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The world of Staples

Where we are

So, where will you find us?

Well, our Corporate Head Office is located west of Boston in Framingham Massachusetts, USA. This is the ‘mother ship’ that looks after the 93,000 people (we call them associates) across the globe who make it easy for businesses of all sizes to buy the supplies, business machines, technology and services they need to run their business.

But our world stretches beyond the U S of A. We have a presence in many countries across the globe. The following will give you an idea of exactly where we’re based, starting with those locations closest to home.

Staples UK & Ireland

  • Staples Retail – We opened our first UK store (in partnership with Kingfisher plc) in Swansea in April 1993. We now have more than 130 stores throughout the UK, each carrying around 5,000 office products. We’ve also introduced a new concept in the shape of a smaller, high street store offering around 3,000 products. The first of these has been opened in Deansgate, Manchester, with more to come.
  • Staples Direct – We started our Delivery business as Neat Ideas in 1972. In October 2004, the Delivery business took management of the Staples Delivery brand. Our Delivery business has a Warehouse in Corby and a Head Office in Doncaster, both supporting the delivery of office products to our catalogue customers.
  • Staples Advantage – Corporate Express joined the Staples family in 2008 and has head offices in both Birmingham and Dublin, warehouses in Birmingham, Belfast, Galway and Cork, a contract call centre in Wakefield, a store in Galway and a contract printing business based in Waltham Cross. All these business areas support the Sales Team who sell office products directly to businesses and institutions.

Staples International

Europe

Looking a bit further afield, we have stores in Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, the Nordics and Portugal. But our actual market across Europe goes way beyond that. To further meet the needs of European businesses and consumers, we also operate mail order catalogues and have e-commerce websites in a number of European countries. Our International Headquarters are based in Amsterdam.

Asia

Staples China began as a joint venture with OA 365, a multi-channel office products supplier serving small businesses in Beijing and Shanghai. Then, late in 2006, we expanded our presence in China through a partnership with Peipei, the largest office products retailer in the Jiangsu province. Most recently in 2008, Staples was one of the official suppliers of the Beijing Olympic Games.

We also operate in Taiwan through UB Express, a subsidiary of UB Office Systems. UB Express is a leading office products delivery business in Taiwan. The joint venture is called UB Staples.

Our latest endeavour is to enter into the $10 billion office products market in India through a joint venture with Pantaloon Retail Limited, India’s leading retailer. The business, called Staples Future Office, serves businesses of all sizes through delivery and cash and carry locations.

Latin America

Staples entered the Latin American market in 2004 with the acquisition of Officenet, an office products delivery business founded in Argentina in 1997. In 2000, Officenet expanded into Brazil and is today the largest Business to Business e-commerce company in South America.

Australia

Headquartered in Sydney, Office Products Australia is the number-one business-to-business supplier of office and related products in Australia and New Zealand. Currently operating under the brand name Corporate Express, the division has nearly 2,500 employees, working from 50 locations (including 36 distribution centres).

North American Retail

Cross the pond, and you’ll discover we have nearly 1,600 retail stores throughout the United States and Canada, each offering savings on more than 7,000 office products. The typical American Staples superstore is about 20,000 square feet and offers a Copy & Print Centre, UPS Ship Centre and Build-to-Order computer capabilities. They also have Internet kiosks, which allow customers to browse staples.com in-store ensuring they can always find what they’re looking for.

North American Delivery

To help deliver our fabulous range of products to customers across North America, we rely on three key businesses: Staples Contract, Staples Business Delivery and Quill.

  • Staples Contract serves mid-sized companies through Staples Business Advantage, and Fortune 1000 companies through Staples National Advantage. They enable customers to efficiently manage their procurement programmes with a lower total delivered cost.
  • Staples Business Delivery serves small to medium sized businesses that order products through our catalogues and staples.com – an award winning e-commerce site that features 45,000 products from basic office supplies to the latest in technology. To help deliver those products, Business Delivery operatesa fleet of about 800 trucks.
  • Quill Corporation is an office supplies direct marketer based in Lincolnshire, Illinois. Quill operates as a separate brand from Staples and is known for top-notch customer service and highly effective marketing to vertical industries such as the legal, medical and educational professions.