How Much Sales Does Staples B2B Make: A Full Breakdown (2026)

Staples built its name selling pens and printer paper to office workers. That story is largely over. Today, Staples is a B2B distribution and services company — one that quietly generates billions in revenue selling to businesses, not consumers.

This guide breaks down exactly how much Staples makes from B2B, which segments drive that revenue, who competes with them, and what any B2B sales team can learn from how they built it.

What This Guide Covers

Most people still think of Staples as a retail office supply store. That framing misses the majority of what the company actually does. B2B delivery, managed services, and contract sales to businesses dwarf the consumer retail footprint in both revenue and strategic priority.

This guide is for B2B sales professionals who want to understand how a legacy retailer successfully pivoted to B2B dominance — and what that model reveals about winning and defending enterprise accounts. It is also useful for competitive intelligence: if your company competes in any category Staples touches, you need to understand their scale and approach.

Staples Total Revenue: Where Things Stand in 2026

Staples is privately held — acquired by Sycamore Partners in 2017 for $6.9 billion. That means no public quarterly earnings calls, no SEC filings, and no clean segment disclosures. Revenue estimates come from S&P Global credit reports, industry analysts, and third-party data providers.

The consensus figure for 2024: approximately $8 billion in total annual revenue. For context, Statista data shows Staples at $7.6 billion in 2023. Revenue has trended modestly downward from the company's peak years above $10 billion (pre-2017), as physical retail continued declining and B2B growth partially offset that loss.

Revenue Trajectory (2015–2024)

The 2015 revenue figure reflects a much larger company that included European retail operations and a broader store footprint. Post-restructuring, Staples is a leaner, B2B-first business — smaller by headline revenue but far more profitable per dollar of sales in its core segment.

How Much of Staples' Revenue Is B2B?

The most cited public figure: B2B sales accounted for 60% of Staples' Q1 2017 revenue, per Digital Commerce 360. That was the last major public reporting period before Sycamore Partners took the company private.

Since 2017, Staples has continued its deliberate shift away from consumer retail and toward B2B delivery and services. Multiple industry sources now estimate B2B at 70% of total revenue as of 2024–2025. Applied to the $8 billion revenue figure, that puts B2B at roughly $4.8B–$5.6B annually.

Breaking Down the B2B Revenue Estimate

These are estimates based on disclosed data points and industry analyst reporting. Staples does not publish a segment P&L. The B2B figure includes both delivery-based contract sales (Staples Business Advantage) and B2B e-commerce through staples.com.

Staples' Three Business Segments Explained

Sycamore Partners restructured Staples into three independently managed and capitalized divisions. Each operates with separate leadership, strategy, and economics.

1. Staples North American Delivery (B2B Core)

This is the B2B engine. It includes Staples Business Advantage (mid-market and enterprise contract sales), Quill Corporation (office supplies catalog and e-commerce for smaller businesses), and HiTouch Business Services (specialty office and facility products).

North American Delivery operates through 40 fulfillment warehouses across the US and a direct sales force that sells on contract terms — negotiated pricing, dedicated account managers, net-30 billing, and integration with enterprise procurement systems (Ariba, SAP, Coupa). This is the segment that drives the bulk of B2B revenue.

2. Staples US Retail

As of 2026, Staples operates approximately 860 US retail store locations. This segment serves both consumers and small businesses who prefer in-store purchasing. Revenue has been declining as foot traffic shifts online, but the stores serve a secondary function: they act as local pickup points and brand touchpoints that support the B2B division's credibility with smaller accounts.

3. Staples Canada

The Canadian business operates as a separate entity from the US operations. It maintains a retail presence and an e-commerce channel, serving both consumer and business customers. The Canadian segment follows a similar trajectory to US retail — shrinking in store count, growing in e-commerce and business services.

What Staples Actually Sells to Business Customers

The "office supply store" framing undersells Staples' B2B product scope. The company supplies over 40,000 products and services across six major categories.

Office Supplies (~40% of B2B Revenue)

Paper, pens, folders, binders, labels, toners — the core catalog. This is the category that built Staples and still drives the highest purchase frequency. It is also the most commoditized, which is why Staples has pushed into higher-margin categories.

Technology Products (~20%)

Laptops, monitors, printers, networking equipment, accessories. Staples Business Advantage competes with Dell, CDW, and Insight Direct in this category. Technology is higher-margin per unit and drives larger average order values — making it a strategic growth priority.

Furniture (~15%)

Office furniture including desks, chairs, storage, and collaborative workspace products. Staples sells proprietary brands (Union & Scale) alongside third-party manufacturers. Furniture orders tend to be high-value, infrequent, and relationship-driven — the kind of transaction where a dedicated account rep earns their keep.

Business Services (~25%)

Managed print services, workplace design, IT support, print and marketing production, and shipping solutions. Services carry higher margins than product sales and create stickier customer relationships — a customer using managed print services is far less likely to churn than one buying paper on contract. This is the fastest-growing slice of B2B revenue.

Why Staples Shifted Hard Into B2B

Staples' pivot to B2B was not voluntary creativity — it was survival. Three forces made the shift mandatory.

Retail Headwinds

Consumer office supply retail was already weakening before COVID. Amazon, Walmart, and Costco undercut on price. The shift to digital documents cut paper consumption. Remote and hybrid work scattered demand away from urban office clusters where Staples stores concentrated. The company had no viable consumer retail future at scale.

