Office Depot

OK, it's rant time.

I haven't gone off on a good old fashioned, rant for a while and this one has been building for a couple of days.

I used to get all my printer paper and toner cartridges at Office Depot. They would take my old cartridge for recycling, and in exchange they would give me a ream of paper. It was a win/win situation. The cartridge stayed out of the landfill. They got to refill it, a process that costs them somewhere around $5 and then sell it for anywhere from $25 to $35 dollars, so giving me a ream of paper that they pay $1.50 for, so they can sell it at 100% markup of $3, was not a bad deal.

Then, the price of their paper started to climb. The same 20# paper that I get at WalMart for $3.25 a ream, or at Big Lot for $2.99 a ream, is now packaged in an Office Depot label, and sells for $4.50 a ream. They quit trading the cartridge for a ream of paper, but instead gave me a $3 coupon, I could use on anything in the store.

This allowed me to:

a) buy a ream of paper for $1.50, or

b) buy my toner cartridge for$28.99. (Toner at Walmart was $29.99, so with the discount, I could now get my toner at Office Depot. Smart marketing move on their part.)

This wasn't quite as good a deal, but it still was enough to make me happy, and keep me coming in the door.

But alas, all good things have to come to an end.

Friday I went to Office Depot to get a toner cartridge. I took an old cartridge, so I could get my $3 off, making it a dollar less than WalMart. When I got to the register, the manager, who was working the register, explained that they have changed that now. Now, they add the $3 to my Office Depot Rewards Card, along with 1% of my total purchase of paper or toner, and they will send me a check every quarter. Then, she pointed out that my balance has to be at least $10, or they wont send a check.

OK, lets do the math. My toner cartridge now costs $2 more than it does at Walmart, so I wont be buying it there any more. My paper costs $1.50 more than WalMart, so I wont be buying paper there. What the heck am I going to buy at Office Depot, that is going to allow me to accumulate $10 in rewards? Keep in mind that at 1% of my purchase, I have to spend $1000 in order to get my $10, unless, that is, I want to buy 3 more toner cartridges, (at a $2 loss for each one.)

I explained to the little manager lady, that I don't buy enough at Office Depot to ever earn $10, because they are so ridiculously overpriced on everything they sell. The only reason I was buying my toner there is because the $3 savings actually saved me a dollar, and now that they have taken that away, I won't be doing that either.

I finished by pointing out that she got my sale today, but she had just lost me as a customer.

Was it worth it?

Do stores like Office Depot really think that, with the economy the way it is right now, with their profits plunging 85%, their stock falling 55% and their sales increasing only 1% in the last year, they can afford to lose customers?

Do they really think that they have a secure enough customer base of big spenders, to afford to lose little spenders like me? I only spent about $750 last year on paper and toner, hardly enough to worry about in the big scheme of things.

But how many other $750 a year customers do they think they can afford to lose?