OfficeMax.com Ranked #1 In Shopping Speed, Performance During Busiest Shopping Week Of The Year

NAPERVILLE, Ill., Nov. 30, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- OfficeMax^® Incorporated (NYSE:OMX), a leader in office supplies, technology and services and the nation's 12^th largest retailer online¹, was ranked the #1 top performing website for speed of online transactions among U.S. online electronics retailers during the busiest shopping week of the year by Keynote^®, the global leader in Internet and mobile cloud testing & monitoring.

For the shopping week ending November 25, 2012, which included Thanksgiving and Black Friday, OfficeMax.com was ranked #1 on the Keynote Online Retail Web Transaction Performance Index – Electronics². The index measures the speed of going to a selected retail electronics site to search for an item, adding it to the shopping cart, and proceeding to check out without logging on to an account.

"At OfficeMax, our goal is to build deeper relationships with our customers that drive long-term brand loyalty," said Jim Barr, OfficeMax executive vice president and chief digital officer. "Delivering an excellent online shopping experience for our customers is absolutely essential to building those relationships. So, we're very pleased to receive Keynote's validation of our site performance."

"The Keynote ranking further substantiates what we've been observing and hearing from our customers – that our ongoing site improvements have led to a more intuitive, faster and more enjoyable online shopping experience," added Randy Burdick, OfficeMax executive vice president and chief information officer.

The top performance ranking is the result of ongoing website and search engine upgrades that OfficeMax.com started rolling out earlier this year to help customers shop faster, with more accurate search and recommendation results for a more convenient online shopping experience.  Since the upgrades, OfficeMax.com has experienced increases in both conversion rate and customer satisfaction around site navigation, which has allowed customers to view more products with fewer searches, validating that consumers are finding the products they want with less effort.

"Keynote's mobile and web performance indices are the gold standard in the industry for over 15 years," said Daniel C. Berkowitz, senior director of corporate communications at Keynote. "Page download speed is a critical and integral part of delivering an optimal experience; one that delights customers and builds repeat business. Keynote congratulates and commends OfficeMax on ranking number one in speed during the week including Black Friday, no easy feat due to tremendous site traffic. OfficeMax should feel quite proud of this significant achievement."

OfficeMax.com also saw a seven-point rise in customer satisfaction for the promotional period of Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday³ since the same period last year, with the biggest increases recorded in site performance, product description and price.

The ongoing site upgrades are among many ongoing improvements to OfficeMax's e-commerce platforms to improve the customer shopping experience and build brand loyalty.

About OfficeMax
OfficeMax Incorporated (NYSE: OMX) is a leader in integrating products, solutions and services for the workplace, whether for business or at home.  The OfficeMax mission is simple: We provide workplace innovation that enables our customers to work better.  The company provides office supplies and paper, in-store print and document services through OfficeMax ImPress®, technology products and solutions, and furniture to businesses and consumers.  OfficeMax consumers and business customers are served by approximately 29,000 associates through OfficeMax.com; OfficeMaxSolutions.com and Reliable.com; more than 900 stores in the U.S. and Mexico; and direct sales and catalogs. OfficeMax has been named one of the 2012 World's Most Ethical Companies, and is the only company in the office supply industry to receive Ethics Inside^® Certification by the Ethisphere Institute.  To find the nearest OfficeMax, call 1-877-OFFICEMAX.  For more information, visit www.officemax.com.

All trademarks, service marks and trade names of OfficeMax Incorporated used herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of OfficeMax Incorporated. Any other product or company names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.

¹Internet^® Retailer Magazine 2012 Top 500 list.
²For the Index, Keynote takes measurements from the 10 largest U.S. metropolitan areas (Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.) on high-speed links attached to key points on the largest U.S. Internet Service Provider (ISP) backbones. The category focuses on the Electronics vertical in the online retail industry.
³ As reported by Foresee.

OfficeMax Media Contact
Nicole Miller
630.864.6069

SOURCE OfficeMax Incorporated