Textual Analysis Of Staples

Financial Aspects. Table 1 reflects a number of financial figures that were taken from Staples income statements for the past four years, and of which the dollar amounts listed in the table are in reference to millions. The sales, cost of goods sold, and gross profit have all consistently decreased over the past fours, while on the other hand the net income declined in a fluctuating manner (“Income statement,” 2017). Furthermore, the significant difference recorded in its net income figures for 2014 can be on account of Staples closing down 170 stores that year (Egan, 2014). As well as, Staples experienced losses in its net income in 2016 (“Income statement,” 2017).

Table 2 reflects the figures that were pulled from Staples balance sheets for

Staples has not been able to pull itself up out of the red for quite some time now, especially with the low foot traffic into the stores and low spending resulting in reduced profits. Also taking into account its miscellaneous costs and expenses that are continually increasing, which places further strains on their financial position. In order to cut some of its losses, during 2014 to 2015 there were 242 stores that were closed, and 50 more in 2016 (Wahba, 2016). In being eager to gain momentum each year, Staples increases its marketing efforts during the second quarter as parents are busy with back to school shopping and this usually amounts to a lot of sales for them. However, it has not been as successful as it once was as a result of customers taking advantage of the convenience to shop online through its competitors such as

In addition, several positions within Staples have lower hourly and salary wages compared to its competitors and when added to its redundancy history, it is proving difficult to retain, recruit and satisfy its employees (“Form 10-Q,” 2017). Consequently in an effort to attract prospective employees, Staples has joined in with several other companies in supporting a new incentive being offered, which is the student loan repayment assistance program (Friedman, 2016).

Labor Relations. In 2013, Staples began a partnership with the United States Postal Services (USPS) where the employees handling all postal services offered would be regular employees of Staples (Perlmutter, 2016). The argument was that employees were receiving minimum wage, not properly trained, had no benefits, worked part time hours, and were not trained USPS employees. In the beginning of the partnership it was celebrated, but as the program gradually grew more Staples employees and privatization concerns kept being raised up as a concern and nothing had been done to improve upon either (Perlmutter,