Sydney, Australia: Scholastic Media & Technology has grown its
sales of Wacom Interface Solutions by over 160% in the past 24 months, edging
past channel competitors and demonstrating an ability to deliver as effectively
on hardware as it does on software.
Wacom appointed Scholastic as a distributor in
2004. The deal was the first foray into
hardware for Scholastic and it dovetailed naturally with existing distribution
agreements for software vendors such as Adobe and Autodesk. The recent addition
of Corel products also benefits from the links to bundled versions with various
Wacom tablets.
Scholastic now distributes Wacoms’ Bamboo,
Intuos and Cintiq tablet technologies to education and retail outlets
throughout the country. Managing
Director of Wacom Australia,
Mr. David Spencer confirmed that Scholastic has moved very quickly since being
appointed a distributor and is jockeying for pole position within the channel.
“Category awareness is rapidly growing and we
are air-freighting in product to meet demand in the channel” said Mr. Spencer.
“Scholastic has proven a good fit for Wacom and it has significantly increased
unit distribution. The fastest growing segment for Wacom distribution through
Scholastic has been into retail,” said Mr. Spencer.
According to General Manager of Scholastic Media
& Technology, Mr. Wayne Cooper there is a significant upward trend in
consumer demand for Wacom product lines, and growing awareness means retailers
are fielding more questions through the buying process.
“We’ve noticed a significant upward trend in
consumer demand for this technology and it has generated a need for more
information within retail,” said Mr. Cooper. Scholastic has addressed demand
with one-on-one resources to “ensure retailers are well supported in their
understanding of the Wacom product lineup and how different product SKUs best
fit differing user profiles.”
“Consumer demand for this technology extends
right across the product spectrum from the entry-level at home use of Bamboo to
the high end production intensive professional use of Intuos4.The products have
a very broad appeal so our unique domain knowledge and dedicated support
resource adds a lot of value to our retail channel. We have also seen strong
consumer focus on the award winning Cintiq range that utilize interactive
pen-display technology, and believe they are fast becoming the weapon of choice
for graphic designers and CAD professionals in Australia.” said Mr. Cooper.
A strong footing in the education sector has
served Scholastic well, and the channel for Wacom products such as the Bamboo
range of pen and graphics tablets has been growing steadily for the past two
years in that domain. More recently,
Scholastic also picked up a relationship with Avid, which in combination with
Wacom’s professional hardware options, the Intuos and Cintiq, means the
distributor has also been able to utilise its education base to edge into
supply of the pro-broadcast student user market.
ENDS
