As school approaches, there is only one particular store to visit before summer ends. A large office depot called, Staples. Early in its days, Staples was known for its copying and printing services. Offering services from photocopies to custom business cards, Staples has spread widely across Canada and U.S. through its advertisements. Now, we envision Staples as the store for school supplies; however, as I was getting ready for school, I noticed Staples didn’t have any promotions like the usual. I asked an employee out of curiosity as to why the store was vacant with no restocks or discounts. I got a simple, straight forward answer: we are shutting down. Why would such a large office-supply retailer in a great location, near Metrotown, be shutting down?

Staples has closed 15 of the 331 stores in Canada and have plans of closing 225 more stores across U.S. and Canada. The recession heavily damaged its industry but this was not the only reason as to why Staples is slowly shutting down its stores. Online retailers as well as discounted stores have brought huge competition to Staples. In-store sales has also dropped significantly; therefore Staples is planning to move towards the online business. Staples have plans to trim down its costs by closing some of its stores to become more efficient. In such a slump Staples is facing, will it be able to overcome its difficulties and continue to be the Staples we’ve always used to know?