Office Depot expanding FedEx shipping services to all US stores

Dive Brief:

Office supplies retailer Office Depot said Tuesday that as of Sept. 2, its partnership with FedEx will expand to make shipping services available in all 1,513 Office Depot and OfficeMax stores nationwide.
Office Depot, which has partnered with FedEx for the past seven years, said the companies will team to offer early morning, late evening and Sunday drop-off options in many locations.
Office Depot associates also will prepare packages (including shipping documents) for customers.

Dive Insight:

Both Office Depot and Staples are scrambling to differentiate their products and services since their merger plans were scuttled in May. Earlier this month, Office Depot announced that Roland Smith will retire as CEO now that the company’s post-merger strategic plan is in place.

Boosting business services could be key for both office supplies retailers, and competition in that space is likely to heat up. Amazon has entered the business and consumer office supplies space, but its efforts, though touted by both retailers as a looming threat, were dismissed as arguments intended to ease antitrust concerns.

So Office Depot and Staples are turning to their respective brick-and-mortar holdings, which offer a competitive edge that Amazon simply can't match. Staples is experimenting with providing space and services to entrepreneurs and other businesses through a partnership with co-working startup Workbar. For Office Depot, leveraging physical stores means expanding FedEx shipping services.

“We have seen an increase in the use of FedEx shipping services and solutions in our OfficeMax retail stores, and look forward to rolling them out to our entire chain early next month," Ron Lalla, executive vice president of merchandising for Office Depot, said in a statement.

These types of in-store efforts are crucial for office supplies retailers, which have seen much of their consumer retail business peter out as their increasingly commodified merchandise has become available everywhere from Amazon to general merchandisers like Target and Wal-Mart, and even drugstores.

There’s really “no other place besides Office Depot and Staples to get everything you need for your office," Scott Wagner, a partner at law firm Bilzin Sumberg and an antitrust expert, told Retail Dive earlier this year. "But everything you can get there, you can get somewhere else.”