Office Retail Stores

The three largest office retails stores in the United States in comparison:

Office Depot:

1. Employees - 42,000
2. Revenue - $12.1 Billion (2009)

Staples:

1. Employees - 90,000
2. Revenue - $27 Billion (2009)

Best Buy:

1. Employees - 180,000
2. Revenue - $49.6 Billion (2010)

The Breakdown:

The key factor in any store is the IMU which is Item Mark Up, which is how much profit the companies makes on any given item. Many companies tend to offer a store brand product because it not only cost less to make but they can make more profit off of it when it is sold. This often means that the product isn't as good as quality as another name brand product, but still gets the job done.

As for all companies competition is the key to drive prices lower. In order to get customers to come to one retail store over another, the prices on lets say a laptop, must be lower to get the sales. In more cases the prices of laptops often lose the companies money because they want the customer to buy from them so bad. Due to this situation, the managers of said retail stores PUSH employees and almost pressure them into selling what they call "attachments". These attachments drive sales up because they bring in all the profit. For example, if a person buys a printer that has a very low IMU the employee is told/forced to sell a USB cable, paper, extra high-capacity ink and the extended warranty. All these attachment bring in the real money for the store. Since all these extra items have high IMUs, it makes the company positive in the profit margin. 

For a person that works in the retail world, pressuring an employee to sell something that a customer doesn't always need, is often HIGHLY unethical. It also makes it seems like one is ripping off the customer. Although some items are needed when buying a laptop or a printer so that it will work properly, but most the things are just extra that the customer will never use. The best example of something that a company makes the most profit on is the "extended warranty". Although extended warranties have come down in price over the years and actually cover more damage, defects, etc, they still rarely get used. It is purely up to the customer and the product use, for the customer to decide if it is worth it.

In the end, if a store were to focus purely on a certain high IMU item of a office such as just paper, pens, pencils, etc and rather then laptops and electronic devices, the profit would be much higher. I think this is why Staples clearly has Office Depot beat by almost $15 Billion Dollars. Although I'm not a business genius nor do I have a team of highly educated business think tanks to determine what is to be sold and demonstrated, so read what I wrote and make up your own mind.

For more information do some research on the companies that you enjoy spending your money at, it not only helps you as a customer but also gives you an idea of what is going behind the scenes.

If you want to talk more in private about extended warranties, high IMU items, etc, email me and we'll talk! I'll guide you to the best possible purchase that I can without all the sales bullshit the employees vomit out.

Email: jordan.madison@att.net