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Comment by hbhakhra | Hacker News Reader

This will be interesting to see. Yeah these office supply stores have competition from online retailers, but I would assume they make a good chunk of their revenue from corporate/education customers. Since that is their biggest revenue stream, I wonder how that aspect of the industry would be affected by the merger.

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Staples also makes a TON of money from their Printing Centers. I worked at one for a few months as I was finishing up my undergrad. The money they make in that department EASILY carries the rest of the store. Even though they've been in the computer selling business for a number of years, I'm willing to bet that they haven't made much money on it, whereas office supplies and printing are where the real money is.

There are plenty of competitors for the large customers. Few consumers have ever heard of them, though, because they only do large accounts.

Plus, Sam's Club has been on a major push over the past several years to attract small and medium business customers. They will be a serious competitor for Staples Depot Max in that segment.

I really hope they adopt that name, Staples Depot Max!

That's an excellent point. The ceiling on those revenues, though, is still Amazon. It's a matter of the office assistant going to the online Staples/Office Depot/Max catalog or going to Amazon; there's not much of a switching cost.

CDW [1] is still around and is much more targeted towards that audience.

[1] https://www.cdw.com/

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