Stationery

I love this Scotch tape home moving pack available in the US in stationery outlets. In the pack is six rolls of packing tape labelled for different rooms in the home – making identification nice and easy. I can’t recall seeing anything like this in Australia.

Download the officeworks App onto your phone and use this on the shop floor to show your customers that you are cheaper than Officeworks. It works a treat – especially for ink and toner. Being able to prove to a customer that you are cheaper, while retaining good margin, is excellent.

Smens from GNS are the type of pen I’d expect to see in Typo. They are pens which smell. You can choose the scent you want. It’s a cool idea appealing to someone who is probably not looking to purchase a pen.

I am writing about Smens today for two reasons: to show that GNS offers products that appeal to the Typo shopper (and I understand that range will expand) and to illustrate how we can sell more stationery in our newsagencies to people who are not shopping for stationery.

We have opportunities in our newsagency supplier relationships often beyond what what we assume. A bit of research can unlock these.

The stationery department in Coles supermarkets has a consistent look and feel based on a Coles image ahead of the brands on offer. Look at the photo and see all suppliers are required to place products into CDUs with the same colour.

This Coles requirement helps to bring visual consistency to the stationery offer in Coles supermarkets. It speaks to the power of Coles that it can get suppliers to provide business specific display units such as these which place Coles consistency ahead of their brands.

The CDUs themselves facilitate orderly placement of stock on the shelves which is important in such a big business.

In my small business newsagency, I prefer to work with brands and for the power and value of those brands to shine through with their own corporate image. I don’t require them to hide behind my image veil.

Well-known corporate brands help drive traffic for us and facilitate shopper confidence. This is one reason I think major stationery brands ought to be more engaged with newsagents – we are more likely to endorse and support their voice above our own.

The US media is full of reports that US stationery / office products giant Staples is in talks to purchase smaller rival Office Depot for a reported US$6.3B.

The merging of the two businesses, if it proceeded, would create a company of extraordinary size and might.

Staples in Australia owns what was Corporate Express. We have little understanding here of what they have they done in the US in the retail stationery space. Imagine Officeworks but better: more aggressive, more locations, more engaged with small business customers.

I have been visiting US stationery retailers like Staples for years, most recently last week in New York. Staples stores I know well have less floor space allocated to stationery products today than at any time I can remember.

What was stationery space now hosts everyday grocery items one could purchase for office or home use. Toilet paper, paper towels, snacks, cleaning products and more are on the shelves and in the aisles.

There is also an increase in gift lines on offer.

I put the changes down to two factors: overall paper based stationery is flat or declining and more repeat purchases are being made online for convenience.

With the retail space to fill, it makes sense that Staples expands its everyday offer, especially in New York with a large residential population within walking distance.

I compared what I saw at Staples with my local Officeworks yesterday and I can see the trend here in Australia too. I suspect the reasons for the shift are the same.

All this makes me wonder what newsagents are doing about stationery? Is the floorspace and inventory investment the same and how do they compare with sales revenue?

In my own case, stationery revenue is up 33% year on year with no change to space allocation. Pens continue to be the most important stationery category accounting for 28% of sales and growing 21% year on year.

With a tight allocation of space for stationery I don’t feel pressured to reduce the allocation at the moment. Officeworks and Staples, with massive retail spaces to fill, will have to evolve their offers to appeal to more shoppers if they are to maintain revenue targets.

I like this small counter display unit for the Pilot erasable pen. The small footprint, understandable pitch and sample pad for shoppers to try the pen for themselves make this something to try at the counter. We’ve had it out for a few days and the pen is selling.

We don’t often place stationery at the counter of the newsagency. It’s good when a supplier packages it in a way that makes giving the premium space an easy decision.

While on a stationery theme, our stationery sales were up 33% in the December quarter with the stand out successes being

• Address books up 96% – $600 in growth.
• Desk accessories up 77% – $1,500 in growth.
• Pens up 21% – $600 in growth.

What makes the sales growth even more valuable is that our stock investment has not changed – our return on inventory investment has increased.

Located in a less than ideal aisle in the store, stationery works well primarily because it is brand focussed, clean, well laid out and very shoppable. In addition to unit sales growth, revenue is up because of the higher mark-up we now apply to stationery. Since most people shop with us out of convenience, we apply a convenience premium.

I was surprised at the Officeworks Back to School outpost in a shopping centre in Melbourne a couple of days ago. Maybe I have missed but I do not recall seeing Officeworks running outposts in centres where they do not have shops.

Their pitch looks strong even though newsagents have better deals. Their price guarantee pitch is clever, worded I suspect to limit the opportunity of it being called on that much.

I’d be interested to know if others have seen Officeworks setup outposts in other shopping centres.

We are showing off what people can do with the white, gold and silver pens at the counter of the newsagency with this simple display of art on a red envelope. Christmas is the perfect time o the year to drive impulse stationery purchases of pens and tape and having these ar the counter displayed in context is the best way to drive sales. This display adds value to plenty of purchases.

Check out the office supplies wall I saw while looking at retail in China earlier this week. It’s unlike any office supplies wall you’d see in just about any retail shop inAustralia, except Typo. Impressive. Inspirational.

The shop was busy.

Years ago, newsagents would have called this more of a social stationery range. Today, it’s a volume business for several key demographics we struggle to serve.

While I am not going into detail here on how to create this offer here in Australia, the purpose of this post is to call out to newsagents with another example of how everyday stationery focus is shifting.

I was drawn to the colourful display of shredders at Officeworks in Sydney on the weekend. This is an excellent example of driving sales of stationery items based on fashion over function.

Someone who loves purple as their colour is more likely to purchase the purple shredder because it is purple than because of the specifications of the device.

Colour is an excellent way to sell office products as Smiggle proves.

Who said we need to define stationery in strict boundaries. We’ve had these vegetable pens on the shop floor for a couple of days and they are drawing plenty of attention. They are a fun product and a different way to present a staple stationery line. Right now, we have many non-traditional pens offered as gifts and they’re selling – usually purchased as last minute gifts.

Playing in this space is another way to support stationery sales.