(), is one of the world's largest
Office Supply retail store chains, with over 1,000 stores worldwide in 23 countries. It has a strong catalog and e-commerce operations which cater to both the general public and to large corporate clients. It is headquartered in
Delray Beach ,
Florida .
Office Depot was founded in , died the next year from
Leukemia . The company retained professional executive
Recruiter s (so-called "headhunters") to find a replacement for Sher. The new Chairman and CEO turned out to be a Sherwin-Williams executive named David Fuente.
At first reluctant to take the job, Fuente embraced the concept of an office products superstore and immediately launched an aggressive nationwide expansion program. To finance it, he arranged for an
Initial Public Offering of stock in
1988 . In
1991 , Office Depot expanded to the West Coast region with the purchase of competitor Office Club. By
1993 , it was operating over 350 stores in the U.S. and Canada.
The company began to run into problems in the late 1990s when many key North American markets became saturated with too many of the big three office supply chains: Office Depot,
OfficeMax , and
Staples . In
1996 , Office Depot attempted to merge with Staples, but the deal fell through when the
Federal Trade Commission refused to approve the merger on
Antitrust grounds. In search of new opportunities, Office Depot began to expand overseas to many more countries. In 1998, it launched its public
Web Site and merged with the catalog company Viking Office Products.
Unfortunately, during the , former President of the
National Football League , was succeeding Nelson as Interim Chairman and CEO. Succeeding Austrian was Steve Odland, formerly CEO of
Autozone .
In addition to selling many nationally recognized
Name Brands , Office Depot sells products under several "home" brands, including:
- Ativa, for shredders, telephones and certain computer hardware components
- Castlebridge, for executive briefcases and portfolios
- Foray, for pens, pencils, highlighters, correction tape, and other writing instruments
- Furniture at Work, for office furniture
- Office Depot brand, for most standard office supplies such as staples, binders, file folders, remanufactured ink & toner, etc.
Similar to other office supply chains, Office Depot has a program set up to encourage customers to recycle their used ink cartridges. Once per day, a customer has the opportunity to drop off empty cartridges for either a free ream of copy paper made with post-consumer recycled materials, or to get a discount on a purchase. Since
February 12 ,
2006 , the discount is $3.00, responding to the ink program
Staples has. Furthermore, the discount can be used towards any purchase. Previously, only a $2.50 discount was available, and only towards the purchase of a new ink cartridge.
While certain store managers may bend this rule, essentially all brands of ink cartridges but
HP ,
Lexmark , and Office Depot's own remanufactured brand are exempt from this program. Only inkjet cartridges that contain an internal printhead qualify for this program. Cartridges that do not contain printheads do not qualify. Some cartridges contain electrical contacts that may be confused as being a printhead, but these contacts are only to allow communication with the printer for purposes of measuring ink levels or to determine whether or not the cartridge has expired. Most toner and toner/drum units can be recycled, but not those that are simply plastic toner containers such as many produced by
Brother .
Office Depot Advantage is the chain's membership program. It is free, and offers incentives to customers in the form of a 10% return on quarterly purchases, issued in the form of a store-only gift card. The structure is somewhat restrictive, though, as no rewards will be issued until a customer has accumulated at least $200.00 in purchases. Furthermore, it is not a true 10% return, but instead offers stepped rewards in the following structure:
Thus, there is a maximum limit of $200.00 rewards earnable in a year (four quarters with a $50.00 reward maximum). Additionally, purchase of core computer systems and monitors do not count towards the total. Until recently, these purchases added a 1% bonus on rewards, but this benefit has been removed.
In addition to the above benefits, there is also a 15% at-register discount for services purchased at the chain's Copy Print Center (this excludes
UPS shipping). As of
March 1 ,
2006 , the 15% instant discount program has been discontinued.
In place of the 15% off instant customers now receive 15% back, in gift card form, with no limit on Copy and Print purchases; as long as a minimum of 35$ per quarter is spent. Essentially if you spend $100 over the quarter you will receive a $15 gift card back.
The STAR Teacher Program is specifically for educators and school administrators, and incorporates the benefits of the Advantage Program. In addition to the aforementioned Advantage benefits, the STAR program also carries a 5% at-register discount on purchases, and continues to carry the 15% discount on copy center purchases in addition to the 15% reward.
Office Depot accepts returns on merchandise, allowing products to be returned at any store regardless of where it was originally purchased, even if the product was purchased online or as a special order. The specific rules are as follows:
In addition to this, Office Depot will honor past-due or non-receipt returns with store credit, issued on an Office Depot Merchandise Card.
Office Depot previously owned naming rights to the Office Depot Center in
Sunrise ,
Florida . It has since been renamed
BankAtlantic Center .
Office Depot is the primary sponsor of the
NASCAR Nextel Cup #99 Ford Fusion owned by
Roush Racing and driven by
Carl Edwards .
