Understanding the difference between core and legacy revenue streams is becoming essential for workplace supplies dealers looking to protect stability

There are times when it can be good to stick to the familiar. When it comes to the products that workplace supplies are built on – print, stationery, furniture – core categories provide the foundation for business. These categories are, for the most part, predictable. Price, demand and trends might fluctuate, but the product remains the same – necessary and universal. But there’s a danger zone where products move from core categories to legacy revenue streams. And understanding the difference is crucial for dealers who want their traditional products to sell rather than stagnate.

Core revenue is the current essential business, in other words, the products and services that actively sustain today’s operation and customer demand. Just because a product has been in your portfolio for a long time doesn’t make it relevant to today’s customer. By contrast, legacy often lags but this doesn’t mean it can’t evolve. Legacy is not “bad revenue” – it’s mature revenue under transition pressure.

The Challenges of Legacy

The most frequent challenge that dealers face with legacy products is that of constant price pressure. When prices and profit margins evolve but products don’t, it can create issues around perceived value. Furthermore, online players like Amazon dominate repeat purchasing – creating a culture of click and forget. All of which amounts to high effort for low return in sales and service time. So, what is the answer? It isn’t to let legacy products lie. Rather, dealers need to analyse what products are still, which are moving and which might just be on pause.

Modernising Legacy Streams

Dealers need to take a more structured approach to understanding what these categories are actually doing within the business. Not all “legacy” demand behaves in the same way. Some products are genuinely in long-term decline, while others are simply becoming more price-sensitive or shifting channel. The key is to separate what is reducing in relevance from what is reducing in visibility.

Passive management is the enemy of legacy – and all too often, commands attention from sales and operational teams that could be utilised more strategically elsewhere. Dealers should be analysing ordering patterns at a category and customer level to identify which products are still consistently used, which are becoming increasingly transactional, and which may simply need repositioning rather than removal.

That means actively deciding:

• Which parts of the legacy range to protect
• Which to modernise
• And which to gradually phase out

Turning Legacy Into a Gateway

Crucially, legacy revenue should not be viewed in isolation. It often sits at the entry point of wider customer relationships, which means it can act as a gateway into higher-value categories. This is where many dealers miss the opportunity. They focus on protecting legacy revenue, when in reality its greatest value may be in what it leads to next.

The most effective dealers are not those who simply separate core from legacy, but those who understand how the two interact. Core categories provide stability, legacy categories provide familiarity, and together they form the basis for more intelligent growth.