Staples, Inc.
Thesis
Staples is positioned to outperform Amazon in the B2B office supply market due to its dedicated sales team, fixed pricing, and superior customer service. The market has overreacted to Amazon's introduction of Prime membership, creating a compelling opportunity to invest in Staples as it continues to dominate the enterprise market.
Did it work?
The thesis predicted Staples would dominate the B2B office supply market against Amazon, but the opposite occurred: Amazon Business launched in 2015 and rapidly gained enterprise share, while Staples' revenue and profitability contracted and its stock collapsed from the mid-$30s to single digits before the company was taken private by Sycamore Partners in 2017 at roughly $10 per share. The core claim that the market overreacted to Amazon and that Staples' sales model would prevail was decisively invalidated. With no price data provided, confidence is low, but the thesis events clearly did not play out.