"The GeoCities agreement is part of our strategic plan to grow the Staples.com business by partnering with leading Web sites that reach our target business customer," said Jeff Levitan, senior vice president of Staples.com. "The site's extensive reach to this group makes it a key location for Staples.com."

Visitors to GeoCities, the world's largest and one of the fastest growing communities on the Internet, will be able to directly link to Staples.com from GeoCities "Shopping Center" area and through rotating banner advertisements throughout the site. Staples.com will be the exclusive office supplies merchant for GeoCities "Back-to-School" promotion and also will sponsor a Small Business Center, filled with useful information for this target audience, in the Small Business Neighborhood on GeoCities.

Under the new Pages that Pay program, the 3.5 million GeoCities members, called "Homesteaders," will have the opportunity to directly link visitors from their individual home pages to the Staples.com Web site. The Homesteaders will earn a commission based on Staples.com sales that are generated from their home pages. Staples.com will be the exclusive office supplies merchant for the affiliates program, which was announced today.

"GeoCities members are the world's largest contributors to affiliate programs," said J.B. Lyon, vice president of marketing for Staples.com. "This is a great way to grow the Staples.com business and be highly visible across the Internet community. And GeoCities has the world's fifth largest audience reach."

"We are excited to have such a nationally well-known retailer like Staples be one of the first companies to join GeoCities' Pages that Pay program," said Thomas R. Evans, president and chief executive officer of GeoCities. "Our "Homesteaders" and the nearly 19 million visitors to GeoCities each month represent a huge consumer audience with tremendous purchasing power."

About Staples.com

Launched in the fall of 1998, Staples.com is Staples' e-commerce business unit that serves the home office and small business customer via the Internet. The virtual store offers easy-to-use, customized features and intuitive functions to slash the cost and hassle out of purchasing office supplies. More than 6,000 products are available on Staples.com and it is open for business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Customers receive free delivery on all orders over $50 and next-business day delivery is available in most U.S. markets.

About Staples

Staples Inc. is a $7 billion retailer of office supplies, furniture and technology to consumers and business from home-based businesses to Fortune 50 companies in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. Headquartered outside Boston, Staples invented the office superstore concept and today is the largest operator of office superstores in the world. The company has over 37,000 employees serving customers through more than 900 office superstores, mail order catalogs, e-commerce and a contract business. More information about the company is available at http://www.staples.com.

     CONTACT: Staples Inc.
              Shannon Lapierre, 508/370-8468
              Public Relations Manager  
              shannon.lapierre@staples.com
              or
              Corporate Ink
              Mary Jane Mortell, 617/969-9192
              Account Executive
              mjmortell@corporateink.com