WH Smith eyes VAR market
Retail giant WH Smith has refused to comment on its venture into the IT marketplace, despite the devastation it could wreak on small resellers.
Retail giant WH Smith has refused to comment on its venture into the IT marketplace, despite the devastation it could wreak on small resellers.
The chain store is less well known for its sales of PC software, video, music and video games than its stationery, but that could change, experts warned. The store currently owns more than 550 high-street branches across the UK, including 178 John Menzies shops acquired in 1998.
In its latest move, which could see the company eventually going into direct competition with other retailers such as Dixons, Comet and PC World, WH Smith has launched a series of PC workstation accessories ranging from mouse mats to diskettes. Other products include storage boxes, diskette wallets and CD storage racks.
Additional services offered by the company include a CD burning facility in selected stores, and special labelling packages allowing customers to print images on the CDs, along with a mechanism which ensures stickers are secured correctly onto the CDs.
If WH Smith makes the move into IT by stocking PCs and IT hardware, it would follow other large corporations desperate to establish a foothold in the market. Kingfisher, owner of chains such as Comet and Woolworths, was rumoured to be in talks involving the takeover of online reseller Jungle.com.
WH Smith already operates a website offering customers the chance to shop online, and according to a company profile featured on the site, its internet and interactive markets are "expected to develop significantly over the next few years".
The profile goes on: "The WH Smith brand has good potential to trade competitively in this market, particularly as the customer base broadens."
A representative said the company was not considering a move into the IT market for the time being, but would not reveal its long-term intentions.
"The question of WH Smith moving into the IT market is not an issue in the short term, but long-term plans are not being ruled out," she said.
She added, however, that "it would be inappropriate to comment on that at the present time".