B2B Has Better Unit Economics

Contract B2B sales generate higher average order values, lower acquisition costs per dollar of revenue, and much higher switching costs. A company that runs managed print services through Staples is effectively locked in — switching requires renegotiating vendor contracts, retraining staff, and absorbing transition risk. Consumer retail has none of those advantages.

For more on how B2B differs structurally from consumer sales, see the B2B sales definition and fundamentals guide.

Failed Merger Forced a Rethink

In 2015, Staples attempted to acquire Office Depot for $6.3 billion. The FTC blocked it on antitrust grounds in 2016. That blocked merger forced Staples to compete against Office Depot independently — and the strategy that emerged was to differentiate on B2B services rather than fight a price war at retail. Sycamore Partners accelerated that strategy after the 2017 acquisition.

Staples B2B Competitors and Market Position

Staples competes differently depending on the customer segment and product category.

Office Depot / OfficeMax

The closest direct competitor. Office Depot operates a similar model — retail stores plus a B2B delivery division. Both companies target the same mid-market and enterprise contract buyers. The two are roughly comparable in scale, which is why the 2015 merger attempt made sense to their executives — even if regulators disagreed.

W.B. Mason

The most aggressive regional competitor in the US Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. W.B. Mason competes directly with Staples Business Advantage on contract office supply delivery, offering comparable pricing and next-day delivery. They are less of a factor in technology and managed services.

Amazon Business

The fastest-growing and most disruptive competitor. Amazon Business surpassed $35 billion in global sales in 2023 and is growing at double-digit rates. It offers multi-user business accounts, purchase approval workflows, tax-exempt purchasing, and analytics — functionality that previously only enterprise procurement platforms provided. Amazon's price advantage on commoditized products (paper, toners, accessories) is difficult for Staples to match.

Competitive Position Summary

Staples' defensible advantage is its hybrid model: national physical infrastructure (stores as pickup/service points, warehouses for delivery) plus a direct sales force that can serve enterprise procurement requirements that Amazon's self-service model cannot match.

What B2B Sales Teams Can Learn From Staples

Staples' B2B transformation is a masterclass in three things that any B2B team can apply regardless of industry or company size.

1. Stickiness Comes From Services, Not Products

Staples' fastest-growing and most defensible revenue is managed print services — not paper or pens. Services create long-term contracts, operational dependency, and high switching costs. B2B sales teams that can bundle services with product sales consistently outperform those selling products alone.

2. Contract Pricing Beats Transactional Pricing Every Time

Staples Business Advantage built its B2B position by moving accounts off per-unit transactional pricing and onto annual contracts with volume commitments. That shift changes the relationship from vendor to partner. It also means predictable revenue — the kind that supports forecasting and quota planning. For how to structure B2B pipelines for this kind of account, see the B2B sales pipeline definitive guide.

3. Dedicated Account Management Is a Moat

Amazon Business can undercut Staples on nearly every commodity SKU. What Amazon cannot replicate is a human account manager who knows the customer's procurement process, budget cycles, and key stakeholders. Staples defends its mid-market and enterprise accounts with relationships — not pricing. That lesson transfers directly: relationship depth is a sustainable competitive advantage that technology alone cannot displace.

For the techniques that turn prospect relationships into closed accounts, the how to scale B2B sales quickly playbook walks through practical steps for building and accelerating pipeline across segments.

4. Segment Up Over Time

Staples started as a consumer and SMB retailer. It moved up-market deliberately — first into mid-market business delivery, then into enterprise contract sales, then into managed services. Each move up the market increased average deal size, reduced churn, and improved margins. That same segmentation principle applies to any B2B team, regardless of size. For understanding how to structure the early go-to-market for B2B growth, the B2B go-to-market strategy guide provides the framework.

How SyncGTM Helps B2B Teams Win Accounts Like Staples Does

Staples Business Advantage wins mid-market and enterprise accounts through three things: targeted outreach to the right buyer, a dedicated rep who manages the relationship, and contract-based pricing that locks in the account long-term. Small and mid-size B2B teams can replicate all three with the right tooling.

SyncGTM handles the foundational layer: finding and reaching the right accounts at the right time.

• ICP-filtered prospecting: Define your target account profile — industry, company size, tech stack, geography — and pull an enriched list of decision-makers in minutes. No manual LinkedIn scraping. No spreadsheet juggling.
• Waterfall enrichment: SyncGTM queries multiple data providers in sequence to maximize verified email and phone coverage. Most teams see 80–90% match rates versus 40–60% from a single provider.
• Multichannel sequences: Launch email plus LinkedIn outreach directly from enriched lists. A 7–10 touch sequence runs automatically while your reps focus on active deals.
• Buying signals: Surface accounts showing intent — recent funding rounds, executive hires, technology purchases — and prioritize outreach around companies that are actively moving.

The result is a prospecting motion that mirrors what Staples does at scale: targeted, relationship-first, and efficient. For a full look at the tools that support B2B prospecting at every stage of the funnel, see the B2B sales prospecting tools guide. To understand how to compensate reps who are landing these accounts, see the B2B sales salary breakdown.

See SyncGTM pricing — the free tier supports most teams getting outbound off the ground.

FAQ

This post was last reviewed in May 2026.