As Smiggle and Typo stores in Australia show, funky sells, cheap funky especially. For these items, price and funkiness trump quality. The success of Smiggle and Typo attest to that. They have taken plenty of our social stationery sales.
Yesterday I got to see several stationery businesses and saw some funky stationery lines creeping into the traditional stationery offering.
The photo shows a notepad and pen set I saw at a Staples store in Boston. Very cool indeed. And selling quickly!
We need to be in the space and be in it well. Not so much Smiggle as they own young kids. We need to be in this funky stationery space for older shoppers – with stationery people will purchase on impulse and often as a gift … like this cake-slice-like notepad and pen set.
Suppliers who help newsagents get into this part gift part stationery part fashion space should expect to do good business with our channel.
I’ve noticed more customers wanting invitations pads again over the last few years, but card companies are not supplying a large enough range anymore.
These were such a huge seller years ago until people started printing their own, but these days customers are busy and want to buy these products.
Good point – when I think Newsagent cards and stationery I think daggy and old fashioned. That’s allowed others to steal your lunch…