Saving OfficeMax and Office Depot, The Merger Matters

As you drive down familiar streets in your town, the commercial landscape is always changing. Old businesses close while others change owners and receive brand new names. What can be the most shocking is to see very large businesses completely cease operation, those companies which rent massive spaces over 20,000 square feet. The most recent of those was Borders, and then quite a few Albertsons grocery stores in our area. But now, there’s a new fiasco brewing. For over five years now, two major office supply brands, OfficeMax and Office Depot have been struggling to survive. Anytime I have walked into one of these stores, even Staples, it is just so completely boring and there’s never many people. All of these brands have tried to introduce new things, like cute folders to attract women, Martha Stewart product lines to attract organized people, and more products for kids to use at school. But at the end of the day, I don’t think any of those things have truly helped.

Staples has many government contracts behind them. I think they have stood out even because of their name. Staples. It is simple and fun. OfficeMax and Offce Depot both sound like generic, unhappy places. It seems like the merger will make OfficeMax obsolete and only the Office Depot locations will be left. Here comes a huge amount of empty spaces in a city near you. I wonder what will be filled in them eventually. Perhaps more Aldi stores for one, those are always popping up lately. This post has been very random, I wanted to talk about it and now do not have time to go back and organize it. I’ll come back to this merger discussion a bit later and clean things up. It always fascinates me when things like this are announced.