What Should You Buy First at Office Depot for a Home Office?
The spare bedroom has a desk now. There’s a laptop on it, a phone charger snaking across the floor, and a kitchen chair you swore was temporary three months ago. Somewhere in a drawer is a printer that hasn’t had working ink since spring.
This is the exact moment Office Depot was built for. Between its stores (many still carry the OfficeMax name) and officedepot.com, it covers the furniture, the printing, the ink and the paper clips, plus a set of services most people forget are there. The trick is knowing which departments to hit first, because they aren’t all equally useful to a one-person business or a work-from-home setup.
Here’s how we’d rank them, starting with the one your back will thank you for.
🪑 Shop office chairs and desks
Start with the chair
If you only buy one thing, make it a proper chair. You’ll sit in it for more hours a week than you sit anywhere else, and a kitchen chair was never meant for that job.
Office Depot’s chair aisle leans on three names. Realspace is its house brand, WorkPro sits alongside it, and the Serta iComfort for WorkPro collection pairs the mattress company’s comfort branding with office seating. Office Depot says that collection is exclusive to its stores and website, and it includes executive, manager and big and tall styles built around what the company calls a PostureSync Spinal Support System, with lumbar support that adjusts as the chair reclines. On the site you can filter task chairs by features like height adjustment, recline and ergonomic design, which saves a lot of scrolling.
Desks, file cabinets and conference tables live in the same department. And if the idea of a flat-packed desk and a bag of 40 identical screws ruins your weekend, Office Depot sells assembly. The service is handled by SPAR, which sends an assembler to your home or office for new, in-box furniture from brands including Realspace, Bush, Sauder, HON and Lorell. Keep your receipt handy when you call to book it. One catch: they won’t touch anything that’s already been partly built, so don’t start the job yourself and then give up.
The print and copy counter
For a lot of small businesses, this is the most useful counter in the store. Office Depot’s print services cover document copies, presentations, business cards, posters, banners, yard signs and custom stamps. You can set up a job online and pick it up at the store, or walk in and order at the counter.
The deadline to remember is 2 p.m. Office Depot says orders placed in store, or online for in-store pickup, by 2 p.m. local time can be requested for same-day service. Not every job qualifies (there are quantity limits on things like business cards and large banners, and print-ready artwork is required for big-format pieces), so check the details when you configure the order.
Pricing for most of these jobs appears once you’ve picked the size, paper and finish, so build the order online first and you’ll see exactly what you’re paying before you commit.
Ink, toner and the tech aisle
Ink is where Office Depot quietly rewards loyalty. Bring empty cartridges to the register, any brand and from any store, according to the company, and Rewards members earn $2 in recycling rewards per cartridge, up to 10 a month, as long as they make a qualifying purchase of $10 or more that month. Damaged cartridges aren’t accepted. If you print a lot, that adds up faster than you’d think, and it gets the dead cartridges out of your drawer.
The tech department goes beyond printers and laptops. In-store tech specialists handle setup and repairs, and Office Depot also advertises around-the-clock tech support. For a home office where you are also the IT department, that’s handy to have in your back pocket.
🖨️ Find the right ink for your printer
Supplies, the stuff that always runs out
Paper, pens, folders, sticky notes, labels, cleaning and breakroom basics. Nobody gets excited about this department, but it’s the one you’ll reorder from every few weeks.
Two things make it less of a chore. First, delivery: for addresses in the contiguous U.S., Office Depot offers free next-business-day delivery on qualifying orders over a set minimum, which is shown at checkout. Second, pickup. Order online or in the app, choose in-store or curbside pickup, and the order is pulled for you in minutes. Office Depot launched this as its 20 Minute Pickup Promise and its pickup pages still promise orders ready in minutes. It’s perfect for the Tuesday morning when you realize you’re out of toner an hour before a client meeting.
The same goes for school supplies, by the way. Same aisles, same pickup.
Getting more back on every order
Office Depot runs two programs, and picking the right one is the single easiest way to pay less here.
Office Depot OfficeMax Rewards. It’s free to join. According to Office Depot, members earn 2% back in rewards in store and online on almost every item, including technology, furniture and supplies. You also get the $2 per cartridge recycling rewards mentioned above, and $2 in bonus rewards per product review, up to three reviews a month.
VIP status. Spend $500 within a 365-day period and you’re bumped to VIP Rewards Member, which kicks in 30 days later and lasts 12 months. VIPs earn 5% back on ink, toner, paper and copy, print and ship services, and get free two-business-day delivery with no minimum. For a home business that prints regularly, that threshold isn’t hard to reach.
Office Depot Select. This is the paid membership for businesses, at $49 a year according to Office Depot’s help center. Members get discounts on thousands of products, including paper, cleaning and breakroom supplies and furniture, plus 10% off full-service and self-service copy and print and tech services. Delivery is free in two business days with no minimum on qualifying orders in local delivery areas, and recycling rewards rise to $3 per cartridge, up to 10 a month.
Which to pick. If you buy occasionally, the free Rewards program is all you need. If the print counter is part of your weekly routine or you’re stocking a small team, run the numbers on Select against what you spend in a year. For a busy small office, it can pay for itself.
Whichever way you go, sign in before you buy so every order counts toward your rewards, recycle those empty cartridges, and check current prices and member offers on the site before you check out. Then go and get rid of that kitchen chair.
⭐ Join Rewards and start earning back
