Talk about the power of the internet. We just blogged last week about how one of the largest real estate firms in the world shorted their name because of it. Today the market leader in office products announced that they would be closing 10% of their North American stores because of it. They are doing very well, leading their market and soundly beating rival Office Depot/Office Max, who is struggling to integrate after their merger. No, the reason for these store closures is because about half of their sales are online now! They just don’t need that many stores anymore. Wow that is really efficient, but there is some fallout. Less stores means less employees, means less jobs and less retail occupancy. So the company saves money and becomes leaner with a human expense, which is almost always how technology works. When you see something happen this big you can’t help but wonder who and what is next. If you could predict that you could profit from it handsomely I am sure. We already wrote here about how Walmart and Target were getting smaller store formats, and growing them rapidly. This is the way of the world now, less is more. What will the internet downsize next? How much power does it really have and for who? We will keep an eye on this going forward. You can almost be sure that Office Depot will be following suit at some point, probably in a year or 2. Want to bet? As always thanks for reading and have a great day.
Staples to close 10 percent of North American stores
Orin Rosenfeld
President
Rosenfeld Realty Advisors
9858 Glades Rd. Suite 209
Boca Raton, FL 33434
Phone: 561-756-1665
Fax: 561-470-0707
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