If you keep up with business news, you’ve probably seen headlines about office supply stores closing up shop. It’s a fair question to ask: is Office Depot going out of business? The short answer is no. Office Depot is still in business as we move into mid-2025. But there’s a lot more to the story.
Let’s walk through where Office Depot stands right now, what’s challenging them, and why you’re hearing so much about store closings.
Office Depot Is Still Here – But Smaller Than Before
Today, Office Depot operates over 1,300 stores worldwide. Most of them are in the United States, with a heavy focus on North America. If you’ve been to a shopping center or a busy intersection lately, chances are you’ve spotted that red-and-white sign at least once.
The company sells pretty much everything that comes to mind when you hear “office supplies.” We’re talking pens, paper, chairs, tech, printers, you name it. You can walk into a store and pick up what you need, or order online and either have it delivered or pick it up curbside.
Office Depot’s online business has gotten a lot better over the years. Shopping online has become more crucial for any retailer trying to keep up with what customers want today. Still, the company has to balance the costs of running big stores with keeping up with larger, online-first competitors.
The Revenue Story: A Steady Climb Down
Now, to the hard part. Office Depot’s sales aren’t what they used to be. Back in the early 2000s, office supply stores were everywhere and doing well. But ever since around 2005, this industry has seen revenue declines just about every year.
Office Depot’s own numbers show that same trend. After 2015, its revenue started slipping each year. Then came the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when people suddenly stopped outfitting their cubicles and started caring more about webcams for living room Zoom calls.
The pandemic hit office retailers hard. Office Depot’s revenue dropped even faster in 2020, and while things have stabilized somewhat, sales never rebounded to their old highs. This isn’t just an Office Depot problem—the whole industry has felt it. People simply aren’t buying as many traditional office supplies anymore, especially not in person.
Say Hello to Some Tough Competition
Office Depot isn’t just up against other brick-and-mortar stores. Amazon and Walmart, for example, now sell everything from printer ink to low-cost staples—without customers having to leave their house.
A lot of people might rather add pens or sticky notes to an Amazon order alongside shampoo and batteries. Walmart and Target also offer full aisles of office supplies, often at lower prices.
On top of that, supermarkets and big box retailers now dedicate part of their aisles to back-to-school and business shoppers. So, if your office shopping needs are small, why make a special trip when the grocery store down the street has what you need?
Office Depot was late to adapt to this shift. They built their business model during the age of giant superstores, packed with aisles of paper and technology. Adapting to a world where convenience rules and people expect to buy everything online hasn’t been simple. Getting all those stores and supply chains to match the speed and cost of Amazon is a heck of a challenge.
Store Closures Have Been the Reality
If it feels like there are fewer Office Depot stores in your area, you’re not imagining things. The company has been closing stores bit by bit for years.
Between early 2018 and the end of 2021, Office Depot and its sister brand OfficeMax shut down well over 100 locations. This downsizing isn’t random. They look at where business has dropped off and trim stores that don’t make enough money to justify staying open.
Remote work has also chipped away at their customer base. With more people working from anywhere but an office, the demand for traditional office supplies—think big glass-top desks and multi-thousand-sheet printers—has fallen.
The closures aren’t stopping in 2025, either. The company has announced that more stores will shutter this year as they keep adjusting their footprint.
What’s Happening at the Corporate Level?
For a while, it looked like Office Depot might get bought out or break up parts of its business. There were even plans to sell their retail stores, possibly to focus on their business-to-business supply arm.
But in June 2022, the parent company, ODP Corporation, changed its mind. After a review, they decided it made more sense to keep Office Depot and OfficeMax stores under the same roof. Selling off the retail division would mean losing a lot of purchasing power, plus some important supply chain advantages.
The board decided sticking together gave them the best shot at staying afloat, at least for now. There’s just more value, on paper, in keeping the brands’ bulk buying and distribution working as one unit, especially as the retail world keeps shifting.
Trying Different Ways to Survive
So, how’s Office Depot trying to make things work? The playbook looks a lot like what you’d expect from a big company under pressure: spend less, focus on what sells, and try to retool for the market you have—not the one you used to have.
They’ve cut costs by shutting down less profitable stores, changing up supply chains, and investing more in online shopping and fulfillment options. These changes let them do more with less, especially now that not every town needs a giant Office Depot store.
Office Depot is also picking its battles. Instead of trying to win everyone, everywhere, they’re emphasizing profitable market segments. For example, they’ve leaned harder into serving businesses, schools, and anyone who still needs to buy in bulk. These customers tend to spend more and order consistently—even if it’s fewer than before.
More recently, Office Depot has put energy into digital services and tech solutions, hoping to sell things like IT support, tech repairs, or managed print services—stuff that Amazon can’t do as easily.
Depending on where you live, you might have seen “store within a store” concepts or smaller, more focused locations. The company’s open about the fact that their old format needs changing if they want to stay relevant.
The Future Is All About Adjustment—Not Disappearing
Here’s what’s clear: Office Depot is not going out of business this year. But the company you remember from the ’90s or early 2000s probably won’t ever come back in quite the same form.
You’ll see fewer big-box stores, more activity online, and tighter focus on the kind of high-value, repeat customers that help keep the lights on. If you live in a large city or a busy suburb, chances are good you’ll still have an Office Depot nearby for a while yet.
If you’re curious about other companies in a similar spot, or business trends shaping retail, sites like Business Republic do a good job tracking these changes.
For people who need a specialty office item in a hurry—or just like browsing for deals on bulk paper and school supplies—Office Depot is still an option. That said, for more and more shoppers, the online marketplace has replaced the office supply superstore.
Wrapping Up: No Melodrama, Just Steady Change
So, is Office Depot going out of business? No, at least not in 2025. But their stores and how they do business are changing fast.
The company is closing underperforming locations, focusing on online services, and slimming down to survive. The way we work, shop, and run our businesses is always shifting, and Office Depot is just one example of a retailer working overtime to keep up.
It’s not a sweeping success story or a dramatic failure. It’s pretty much the grind that’s facing traditional stores these days: keep adapting, cut what doesn’t work, and focus on where you can still make a profit. For now, you can expect Office Depot to stick around, just maybe not on every street corner.
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