Here's How Office Depot is Tackling Coronavirus-Led Demand

The novel coronavirus has infected close to a million people worldwide and the death toll has crossed 60,000. As social distancing remains the only way to contain the spread of COVID-19, consumers have been confined indoors and working from remote locations for quite some time now. This clearly calls for increased demand for home delivery options for a lot of services, including office-related supplies. To cater to this rising demand, Office Depot, Inc. ODP is offering same-day deliveries from about 1,100 namesake and OfficeMax stores.

The company recently informed that during such challenging times, its stores will provide products and services to customers to ensure continuity of businesses as well as education. To this end, Office Depot’s alliances with Deliv and Shipt are likely to help customers get their business and school-related supplies conveniently by placing online orders.

Additionally, the company is offering facilities like free in-store and curbside pickup; free next-business-day delivery; virtual print and copy line; subscriptions; and Office Depot OfficeMax rewards to enhance convenience and savings.  

Clearly, increased social distancing has led to higher e-commerce influx. Companies are receiving several orders on account of customers’ unwillingness to visit offline stores. At this point, rapid deliveries are required to help people counter hard times. Apart from office and learning supplies, customers are also opting for delivery of essentials like grocery, toilet paper, sanitizers and medicines, among other staple items.

As a result of the burgeoning demand, retail behemoths like Walmart WMT and Target TGT have to restock their shelves faster than usual. In fact, Walmart also recently announced plans to employ 150,000 new associates, until the end of May, for its stores, distribution centers, clubs and fulfillment centers. Similarly, even Dollar Tree and Amazon AMZN are hiring additional workers to meet consumers’ rising demand as part of the panic-driven stock-piling.

Coming back to Office Depot, the company has been committed to evolving with the fast-changing retail landscape. Further, the company has been focused on providing enterprise-level tech services and products to customers. In this regard, its channel partner agreement with MicroCorp; launch of BizBox to assist start-ups and small businesses; and alliance with Telos Identity Management Solutions are noteworthy.

Let’s see if these efforts can help the company lift its top line, which has been otherwise sluggish for quite some time now. Shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have tumbled almost 41% year to date compared with the industry’s decline of 42.6%.

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