Multiple categories achieve growth! U.S. office supplies annual sales reach $14.5 billion

Recently, the research organization NPD announced the sales of the US office supplies industry in 2021. Overall, sales last year showed double-digit growth.

According to NPD data, sales of the U.S. office supplies industry (excluding cleaning and rest room supplies) reached $14.5 billion in 2021, up 11% from the previous year and 12% from 2019. NPD said the growth was due to the fact that some products that were "neglected" in 2020 regained consumer favor. In addition, the increase in average selling prices was also one of the reasons.

Remote learning and working affected office supplies sales in 2020. However, the easing of the epidemic promoted the sales of related products for most of 2021. The writing tools and office paper categories regained momentum in 2021, with sales increasing by 15% and 14% year-on-year, respectively. Compared with 2019, sales of writing tools also increased by 9%, while sales of office paper remained flat.

Other categories that continued to grow included storage products (hard drives, tapes, etc.), with sales increasing by 22% year-on-year. In addition, sales of arts and crafts products also rose slightly, up 2% year-on-year and up 32% compared to 2019.

For the office supplies industry, the back-to-school season ( July-September) is a very important sales season. Data shows that during the 2021 back-to-school season, sales of office supplies increased by 14% year-on-year. In the rest of the time, its sales increased by 10%. NPD said that the faster sales growth of office supplies during the back-to-school season was due to the launch of a new product portfolio.

In fact, according to NPD’s Price and Discount Trends data, only 36% of office supplies were on sale during the back-to-school season, down 3 percentage points from the same period in 2020. During the same time period, the average selling price increased 19% year-over-year, but only increased 8% during the rest of the year.

“Last year was a period of strong rebound for the office supplies industry,” said Leen Nsouli, NPD office supplies industry analyst. “Looking forward to 2022, the industry is likely to see a decline in units sold, but not necessarily in sales.”

USA

Office Supplies