Great Stationery = Great Design

There's a positive mood among the more than 100 stationery vendors who responded to our annual survey: four-fifths anticipate that their 2004 sales totals will be higher than in 2003. Compared with recent years, that's a very optimistic outlook.

In 2003, 75 percent of respondents thought sales would increase. In 2002, it was 70 percent, and in 2001, 78 percent. Less than one-fifth of this year's respondents project 2004 sales to remain the same, and only 1 percent think sales will decrease.

Survey highlights include:

• Greeting cards were by far the most popular product category offered by the vendors who were surveyed.
• Handmade/Handcrafted themes remain the leading design direction for 2004.
• Spiritual/Inspirational, the top design direction for 2002, has slipped in popularity.
• Almost no one cited Patriotic as a design direction for 2004.
• Vendors expect prices to stay the same across most categories.
• More than 33 percent of vendors expect social and business stationery prices to increase, while 29 percent expect price increases for imprintables or invitations.
• Between 10 and 20 percent expect to lower prices of photo albums and scrapbooks, frames, calendars and date books, scrapbooking supplies, and giftwrap and ribbon.

Vendors indicate that Handmade/ Handcrafted themes remain the leading design direction for 2004, with 40 percent citing the category. Modern/ Contemporary and Whimsical tied for the second spot, both pulling in about a third of the vendors' votes.

Spiritual/Inspirational, the top design direction for 2002, continues to fall from favor. Tied with Modern/Contemporary last year, it sank to fifth position this year.

Traditional/Formal, which was in second place last year, dropped to near the bottom of the list, and Patriotic themes are now considered passé for stationery items. From a high of 43 percent of respondents citing Patriotic in 2002 (in the aftermath of 9/11), almost no one named that category as a design direction for the coming year.

We also added a new design direction — Teen/Tween — to the survey this year, and 25 percent of vendors reported it as an influence on their product designs.

Greeting cards are included in the product lineup for almost half of the vendors surveyed — the only product category to post such a high percentage. Blank books and journals, offered by slightly fewer vendors than last year, still ranks as the second most frequently offered product category in the industry.

Desk and home office accessories slipped past frames to take the third position in this year's stationery product lineup, while the number of vendors offering frames decreased this year, after two years of steady increases. Only about a quarter of stationery vendors, compared to two-fifths last year, included frames as part of their product lineup.

Calendars and date books remain among the most frequently offered products by stationery vendors. This year, giftwrap/ribbons, along with imprintables/invitations, bumped social and business stationery from the list of top products.

Vendors continue to offer books, photo albums and scrapbooks, social and business stationery, writing instruments, craft supplies, plush, and posters or prints. All of these are among the products offered by at least 10 percent of vendors for 2004.

Stationery product categories offered by fewer than 10 percent of the vendors include scrapbooking supplies, partyware, gifts, bookmarks, magnets, placecards, and gift enclosures.

Like last year, vendors expect price points to stay the same across most product categories in 2004. However, they do expect to lower prices on more product categories this year than in 2003. Five categories in the survey — photo albums and scrapbooks, frames, calendars or date books, scrapbooking supplies, and giftwrap or ribbons — show more than 10 percent of surveyed vendors expecting price decreases. This is also the second year for expected price declines in both the frames and photo albums and scrapbooks categories.

There are only two product categories, social and business stationery and imprintables or invitations, in which vendors have seen price increases for two years running. This year, more than one-third expect social and business stationery prices to increase, while 29 percent expect imprintables or invitations to increase.

Gift specialty stores and stationery/card shops remain the primary distribution channel for stationery products, with over four-fifths of the vendors surveyed selling their products through these retail outlets. This is an important statistic for specialty retailers, as it highlights the importance of these vendors to the market.

Gift specialty stores and stationery/card shops also generate the lion's share of sales within the industry. More than two-fifths of vendors say that gift specialty stores account for most of their stationery products business; another one-fifth count on stationery/card shops for the bulk of their business.

More than 100 vendors responded to this year's survey, conducted during the months of January and February 2004. Approximately 33 percent of the vendors reported annual sales of less than $100,000, and 10 percent had sales between $250,000 and $500,000. Some 16 percent posted sales between $250,000 and $999,000, while more than 20 percent reported sales of $1 million to $3.99 million. Another 12 percent had sales of $4 million to $9.99 million, while 4 percent reported sales of $10 million or more.

Gifts & Decorative Accessories' research department conducted this annual survey of stationery vendors. Judi Fulbright, the lead research specialist, supervised the survey's progress and analyzed the results. Cynthia Myers, database manager, provided special assistance.