Walmart investing $300M in North Carolina e-commerce fulfillment center

Private equity firm Atlas Holdings is acquiring The ODP Corp., parent of Office Depot, in an all-cash deal valued at approximately $1 billion. The agreement underscores ODP’s ongoing pivot from retail office supplies toward its growing business-to-business (B2B) ecommerce and distribution operations. Atlas will pay $28 per share for ODP’s 30.08 million outstanding shares. The companies expect to close the transaction by year’s end. That deal comes as ODP’s market value has shrunk from more than $5 billion a decade ago, reflecting declining consumer demand for paper, printers, and related supplies.

While January typically sees a post-holiday dip in consumer activity, the fall this year was more pronounced than anticipated. National events and weather patterns competed for consumer attention, while persistent price sensitivity and a marked decline in consumer confidence further dampened demand. Overall website sessions dipped -2.73%, with greater declines in orders (-9.88%) and demand (-12.57%) compared to January 2024. Converting customers was more challenging than last year for many brands. Despite easing inflation, consumers remain price sensitive. Increasing units sold, and refining product assortments will be important levers to drive growth in the current DTC/retail environment.

Adobe announced the next generation of its Real-time Customer Data Platform (CDP), the only enterprise application architected from the ground up for first-party data-driven customer acquisition and engagement. Adobe Real-time CDP helps brands activate known and unknown customer data to manage the entire customer profile and journey seamlessly in one system, without the need for third-party cookies. The relationship between consumers and brands is rapidly evolving. Consumers today are more attentive to the data they share, which has resulted in a patchwork of privacy regulations globally. At the same time, expectations for personalized brand experiences remain at an all-time high, while third-party cookies, which marketers have historically relied on to track unknown visitors, will no longer be supported in browsers. This means brands will have to contend with reduced insight about unknown visitors to their digital properties while still trying to provide a compelling customer experience.