Office Depot --- Great for businesses, homes, and home of coupon related discounts
Written: Sep 22 '05
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One of the most well-known office supply chains is of course Office Depot. They like to your one stop shop for all office supplies, and furthering that image they created the Office Depot Online Store. The implementation is simple enough; provide a specific location where consumers can go to purchase office related products that could earn the Office Depot name more money. Located at www.officedepot.com, it is any easy site to load up, with limited graphics that actually help the pages to come up quicker. They additionally try to drive traffic through their web-site by advertising it not only online and in the store, but in print advertisements as well. By having the web-site up and running, Office Depot has attempted to take back a part of the market share that sites such as Staples of Office Max has control of. The big three are always competing for the Internet Office Supply dollars, and as a result, it becomes quite important for them to put their best foot forward when it comes to the Office Depot Online Store.
Site Aesthetics and Set-Up
As with all of the other web-sites that are catered around office supplies, the Office Depot Online Store is designed around drop down menus and search engines that will attempt to make the site easy or easier for each customer that comes through the net. At the top of the browser, you have the Home Page tab, Spanish Language pages for the site (as a tab), The Tech Depot, and the Ink Depot. Going through each of them, you end up with the screen pretty much equivalent to the title. Right below that (on the home page) are the main sections that you can search through the site to find a product. Those menus are; Office Supplies, Furniture , Technology, Business Center, Customer Service, Company Info, and Find a Store. Again they are all self explanatory, as the point of each of the menus is to get the customers to specific places on the site as fast as they can. If you are looking for an expensive desk, they want you to be able to find it as fast as possible, and possibly purchase two! The categories of Office Supplies, Furniture, and Technology have additional sub-menus that appear as follows:
Office Supplies:
AV Supplies & Equipment
Basic Supplies & Labels
Binders & Accessories
Breakroom & Janitorial
Business Cases
Calendars & Planners
Custom Printing
Desk Accessories
Filing & Storage
Paper, Forms, Envelopes
Pens, Pencils & Markers
Printer & Fax Supplies
School Supplies
Furniture
Armoires
Bookcases & Shelving
Carts & Stands
Chairmats & Floor Mats
Chairs
Computer Desks
Desk Collections
File & Storage Cabinets
Lamps & Light Bulbs
Office Furnishings
Panel Systems & LAN Furniture
Tables
Workstations
Technology
AV Supplies & Equipment
Cameras & Scanners
Computer Accessories
Computer Media
Computers & Monitors
Copier & Fax Machines
Data Storage & Networking
Office Machines
PDAs & Organizers
Phones & Accessories
Printer & Fax Supplies
Printers & All-In-Ones
Software, Books & Maps
Beyond all of the drop down menus, and sub menus the site lives off of, there are numerous advertisements on the main page that deal with anything from discounts, to coupons, to contests that you can register for. This is where Office Depot will show 2 for 1 deals that are going on, and other similar specials. On the left side of the window you are given some additional menus that take you to specific business oriented aspects of the site. This is where you can find out where your packages are, or what you have ordered in a past purchase. It is also cool, because you can do a quick search to see if there are any stores in your area. These menus include drop-downs for; Find a Store, Order by Item #, Order Tracking, My Account, My Shopping Lists, Request a Catalog, Apply for Credit Card, Advantage Program, and Buyer's Edge. Each menu gives you a different facet of the Office Depot business, and highlights that they want to make the site easy to use, and are even willing to issue you a high interest credit card so that you can make your purchases quickly.
When it comes to the set-up of the site, the Office Depot Online Store is a lot more busy that what I would like on an office supply site. It seems jumbled at times, sometimes it seems like the text is too small, and at even other times you can become lost by all of the menus that you can click through on the main screens. So, all of the menus can serve as a benefit and a detractor if you are a person that likes a web-site to be organized well. The only thing I think that could make it harder to read would be flash running through the background. It does its basic job, and serves as a tool to people purchasing office equipment, and I guess if the goal is to simply focus on that and sell some merchandise then it has reached its goal. But, anything more than that, and I think to reach those goals the site could use a major face lift. One thing that makes up for the jumble in my opinion though, is the search engine, which ends up making a sweep of the site when you want to look for something and comes back with a great list of products matching what you have asked for it to find. This can slim down on the stress that has been placed on the eyes up to that point. Regarding information that the site provides its users, they are quite adequate there, and you can find anything you are looking for, it just isn't pretty to the eye.
Selecting a Product, Making a Purchase
When you have completed a search, or clicked through the menus to a specific product, you are shown a series of informational aspects about each product which includes; the Item #, the List Price, The Office Depot Price, The Units Availability, and a comparison button to show what the product does in stacking up against like merchandise. If you buy more than 2 of many of the products you are given a discount, and they show on each page exactly how much money you will be saving by ordering any of the items in bulk. This is their tricky way of getting you to order more product than you would normally be comfortable with. When you do make a selection of something you want to purchase, it is sent to your shopping cart, which keeps a running list of your products and cost until you decide to check out of the online store. A cool little feature, is that it will show how much more money you need to spend on the site in order to reach the level of 'free shipping' on the site. For all purchases that exceed $50.00, they offer you free shopping on the orders. This is something that I aim for if I am making a small purchase, and I will add another small product or one more of something else to keep me close to that number.
While checking out, you are given the options oh how to pay for your items, and are shown a detailed invoice (breakdown) of everything that you are purchasing at that moment. If you didn't reach the $50.00 limit, they will show you a shipping charge dependent on the weight of your products, but it typically is set at $7.95 for the online orders. Here you also are shown what the tax rate will be, and that is determined by what the closest store to you is, and the rate of tax for that particular state. The tax is there no matter how much you purchase on a visit. You are also given the option to remove a product if you put something in your cart by accident, or changed your mind to not getting something any more. We finally come to one of the big benefits of the site, and that is the shipping itself. The Office Depot Online Store works really quickly in that regard, and normally you can get you orders within 3 days. Sometimes it is even less depending on how close you are to a store geographically. I have always had timely shipping, and have always received exactly what I ordered from the company. With dozens of uses, I can safely say that the site is thus reliable in that fashion.
Conclusions about the Office Depot Online Store
As with many of the online office supply businesses, the Office Depot Online Store is self explanatory. They are here to provide offices with needed products ranging from printers and ink, to paper and pens. The selection is pretty good, and you can actually order more off of the site than you can if you were to walk into the physical store. Though the main page is a little messy in presentation for my tastes, they make up for it with a search engine that always comes back with great results. With a strong search engine, you can always find what you are looking for quickly, and you don't have to waste time wading through products that you either don't want or don't care about. Finally, with quick and on-time shipping, and no delivery fees when you spend more than $50.00 Office Depot becomes one of those sites that it just makes sense to use. So, if you are looking to purchase anything for your work or home office, the Office Depot Online Store is a good option to go with.
Recommended:
Yes
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Office Depot Knows How to Fill Your Office Needs
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