Office supply retail giant Staples is engaging in discussions with
travel industry partners and has tested having travel agents in some of its
stores as it pursues a strategy of becoming “the first stop to nonstop travel” both
in its stores and online.

In July Caitlin Gomez, a former vice president with Clear
and the Global Business Travel Association who has also held roles with Travel Leaders Corporate and the American
Society of Travel Agents, joined Staples as its first director of travel
strategy and partnerships.

“Our goal is to establish Staples as the convenient,
reliable and all-inclusive place for safe and secure travel services for small
business owners, their employees and consumers,” said Craig Grayson, senior
vice president of services for Staples U.S. Retail.

“We plan on meeting our customers wherever they need us in
order to relieve as much of the stress and confusion around travel services as
possible, which could include online and in-app components.”

Staples has provided TSA PreCheck enrollment for about five
years. It now has about 250 stores offering that service and has processed
about 2.5 million enrollments since launch. The retailer also offers some
passport services – more than 500,000 photos have been taken in its stores
year-to-date.

Grayson said the success of those services has provided a “proof
point” that Staples has credibility providing services in travel and that, in
part due to shifts spurred by the pandemic, an expansion of its offerings can both
serve existing customers and provide a new reason for consumers to come to
its stores.

“Travel
is strong and continuing to grow, but, due to the disruption caused by
COVID-19, the travel landscape has changed,” he said.

“This
shift, especially in number of people working from home, has strongly impacted
the way travelers access tools and services required to conduct business. It is
much harder to reach and engage with the remote work population. We believe
Staples is perfectly positioned to step into the role of providing travel
services where it is most convenient and accessible to travelers.”

To test its theory, Staples has conducted two pilot programs
that brought travel professionals into its stores to talk to customers about
their travel plans as they waited for TSA or passport services. For one pilot, the
travel professionals came from an “agency partner” – which Staples would not
name – and for the other, individual stores invited local travel agents to come
in. 

“The
intention was to at least glean, for our benefit, what are these customers doing and is there any differentiation to a customer that chooses Staples and
… is there connective tissue and would
customers give us permission to kind of move in that direction?”

The answer? “There’s definitely a place for us to play,” he said.

Now the question is “how.” 

Grayson does not envision Staples building a booking tool or
platform but, possibly in partnership with existing travel companies – he mentioned
airlines or booking agents – “we could link up with
because of our scale, because of their scale, really put together some value
proposition in packages that would be compelling to at least put in front of our customers when they are in that
moment of need.”

Since
it is still early days, Grayson would not name partners he has been talking to –
“some for information gathering, some is planting the seed” – but he did say the
partners have been receptive to the idea of Staples moving deeper into travel.

“There is a tremendous amount of enthusiasm as we’ve talked to very specific partners in the space around us bringing the conversation and the capabilities to the retail population,” Grayson said.

“They see this as an opportunity to touch this customer that is hard for them to touch but easier for us to touch because this is what we do every day. How you thread that needle is the piece we have to work through to be very thoughtful about it. We’re not looking to partner with any entities just to say we partner with them, and we have their brands showing up in our stores. There’s got to be some meaningful program behind it and some value proposition that we can bring to our customers.

“I’ve actually been in some cases very surprised by the receptivity they’ve had with even just the notion of Staples, the classic big box retailer, wanting to play in this space. And I would say overwhelmingly the response has been, wow, that’s amazing, that really makes sense so that for me … is validating that we’ve got something.”