() is one of the world's leading suppliers of office products and services. The Company's selection of brand name office supplies includes business machines, computers, computer software and office furniture, while its business services encompass copying, printing, document reproduction, mailing and shipping.
The Company sells its products through multiple distribution channels, including over 1,000
Office Supply stores, direct mail, Internet websites, business-to-business e-commerce, and sales forces. Office Depot operates under the Office Depot, Viking Office Products, Viking Direct, Guilbert, TechDepot and 4sure.com brand names. An S&P 500 company, Office Depot generates revenues of over US $15 billion annually and has 52,000 employees worldwide. It is headquartered in
Delray Beach ,
Florida .
Office Depot was founded in s (so-called "headhunters") to find a replacement for Sher. David Fuente, formerly an executive with
Sherwin-Williams , was selected as the new chairman and CEO.
Fuente 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. This acquisition moved Office Depot onto the national stage. Jeffrey Rodengen "Taking Care of Business: the First 20 years" ISBN 193202221 Mark Begelman, founder and president of Office Club, joined Office Depot as president and chief operating officer.
Office Clubs store were slated to continued operations under the Office Club brand and operate as a subsidiary of Office Depot. This was because Office Club operated under a "Membership format" (Similar to what is employed by
Costco and
Sam's Club ) and the company was at first reluctant to part with that. Within a year of the merger, Office Club stores dropped the membership format and became fully assimilated with Office Depot. Jeffrey Rodengen "Taking Care of Business: the First 20 years" ISBN 193202221
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 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.
In June 2003, Office Depot Inc. acquired Guilbert, formerly part of the Pinault-Printemps Redoute Group (PPR). With this strategic acquisition, Office Depot has doubled its presence in Europe to around 3 billion Euros and with this move confirms its European market leadership (Office Depot European headquarter is located in
The Netherlands -
Venlo ).
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 Brand s, Office Depot sells products under several "home" brands, including:
- , for Shredder s, Telephone s and certain computer hardware components such as Floppy Drive s and USB Drive s
- , for coffee, snacks, and other break room supplies
- , for executive Briefcase s and portfolios
- , for office Furniture , in association with the Television Personality
- , for Pen s, Pencil s, Highlighter s, correction tape, and other writing instruments, as well as CD cases.
- , for office Furniture
- , for most standard office supplies
- brand, for most standard office supplies such as Staple s, Binder s, file folders, remanufactured ink & toner, etc.
- , for school Backpacks
- , for higher-quality presentation and résumé papers
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 a discount on their purchase. Previously, a $2.50 discount was available towards the purchase of a new ink cartridge. Since
February 12 ,
2006 , the discount was increased to a $3.00 coupon which can be used towards any purchase over $3.00. As of
July 27 ,
2007 you may redeem up to twenty-five cartridges a day and redeem up to 3 coupons per for any amount totaling more than the dollar amount per purchase.
Only inkjet cartridges that contain an internal printhead qualify for the program. This includes the majority of
HP and
Lexmark produced cartridges as well as the Office Depot remanufactured brand version of those cartridges. It also includes a very limited number of newer
Canon cartridges. 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 fax machine ink produced by
Brother Industries and
Panasonic . This program excludes ink tanks, such as almost all
Epson brand inks.
On
June 1 ,
2006 , Office Depot launched the Worklife Rewards program which combined several benefits of the former "Advantage Reward" and current Star Teacher program. It offers 5% rewards on the total amount spent past $200 (excluding computers, monitors, UPS shipping and postage stamp purchases) in a three-month period, with no cap on the amount of rewards that can be earned. Office Depot brand ink qualify for a double credit 10% reward. Theoretically, if an individual spent $50,000 in a three-month period, they would earn $2,500 in rewards credits. The credits are issued on a store gift card. For Copy.Print.Ship services, 15% rewards are given on all purchases past $35.
Effective 1 September 2007 the Worklife Reward program will be issuing a return of 10% on all ink, toner, paper and Design-Print-Ship services, and 1% of all other qualifying purchases to members (excluding laptops, desktops, monitors, and TVs). There are no rewards granted for warranties, postage stamps, or other services. Unlike the previous pay-out period system, however, the member must exceed a pay-out of $10 before a gift card will be issued. Since there is this massive change, the accumulation period for points is no longer three months, but rather until a member gains enough points to receive a gift card.
Worklife members also receive exclusive coupons through postal mail and email as well in store savings on select items.
The STAR Teacher Program is specifically for educators and school administrators, and incorporates the benefits of the Office Depot Worklife Program. In addition to Worklife benefits, the STAR program also carries a 15% discount on copy center purchases in addition to the 15% reward for copy center purchases past $35. There is no longer a 5% discount on other items. There are also many events at the Office Depot stores for the teachers, including bi-annual Teacher Appreciation Breakfasts that offer free breakfast and giveaways for teachers.
The 5% Back To School Program contributes a portion of a purchase to a local school as a store credit that the school may use to purchase Office Depot merchandise. Schools must register with the program to receive the store credit. Some merchandise does not qualify for the program.
Office Depot previously owned the naming rights to an indoor arena in
Sunrise ,
Florida . Called Office Depot Center from 2002 to 2005, it was subsequently renamed
BankAtlantic Center .
Office Depot is the primary sponsor of the
NASCAR Nextel Cup #99 Ford Fusion, owned by
Roush Fenway Racing and driven by
Carl Edwards .
