An article discusses what the two companies have been doing since their failed merger.
The Street reported that since the failed partnership Staples has been “proactive in moving on”, whilst Office Depot appears to have stood still and shows no plans to “stem the tide of falling revenue”, which was down 42 percent ,while Staples is less at 20 percent. The Recycler reported that Staples had recently launched a licensing programme and had partnered with GRM to “expand its brand” by allowing companies to “license the Staples trademark to launch Staples branded products”, which at present is focused on cloud storage and “the digital future”.
Office Depot on the other hand has announced several closures of its stores, and will not be open on Thanksgiving Day in the USA. Since 2014, the company has seen the closure of 400 stores, and it “plans to close another 300 over the next three years”. This is part of the $250 million (€229 million) “cost-cutting plan” announced in August, and there are still 1,500 Office Depot stores open in North America, but the company recently sold its European Business to the Aurelius Group, and is focussing on the North American market.
50 percent of Staples and Office Depot stores are within a mile to 10 miles of each other, and Staples cited this as an “industry-wide problem” that “needs to be corrected going forward”. The failed merger was an attempt by both companies to overcome the problems the office supply retail sector is facing since Amazon “continues its legacy of disrupting a large swath of retail sectors”, but the FTC decided otherwise, saying that this was “a bad deal for consumers”.
Staples is trying to move on, and Office Depot needs to do the same, The Street concluded.