Back in the late 1980s, newbie entrepreneurs such as myself might have found Staples a gift from the small-business gods. It blew into shopping centers in 1986.
At that time, that new category creator brought a huge selection of office supplies, affordable prices and caring staff to equipping the little guy.
It was okay for a newly minted consultant to agonize in the aisles of Staples about what kind of business stationary to purchase. Clerks never lost their patience.
That was then.
By the beginning of the 21st century, Staples, Patron Saint of Small Business, had lost its way.
The big boxes carried much of the same merchandise much cheaper.
The clerks seemed to lack concern.
Then there were those bizarre experiments of becoming a consumer electronics company when even the giants in that category were struggling.
Its e-repair desk was undermanned. In contrast, online vendors such as BoxAid provided fast remote affordable service for computers and even printers. BoxAid's Jonathan (800-999-6872, extension 807) would even educate me, at no extra charge, about how to prevent the problem in the future. No surprise, BoxAid receives awesome reviews.
Also, Staples' store within a store phone venture didn't carry the iPhone. Duh. One of its Connecticut branches was not far from Verizon. Of course, that experiment venture didn't last long.
Maybe Staples was able to keep the lights on through its corporate niche. Large and mid-sized companies could order supplies and Staples would deliver. But they could also transact that through Amazon.
Now it's come to this: Private equity firm Sycamore Partners acquired the firm for $6.9 billion. Here are the details from Bloomberg.
But, some of us who have followed the Staples stock (I was among those who had covered it for Motley Fool) are not optimistic that being a private entity can reverse its downward trajectory. There seems no place for it in the current marketplace.
A solution would be to create new space, the way it did back in the 1986. That could be to focus on types of artificial intelligence (AI) small businesses such as mine need and can afford.
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