With the launch of BizBox, Office Depot is adding to its portfolio of business services in an ongoing effort to evolve beyond its retail heritage. BizBox, a web site with no obvious Office Depot branding, offers small business owners and entrepreneurs an à la carte menu of services in marketing and operations with different subscription prices and minimum time commitments.
BizBox users will be connected to a personal Biz Pro who will act as a single point of contact across the range of services. Marketing services include logo design at a one-time cost of $199; SEO consulting at $299 per month for at least three months; and pay-per-click digital advertising and marketing services for $500 per month with a three-month minimum requirement. Back-office services include one-time tax ID and incorporation services starting at $145, and accounting services starting at $159 per month with no minimum time commitment.
For now, BizBox services do not overlap with those of CompuCom Systems, which was acquired by Office Depot in October 2017. CompuCom provides IT managed services, infrastructure solutions and IT consulting to large and small firms. However, technical services will be available as part of BizBox soon, according to the retailer.
Advertisement
Office Depot, which already revealed plans to open CompuCom’s Tech-Zone SMB help desks in its stores, will also introduce the BizBox platform into its stores “based on customer feedback and demand.”
“We have the ability to reach 9 million small business customers through our touch points around the country,” said Gerry Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Office Depot in a statement. “Uniting this deep expertise with the world-class IT services of CompuCom will help solve customer problems in a way few others are doing right now. The BizBox platform is an essential element of our commitment to innovation.”
In a study of 1,500 small business and startup owners, Office Depot found that owners believed they needed digital services such as email marketing, web site creation and social marketing to grow their businesses, but one-third of respondents had no web site and more than one half were not doing any kind of social marketing.
Small business owners “feel pulled in a million directions and often don’t know where to turn for support for all their needs,” said Kevin Moffitt, Chief Digital Officer for Office Depot in a statement. “BizBox is a platform designed to help reduce some of the stress…and is the first service of its kind backed by the business expertise of a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.”
