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About Us

Web Site Summary
URL: http://www.officemax.com
Year Launched: 1995
Category: Business products and services
Merchant Type: Retail Chain
Ranking: #6
Description from Quantcast: Includes the sale of furniture, electronics, ink and toner, copy paper and computers. Officemax.com is a top 5,000 site that reaches over 811K U.S. monthly people. The typical visitor buys from Comp USA.

OfficeMax
Type: Public NYSE: OMX
Founded: 1988
Headquarters: Naperville, IL
Industry: Retail
Products: Office supplies
Revenue: $27.4 million USD (Q2 2006)
Employees: 35,000 (2005)
Website: http://www.officemax.com

OfficeMax (NYSE: OMX), is an office supplies retailer founded in 1988 and headquartered in Naperville, Illinois. It is the third-largest office supplies retailer in the USA, behind Staples and Office Depot. The company purchased BizMart in the 90s. After alleged vandalisim of White House Keyboards by outgoing Clinton/Gore staffers in 2001, OfficeMax provided the new Administration with 100 new keyboards and 500 "W" keys, which the administration then refused. [1]

The company was acquired by Boise Cascade in 2003, and has undergone numerous internal changes since then, including rebranding its copy and print centers from CopyMax to OfficeMax Print & Document Services, or PDS for short. This change was primarily to prevent customers from getting the idea that it was only a copy service. The furniture section of the retail stores is often marketed separately as FurnitureMax. OfficeMax has 867 retail stores in the USA (including Puerto Rico) and 43 locations in Mexico (through a joint venture), in addition to an on-line retailer in the USA (OfficeMax.com). In October 2004, Boise Cascade completed its sale of its paper, building products, and timberland assets. It then renamed itself OfficeMax.

The company's stock has performed poorly due to increasing competition, an accounting scandal over vendor income, and the related departure of officers and directors in connection with alleged misrepresentation of financial results. In Q1 2006, OfficeMax closed 110 underperforming domestic stores. And is currently opening 70 new stores with the new "Advantage" store design.[2] The "Advantage" store design is supposed to be more user friendly and is currently being tested in several OfficeMaxs in major US cities.

Customer Incentive Programs

Ink Cartridge Recycling
Unlike other office supply chains, OfficeMax originally offered only recycled paper in exchange for ink cartridges, at first limiting the cartridges to HP only, and 2 at a time, then later expanding it to HP, Lexmark, Dell, and Canon cartridges and 5 at a time. However, the customer was not required to purchase anything to redeem their cartridges. Starting on 7/30/06, the company policy has changed. Now customers can choose to either get $3.00 off their purchase, or a free ream of recycled paper, for each inkjet cartridge. They are required, however, to purchase at least $3.00 per cartridge they recycle. There is a limit of ten cartridges per customer per visit that may be recycled, and there are no restricted brands, unlike the recycling programs at Staples and Office Depot, the company's main competitors.

Toner cartridges can also be recycled, and there was never any restriction as to brands or number.

OfficeMax, Ink...
Starting in 2005 and ending early 2006, OfficeMax tested a semi-automated ink refill station in their stores in the Chicago area. Customers could bring in old HP, Lexmark, Dell, Canon, or Compaq cartridges, and have them tested and refilled. The cost of the refilling ranges from $2 below a new cartridge up to %50 off.

As of July 2006, OfficeMax is now outfitting all of their high profit stores with the ink refill machines. Stores in the Houston districts were the first to receive the new machines.

MaxPerks
MaxPerks is a free incentive program where the customer receives a percentage of their purchases back via giftcards. A business maxperks customer receives between 1%-2% of their purchases. The minimum amount spent in order to receive a 1% rebate is $300. The more the customer spends, the more they get back at the each of each quarter in the form of a gift card. The teachers Maxperks is different; for every $75 spent they get back $10 with a yearly rebate limit of $100.

Advertising
For most of the chain's history, their advertising mascot was a faceless animated stick figure called "StickMax". In 2004, they would unveil a colorful new character unlike anything ever seen in the usually staid world of office supplies retail advertisement.

The "What's Your Thing" campaign which launched in January marked the debut of the "Rubberband Man." Based on and featuring the 1976 hit by The Spinners, OfficeMax's Rubberband Man is a slender African American with a large misshapen Afro and flamboyantly colored clothing. The character is played by dancer/actor Eddie Steeples. He dances as he hands out office supplies to employees in a stereotypical office environment. Some have suggested that the character is based on André 3000 of the hip hop duo Outkast; however DDB Chicago has stated he is actually based off of their own service center coordinator, Keenan Linder.

The "Rubberband Man" is no longer the mascot for OfficeMax, and is not affiliated in any way with the company, due to unspecified copyright issues.

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