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Staples To Buy Office Depot For $6.3 Billion
An anonymous reader writes: Today Staples announced plans to buy Office Depot in a deal worth $6.3 billion. This is a huge consolidation within the office supply industry. Office Depot and OfficeMax were the second- and third-biggest suppliers when they merged in 2013. Adding those to the enormity of Staples would effectively bring the U.S. under a single office supply chain. "The move is expected to draw scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, though regulators have been increasingly willing to approve retail mergers in light of burgeoning e-commerce competition. ... This isn't the first time Staples has tried to buy Office Depot. In 1997, the FTC derailed Staples' acquisition of its rival as anticompetitive. By 2013, though, the agency's view had shifted. When the FTC allowed Office Depot to buy OfficeMax, it said the advent of online retailing ensured competition in the market for office supplies. Consumers today also rely more heavily on big-box chains such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for office products, the commission said."
They'll just push the Easy Button and it will fly through the FTC, right?
There go the prices on toner and paper.
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."-THG
enormity
inôrmd/
noun
1.
the great or extreme scale, seriousness, or extent of something perceived as bad or morally wrong.
"a thorough search disclosed the full enormity of the crime"
2.
a grave crime or sin.
"the enormities of the regime"
synonyms: wickedness, evil, vileness, baseness, depravity
Sent from my ENIAC
That was easy.
Is anyone else surprised Staples isn't bankrupt? No one ever goes there and the only time I hear about Staples is when a deal site mentions yet another category is on clearance.
No way should any company of that size and market share have such buying clout with the supply chain to which they are distributing. And that says nothing even of the consumer perspective.
Or my favorite, "Antique Supply Store"
How can you buy something that isn't a thing anymore? Office Depot and OfficeMax merged. Did they only buy half the newly merged company? Did they cancel the merger? Is Staples buying both companies?
I think if someone were to create a simulation model of a truly free market with no regulation, and seed it with hundreds (thousands) of little businesses to start with, given enough time, you'll end up single monopoly that controls every industry, service, and product.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
Well, there goes the last decent brick'n'mortar office store, who had previously merged with Office Max. Staples only carries the most base of common office supplies, their inventory was never as diverse as Office Depot. Everytime I looked for something a little different , like Frixion pens, or the Pilot Plumix, when they first came out, there was no sign of them at Staples - "Yeah, we got that" ?? No, no you don't. But the other two always did. Now it's game over, and yet another monopoly has formed.
RIP Sherman Act.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
I get all my office supplies by stealing them from work.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
So a report about an outdated bricks and mortar retail chain buying another outdated bricks and mortar retail chain that both specialise in selling outdated products for the outdated paper office makes it onto slashdot?
This is like the antithesis of 'news for nerds'.
Imagine of you will a 224,000 square foot shangri la of office. An entire area devoted to a sea of elderly men browsing ink jet printers, remarking on how great a deal theyre getting, and haggling the price of toner cartridges. their revalry interrupted twice daily by the passing of a thunderous freight-train of 13 year olds wheeling through the store on castered office seating. Imagine a copier the size of a two story house that still cant manage to fax correctly. In one long aisle, a veritable modern art museum of van goghs who have tested billions of different markers and pens in search for the one true biro. Picture a moutain of paper manned by khaki clad teenage sherpas who will guide the worthy to the perfect gloss of 8x11 in a 12 man expedition, using the bodies of the dead to guide their way. This new realm of office will succor a distant memory of office stores of yore with its array of overly lit fluorescent display stands and vallies of fake laptops and monitors perched upon particle board desks assembled by a small factory of hung-over college kids. and when at long last you think it can offer no more, this store will offer the most pointless of all selections of office treats and candies in 600 pound bulk tyvek totes that can conveniently be stacked onto any customers shopping fork truck. This office store will be visible for miles from the thick rolling smoke emenating from the innumerable propped doors featuring a staff of thousands competing in a veritable olympic competition of cigarette consumption as they all collectively 'burn one' while having told a customer they will search a 'back room' that does not exist for a product that cannot be sold.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Then 2 became 1.
And finally 1 goes to 0.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Hopefully this means I won't have to drive as far to get my Arc refills.
*sigh* back to work...
Sure, at a time when unemployment is at its lowest for years. Stay in your dreamworld of Fox News.
