What Caused the Italian B2B Office Products Market to Plateau?

Originally written and published by Andy Braithwaite at opi.net
Italian market flat in 2017

The value of the Italian B2B office products market was stable during the first three quarters of 2017, local trade association AIFU figures revealed.
According to opi.net, at the recent Big Buyer trade show in Bologna, Italy, AIFU President Adriano Alessio (Pictured) presented his annual overview of the Italian OP market. He observed the overall value of the market was flat for the previous nine months compared to the same 2016 period. However, he did note single-digit fluctuation throughout the year.
Market stability was largely due to price increases; with volumes falling, the underlying trend was descending. This drop was seen in the ink and toner category, which was down in the double digits. The ink, toner and paper categories still accounts for almost 50% of sales for the big B2B Italian resellers. As such, reliance on these declining categories was creating concern.
Despite the stable market, growth categories included jan/san , safety and breakroom, with safety as the fastest growing category, up almost 50% year on year. However, these categories only account for a relatively small part of the overall market.