The news last week that OfficeDepot and OfficeMax, two of the big three office supply retailers, are planning to merge made us think that a look at retail sales in this sector might be interesting. Sales made through stores dedicated to office supplies and stationery—an industry identified by the U.S. Census Bureau with the industry code NAICS 45321—have not been keeping up with the growth in retail sales generally since 2000. The 1990s were a period of strong growth for these retailers. Big box stores were spreading and doing well. Growth began to slow in the early 2000s and has declined each year since 2007, with the onset of a recession in December of that year.

Between 2000 and 2012, total retail sales in the United States—less auto-related sales—rose 58.6% while sales through office supply stores declined by 16.6%. Many factors are contributing to this decline. Primary among them are factors related to how we buy office supplies and not so much the volume of the supplies that we buy. The rising power of retailers with more general merchandise lines (Costco, Wal-Mart, etc.) is one significant factor as is the rise of online shopping.

Today’s market size is the value of sales at Office Supply and Stationery Stores in the United States in 1992, 2000, and 2012.

Geographic reference: United States
Year: 1992, 2000, 2012
Market size: $9.184, $22.75 and $19.11 billion respectively
Source: “Estimates of Monthly Retail and Food Services Sales by Kind of Business: 2012,” February 13, 2013, part of a series published by the U.S. Census Bureau monthly, and available here.
Original source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
Posted on February 25, 2013