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Uh, guys Staples just announced 70 more stores are closing.
I don’t think they are doing better than Office Depot. Just the opposite. Staples may not be around too much longer.
Note that the OP (and the thread’s original premise) was from eight years ago; the thread was resurrected today to point out that the tide has, indeed, turned.
Things change over time. I am close personal friends with the original Staples CEO that led them through a period of explosive growth during the late 80’s and early 90’s. He went on to buy Star Markets (a well-known Boston area supermarket chain) that was run by lots of former Staples execs. However, there was still a ton of cross-pollination between the two companies until I left in 2000. A great many of my very talented friends and coworkers left to go to Staples and many became senior managers or higher in their headquarters. The late founder, Tom Stemberg got forced out due to personal scandals among other things. He was a visionary but not someone you want to know personally kind of like Steve Jobs.
After all of that fell apart, the whole company started to implode slowly. The word on the street around here is that they just have massive and classic management problems that have polluted the entire company culture. None of my friends and former coworkers work there in management anymore. They moved on to use their talents somewhere else that is actually run competently from the highest levels on down.
That is what happens when you lose sight of what makes a company work. There is no reason for their knock-off competitors to be beating them now but Sears, JC Penny and lots of other companies were once dominant too but lost it because of mismanagement.
Im a frequent customer of all 3 and can tell you when it comes to office supplies, Staples is WAY overpriced versus Depot or Max.
I can tell you three reasons Staples from my perspective does more business
JUST WALKED IN TO A ZOMBIE THREAD AAAAAAAAARGGGGHHHHHHH
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Better Copy and Print services. TWICE the local OD failed to print my order, and while theres been minor screwups, Staples has had me order printed up, Johnny on the Spot, every time.
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Theres more Staples. As a traveling sales rep, there are instances when I need to place an online copy/print order in various cities for convenience. Its 10X easier to find a Staples to fulfill my request than and Office Depot or Office Max because they have more stores.
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Related to 2: more Staple stores. They are the Coke, Kleenex, of the office supply industry. If Im on the road and need office supplies, why would I waste my time searching for a scarce Office Depot or Office Max on Google Maps when I KNOW I will find a Staples almost anywhere theres a shopping center? Sorry Office Depot/Max but you are the Sports Authority to the Modells.
There are exceptions. 6 months ago I needed a certain booklet printed the next day via their online service, and Staples I felt could not provide that but OD did. I went with Office Depot instead but just that one time and despite their follow through, I still cant forgive the two times they fucked me up there ass.
One other thing I cant stand about Office Depot near where I live: when I walk in, sales reps crowd around you like sharks and ask “What brings you to Office Depot today?” and Im like, "Dude, I just walked in the door. First of all, its none of your business, and second of all, is it all right with you if I just browse for 2 seconds before you pounce on me?
Also, and Staples isn’t much better, to buy anything at Office Depot, I feel like you have to go through the gauntlet of 20 Questions.
-Do you have an Office Depot Rewards Card?
-Would you like your receipt emailed or printed or both?
They used to have a charity question too but I think they quit that.
As a matter of fact, there are times when Im making a small purchase, I pay cash at OfficerDepot, and I don’t even need to go through their interrogations!
Is that a new Winter Olympic sport?
I have a feeling the retail sales aren’t where the action is; from what I understand, those stores do the vast majority of their business to other businesses, not to the general public.
So I’d guess Office Depot is some combination of cheaper, more convenient or has better selection than the other two.
Interestingly prophetic thought, now that Target is also hitting some harder times.
It should be noted that Office Depot and Office Max are owned by the same company these days (Office Depot, Inc., Symbol: ODP).
And actually, Staples and Office Depot/Office Max tried to merge last year, but could not get regulatory approval. Both companies are seeing competition (probably from Walmart, Costco and Amazon).
I can only comment on the local situation.
I used to live almost equidistantly between one each of the stores, in about a five mile radius, and there were duplicates at intervals almost without end across the greater metro area. I got used to buying things at whichever store was strongest/cheapest at that thing - storage boxes at one, fancy paper at another, pens etc. at a third.
Moving here left me with a Staples about ten miles away and an Office Depot maybe fifteen… the ONLY office stores in this corner of the state. The Staples was marginally more accessible and cheaper, so I usually went there if I didn’t buy online. Then the OD closed, bought out by someone or another, leaving one (1) full office store in some hundreds of square miles.
The predictable happened. That store has a smaller selection, with whole categories of (probably low-volume, low-profit) stuff like furniture relegated to catalog, and all the max-turnover, max-profit stuff heaped to the ceiling. Prices shot through the roof. One thing I always depended on Staples for was having a fairly cheap but decent quality paper good in each category - #10 eps for $8 a box, mailing envelopes in reasonable packets at reasonable prices, etc. Now those things are even lower quality and packaged according to some algorithm that means you pay the maximum amount no matter how many you want. I absolutely had to have some oversized padded mailers a few weeks back, and instead of maybe a buck apiece or a little less in a pack of five or ten, they had singles for almost $5.00, a better-quality two-pack for something like $8.50 and a 12-pack for $20 or so.
It’s an almost cartoonishly excessive example of how a store with a geographic monopoly jacks its prices up to lubeless wallet rape while reducing their overall usefulness by eliminating everything that isn’t in the top tier of floor profitability.
So I buy a lot more from Amazon, and a bit more from Sam’s selection, and only go to Staples for one or two reasonably priced items like the desk calendar we hang on the wall each year for family coordination.
Staples is closing 70 stores and the stock is still dropping.
There is both a Staples and an Office Max near me. I don’t go in either one much, but when I was looking for a new deck chair, Office Max by far had the better options. I sat in almost every chair in both stores, and all the ones in Staples felt very cheep and uncomfortable. I know its just one item, but Staples wasn’t even in the same playing field.
I think all 3 (2?) of the Office Supply chains are facing serious competition from both the warehouse stores (Sam’s Club, CostCo) but even more so from online office supply outlets, who don’t have the expense of maintaining hundreds of store locations & staffing them.
I know that I only go to one of them when I need something immediately, and so I have to go to a store and pay their inflated prices. Otherwise, I plan ahead, and order it online. It’s shipped directly to me, and arrives within a few days. And often free shipping, if it’s a big order.
I cannot tell a difference in them. I just call them generically “The red box store”.
When it was “get some crap from an office store,” the notation was “Office Blank.”
Is Mitt Romney still involved in management?
He may need to jump back in and turn things around. Just to protect his own shares in the company.
IIRC creating Staples was one of the business achievements he mentioned in his campaign.
Was Romney ever involved in management? I believe Bain Capital, his company, financed Staples and he sat on the board, but that’s very different from management.
Sounds like Mitt was a very active investor. That made sure Tom Stemberg stayed on top of things.
That was a long time. I don’t know if Mitt still owns significant shares or not.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Staples is trying to sell itself, perhaps to a private equity firm.
Ah, the old sell everything, lease it back, reap the profits shuck that worked so well for Sears and KMart.
When a company can only generate profits or stay profitable by playing shell games with its component parts, it’s time to run. There is either an idiot who will end up on the cover of Newsweek or an ‘entrepreneurial genius’ who will end up on the cover of Forbes at the controls, one will fail to save the company and the other will loot it before it falls.