Covid-19 Update Wholesaler update: S.P. Richards
TRYING TIMES CALL FOR “OUTSIDE THE VIRUS THINKING” As much as he might wish otherwise, Jack Reagan, Senior Vice President of Merchandising and Supply Chain for Atlanta-based S.P. Richards, admits he can’t predict the future when it comes to the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic and its effect on the IDC. What he can tell you, however, is the impact it has had so far; what S.P. Richards is doing to help lessen the blow; and what it will take for dealers to survive moving forward in a business world that most assuredly will never be the same. “It is too early to tell how the virus is going to impact the IDC,” says Reagan. “As prepared as S.P. Richards and the supply chain were, none of us were ready to see entire states shut down with, as of today, no idea of when things will be up and running again. The dealers I have talked to have expressed real concern.” And he knows this concern is justified: “People are not at work; they are not consuming the same level of
APRIL 2020
paper, for example. Home offices won’t catch up to the majority of the previous spend; dealers who sell to large buildings and schools won’t be able to talk to anyone for days when they re-open and I don’t think anyone even knows when that might be.”
Silver and not-so-silver linings
According to Reagan, however, the impact of the virus is not all doom and gloom. “Our JanSan business is exploding,” he says. “It hit levels in a matter of days that usually would take weeks; we had five or six record days we would never have thought we’d hit. That’s the good news. The bad news is it wiped everyone out of items people really need: disinfectant, hand sanitizers, masks and toilet paper.” According to Reagan, JanSan is not the only sector experiencing an uptick: “Technology has remained strong—mostly printers, ink and toners,
INDEPENDENT DEALER
Jack Reagan with sales pivoting from the office to the home office. And the furniture side has not been hurt in the short term, since large contract installations are still going forward.” He wishes he could say the same for the office products channel. “Unfortunately, this is the category that took the majority of the hit, slowing down as schools and businesses shut down and stopped buying,” Reagan says. Yet even here, there are bright spots. “Of course, there is concern among the office products dealers, but there are opportunities, too,” he continues. “Hospital, healthcare, software for the home… These accounts are exploding. So too is the legal industry. Dealers with these on their customer lists have opportunities.” “There’s so many questions,” Reagan explains. “For example, if an employee does not feel safe in the workplace, but can’t work from home, do they still get paid? Or one dealer told me about a building that mandated that everyone entering it had to have their temperature taken first and the delivery driver didn’t want to have his taken… It’s all uncharted territory; each case is different and it varies state by state. So legal firms are in high demand.” PAGE 30
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