SALES SUCCESS
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Selling into the education market – how to find your edge The education sector is continuing to grow, creating opportunities for workplace solution suppliers. How can resellers further diversify their product offering and make the most of this burgeoning market?
T
he education sector is a familiar market to
EMERGING TRENDS
most dealers, but there are new opportunities
Identifying emerging trends in the education market is key for
to capitalise on.The multi-academy trust
dealers looking to diversify. According to Sian, “Art, craft and
sector has clusters of five, ten, even upwards
stationery continue to be key product categories, followed by exercise
of 40 schools sometimes all managed by one
books, facilities, and furniture,” whilst Lawrence Savage, marketing
procurement officer. Couple this with the
manager at Exaclair, is seeing an upward trend in technology to boost
recent government announcement that education is set to receive ‘the
collaboration. “A growing use of technology throughout the industry
largest cash increase for schools in a decade’, and the opportunities in
has acted as a great influencer across several emerging trends within
education supplies have never been better. “As a group, in 2022, we saw
the sector, especially since experiencing the challenging times during
a 55% growth in education sales with our partner, Findel, despite tough
the pandemic.
market conditions,” says Sian Haskell, director of marketing at Integra.
“The gamification approach, which seeks to motivate students
Selling into the education market requires diversification into
by incorporating video game design and gaming elements into the
new and trending product areas and different customer bases, as
learning process, as well as bite-sized nano learning, is amongst the
well as insight into what education procurement managers are
more popular of these trends currently.” For suppliers looking to
looking for from suppliers; this is what will give your business an
identify new products to meet this demand, Lawrence believes the
edge over your competitors.
answer is collaborative tools. “There are driving demands in tools that
[26] MARCH 2023
www.dealersupport.co.uk