IT'S OFFICIAL...Office Depot and Office Max to merge

Probably take awhile to shake out what this means for us. Generally not good, more stores the better.

rumor mill

MISTERCHEAP said:   hurry post them! I'm curious....hope OD is buying OM and not the other way around.Definitely hope OD survives (or at least its policies) and not OM. I do not have a convenient OD. OM is, but I almost never shop there, the only time in the past year was for the discounted gift cards on BF. Would be very upset if the surviving company had OM's no rebates policy.

billrubin said:   MISTERCHEAP said:   hurry post them! I'm curious....hope OD is buying OM and not the other way around.Definitely hope OD survives (or at least its policies) and not OM. I do not have a convenient OD. OM is, but I almost never shop there, the only time in the past year was for the discounted gift cards on BF. Would be very upset if the surviving company had OM's no rebates policy.

OD is the bigger fish of the two, but we've seen smaller fish gobble up big fish before. I agree, hope OD is the driving force and their policies win out. Not to mention, OD closed all it's stores near me about 4 years ago, closest is 20 mins away. Have an OM 2 miles away, so getting OD back close by would be super!

Never did like having two "Office" stores. Never could remember which was which in my city. Let's see, was that sale at the store down the street or the other Office across town?

miqie said:   Never did like having two "Office" stores. Never could remember which was which in my city. Let's see, was that sale at the store down the street or the other Office across town?
What Office Depot rewards are by far the worst

Office Depot is not great, but much easier to monetize...

i'm only sorta surprised that OM has better financials....they're the smaller company...OD has had probelms the past few years...

This is interesting for my town, which has both... and no Staples.

Until I discovered Fatwallet's spin on the game of ink recycling, I honestly couldn't figure out why any of these office stores were in business. The typical prices there are usually noncompetitive. Now that I am there monthly I see the various specials and 100% rewards deals they frequently offer and have actually shifted a number of purchases there for products that I used to buy at other stores. I use a variety of rewards, price matching, rebates, etc., to really do well at each. It's been an eye opener.

billrubin said:   JamesTKirk said:   Probably take awhile to shake out what this means for us. Generally not good, more stores the better.
On the other hand, it could force Staples to be more competitive with a stronger competitor.

Maybe but you seem to be only taking advantage of OD. Since I use both rewards programs at OD/OM I'm going to lose out in some way.

suuave said:   I foresaw this coming years ago. Not sure if this would be better or worse for consumers. The new store should be called "the Office Place".

It's sorta only a matter of time before OD and OM merged (I think there always have been talks between the two since 2005 or even earlier...it's just that they fell out usually...sorta like borders/barnes and noble)

OM is smaller but safer financially...

OD is larger with problems (they expanded and then had to close a whole bunch of stores)

I think this will be worse for consumers because of less "real"(?) competition... (there'll only be Staples and whatever this new company will be...though most smart shoppers will go to Amazon/costco/warehouses)

jwardl said:   Dang... wouldn't be able to call it Office Despot anymore.
DepotMax?When Staples tried to buy OD a few years ago (and was discouraged due to anti-trust laws), the combined company was going to be known as Staples, The Office Depot.

JamesTKirk said:   Maybe but you seem to be only taking advantage of OD. Since I use both rewards programs at OD/OM I'm going to lose out in some way.Correct, I do not bother with recycling at OM because there is no way to cash them out. If this goes thru and you currently recycle at both stores, you will lose $20 a month in recycling.

miller24 said:   This is interesting for my town, which has both... and no Staples.
We have both too, and a large Staples warehouse, but no Staples retail store. Go figure.

Interesting. There has been an OM in my town for going on 20 years, going back to the good 'ol days when everything had a great rebate. (Remember all those FAR CD drives, spindles of CD-Rs, etc.?) About six or seven years ago, an OD opened but lived less than two years. I too have essentially not shopped at either store in several years due to inconvenience and/or lack of deals. I am curious to see how this plays out, though Staplez remains the only office store where I can find a way to do regular business.

surprised no one prefers om over OD. om has the best washing of rewards on free after rewards items and consistently runs items.

MISTERCHEAP said:   crazypalooza said:   surprised no one prefers om over OD. om has the best washing of rewards on free after rewards items and consistently runs items.

main reason imo is there is no way to monetize your rewards at OM, you are constantly stuck "washing" rewards.

Opportunities occur. I cashed out hundreds buying Windows 8 and Ebaying it. Made nice profit on each sale besides. I used to cash out on Kodak cameras then selling on eBay till a year or two ago when they started restricting cameras from coupon use.

so, Office Depot will be the dominant one of the two?

OfficeMax shareholders will get 2.69 Office Depot common shares for each share they own. At Tuesday's closing prices, the deal would be valued at $13.50 per share, or $1.17 billion, based on 86.7 million shares outstanding as of October 26.

other places are confirming the deal too: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/02/20/office-depot-officemax-merge/1932189/

I just got an email from OM announcing the merger:
Link

I only have OM, and it's not the biggest city. I seriously wonder if they will stay open in the long run (it's always completely dead in there). I guess I'll be using my rewards to buy something(s) useful one last time. I guess I'm going to try to exit as gracefully as I can the rolling of rewards I have been doing for 2.5 years now.