Dive Brief:

• Office Depot Inc. Tuesday said Q2 sales declined 10% to $3.44 billion from $3.84 billion.

• North American sales, the retailer’s biggest market, fell 8% to $1.3 billion, in part due to store closures, while North American same-store sales were up 1%. Its Q2 North American business solutions unit saw sales fall 3.8% to $1.43 billion.

• The company’s shareholders last month overwhelmingly approved a possible $6.3 billion merger with office-supplies retailer rival Staples Inc. 

Dive Insight:

The proposed merger between Office Depot and Staples, which is now before the Federal Trade Commission, is widely seen has having a much better chance at approval this time around. The idea was floated years ago, but was shut down by the FTC then. 

But last month, the nonprofit watchdog group the American Antitrust Institute released a report saying that, while online retail mitigates the anti-competitive effects of a merger somewhat, competitive concerns remain in the office supplies segment of long-term contracts with businesses. That segment fared better this quarter than did the overall company, but still saw sales drop 3.8%.