Office 1 Superstore

Office 1 Superstores International Inc.

Type	Private company
Industry	Retail, Wholesale, Franchise
Founded	1989
Headquarters	United States
Products	Office supplies, Furniture, Electronics, Stationery
Website	www.office1international.com

Largest Office 1 store located in Sofia, Bulgaria

Typical Office 1 store interior

ChairPro's showroom in Sofia, Bulgaria

Office 1 Superstores International Inc. (OFFICE 1) Was founded in 1994 as a franchise retail chain selling office products and supplies including office furniture and electronics.^[1] The company is headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida with international operations being run from a central office and warehouse in Sofia, Bulgaria. The company uses multiple channels of distribution to reach customers including stationery retail stores, telemarketing, direct mail, e-commerce and contract sales. The logo of OFFICE 1 communicates the company philosophy: All your office needs under one roof.

OFFICE 1 expanded its operations through master franchises in Europe and Asia, as well as Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and at peak had retail stores in 25 countries. Post the 2008 economic crisis and the worldwide decline in demand for office products due to the move to digital and the inroads of Ecommerce, the company retrenched and a number of vulnerable markets were closed such as Italy, Slovenia and Iceland while some others were consolidated focusing on Ecommerce.

Coincident with this change in strategy to Ecommerce, the company entered, with state of the arts websites, the important markets of France in 2010, www.office1.fr and Germany, www.office1shop.de, in 2011, both under joint venture agreements with experienced market leaders as opposed to master franchises.

More recently, and as a sign of its self-confidence in its new concept and strategy, the company effected a complete re-design or its retail outlets to more economical and smaller size stores and stores in stores backed by Ecommerce. It re-entered the markets of Indonesia, with the Kawan Lama Group which runs over fifty home improvement stores under the brand of American hardware giant ACE, and Greece, in spite of the country’s problematic economic prospects, with a large office products wholesaler in Thessaloniki.

In 2016, the number of franchised stores in Bulgaria was increased to eighty, after severe retrenchment during the economic crisis, and two 1,000 m2 re-designed superstores were launched in Sofia and Varna. In Azerbaijan and Poland, OFFICE 1 was re-launched under new management bringing to 12 the number of countries in which the streamlined OFFICE 1 brand now operates.

ChairPro launched in 2014 is the newest international project of Office 1 Superstores International Inc. A specialized online shop it offers a wide range of chairs, focusing on high-end ergonomic solutions combining sophisticated design and functionality, manufactured in the USA, Germany, Poland and Italy, in an ever expanding array of ergonomic chairs, executive chairs, school chairs, special needs, cafeteria, restaurant and at home chairs and accessories.

ChairPro websites are available in Bulgaria, www.chairpro.bg, where ChairPro is a fully owned operation, as well as through joint ventures in Greece and Hungary. Capitalizing on the positive response to the concept, a 300m2 self standing showroom was launched in June 2016 on a major artery in Sofia. Chairpro has further plans for expansion in Europe through joint ventures.

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