"Consumers today also rely more heavily on big-box chains" Aren't Staples and Office Depot included in the definition "big-box chains"?
when staples went to check out office depot was no longer in stock.
outrageousness, monstrousness, hideousness, heinousness, horror, atrocity; villainy, cruelty, inhumanity, mercilessness, brutality, savagery, viciousness.
Wiktionary states: Enormity is frequently used as a synonym for "enormousness," rather than "great wickedness." This is frequently considered an error; the words have different roots in French, and radically different accepted meanings
As far as I can tell, the vernacular usage of enormity to which you refer is a rather recent addition to the definition, and first came into usage during the media coverage of Bush Jr's lavish inauguration, during which reporters referred to the "enormity" of the proceedings.
An adjective has rarely been abused in so fitting a way as that.
The media has repeated that usage slavishly since then.
Sent from my ENIAC
It turns out that you're an insane wingnut, desperately in need of psychiatric help.
"Office Depot, office max? We got that"
I'm usually strongly against anything that reduces competition, but Staples and Office Depot merging seems like a shrug off in this market. Neither seems like a business on the upswing nor are there big barriers to entry for selling the types of products they sell. If anything I would be concerned that the merger costs and failure to integrate the businesses alone are going to kill both companies and reduce competition in that way.
That was easy!
I did not realize until just now that Office Depot and Office Max had merged (or were always the same to begin with).
So we are left with one major office outlet... Does competition work in any industry anymore?
Pat
"That was sleazy."
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Real unemployment is as high as it has been since the Carter administration. Maybe you should stop sucking Chris Matthews' cock and look at real, honest numbers for a change.
Have we seen any mergers refused in the past 10+ years? At this point if Microsoft wanted to merge with Sony and then buy out Apple I wouldn't expect refusals of any of that either.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Hmm, labor force participation rate is about where it was at the end of Regan's first term, but if you drill into the details you'd see that most of the hit is to 16-24 year olds, and it's largely been because the 55+ rate is higher than it's been in 40+ years, basically the boomers won't retire so there's little room at the bottom. The boomers refusing to retire wouldn't be a problem in an expanding economy, but in one that went through a hundred year recession followed by a rather flat recovery it's going to have some significant impacts.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
There's this annoying ad for Staples office supply store on
tv. I call up directory assistance, get their number, and give
'em a buzz.
"Hello, is this Staples?" .Shit, ."
"Yes it is. How may I help you."
Too eager to please.
"I was just wondering how you came up with the name of the
store. I mean, you sell staples, right?"
"Yes we do. We're the one-stop off--"
"Yes, I'm sure you are, but tell me. John Wanamaker's. Do
they sell wanamakers?"
"Well, I--"
"Do you even know what a wanamaker is?"
"I think--"
"No, of course you don't. What do you make? Minimum? Less?
Christ, you sound young, had your first period yet?"
"Exc--"
"Use tampons or pads? You know if you use tampons, no guy'll
believe you're a virgin. Then you'll get a reputation and you'll
never get married. And--"
"I don't--"
"Excuse me. I digressed. Now tell me, you sell file cabinets,
right?"
"Yes we do."
"And you sell those little mail trays you put on your desk
that say 'In' and 'Out', right?"
"Yes we do. We're the one-stop--"
But you don't call yourself 'File cabinets', right? I mean,
that's a pretty stupid name. And you sure as hell don't call
yourself 'Those little mail trays you put on your desk that say
"In" and "Out"', right? I mean, that name really sucks."
"Why, why are--"
"All right, follow me here. What does a supermarket sell?"
"F-food."
"Good. Shit, you should earn more than minimum. Christ, I
could have my old man put you on the payroll down here. .
what was I--oh yeah, food, right? But does the supermarket call
itself 'Food'? Noooo. It's called a supermarket."
"I-I didn't--"
"Listen, I'd love to stay and talk to you longer, but I gotta
go do something to my dog. You understand."
"Waaahhhhh. .
So it wasn't such a bad day after all.
RICHH
---- From the RICHH Archives (http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/RICHH/)
Fuck you Bain
Office depot got caught in a deceptive overcharging scheme to gov't contracts, paid back millions on purpose, don't believe it ..look it up. Most corrupt company in history. !! In fact CEO Steve Oddland quit when confronted...