Easy Buttons soon enough, we expect the company to see some lift in sales, especially from its B2B customers. Staples' nature as an office supply chain means that it has lots of businesses that rely on it for keeping workplaces stocked with things like printer paper, stationery, and cleaning supplies.
US consumers, on the other hand, are not very enthusiastic about services with automated alert and reorder capabilities, like the Easy Button or Dash Buttons. In fact, only 29% of US online shoppers believe automated product alerts are valuable, according to a comScore and UPS survey of US consumers. Comparatively, only 23% of online shoppers find automated reorders to be valuable. But as the technology becomes more mainstream, and is adopted by brands that are purchased frequently, we expect these perceptions to shift.
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