Editing The Pen Addict 610/transcript (section)

== Stationery market trends and vendor strategies ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Five separate times, I was told how one excited they were just about the landscape of stationery, but two, how they were each focusing on.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Kind of reimagining their product lineups and how they position themselves in the market. And this is unprompted conversation that they're just having with me. Hey, let me show you what I'm doing. Here's why I'm doing it. And here's what I'm thinking for the future. Like they were, this was, these were just like the general conversations that people were having with me. And this goes for makers. It goes for retailers. It went for so many different people in the industry. Like it wasn't one same type of vendor. Like it wasn't all retailers telling me the exact same thing, or it wasn't all makers telling me that exact same thing. It was across each of them. And while the concept was different, I mean, the concept was the same. Each of them had a different idea on how they were going to execute, like changing up their product lineup, positioning themselves in the market. Like say, like for example, a maker might want to, might feel comfortable with the current product lineup they have. And now they're thinking about mixing in, hey, should I do a more premium offering? Or conversely, should I do a more entry level offering? Vendors were thinking about how do I work with the newcomers to the space? And what do they see? You know, my offerings, you know, are they welcoming to a newcomer, right? It was just super unique. Like I literally heard it from one of the first people I talked to. I was like, oh, that's really cool about how they're thinking about their position in the market. And then I would go talk to someone else and they would literally have the same conversation with me. But going in, say, if one was going, oh, I'm going to focus on more like high end specialty stuff. The other one would be is like, yeah, I want to work on, you know, my entry level offerings. Like it was really, really interesting to see how much all of these vendors were thinking about this. And they were all generally like very positive about the landscape, which was nice to see. So that was kind of a surprise, I guess, in that everyone in that room was thinking about how they can continue to do their job better. And not that you, I shouldn't be surprised at that. But it was that the amount of changes that they were talking about were more than just like standard. Yeah, I'm going to make a new pen design or, yeah, I'm going to start carrying this product lineup or, you know, whatever it is. It was like very specific. I want to try to focus on this type of customer. And here's how I'm going to approach. And I was like, dang, OK, let's do this over and over again. So it was very, very cool. It was enlightening. And I guess maybe it's just because it's been so many months, probably, what, eight months since I've been to a show. So that's a pretty long amount of time. And just like the product runs and things like that and having people having time to talk about that stuff. I thought it was enlightening and kind of cool. Like I enjoyed hearing that. I was my ears perked up every time someone was talking about here's what we're doing next. And those things from one vendor to the next would be completely different, but they were all equally as excited. So that was kind of nice to see.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Definite maturity in the market or like amongst the vendors and stuff, right? Like if that's where people are at.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And just to kind of tie a bow down before we talk about the stuff that I came home with, still quite a few new makers, you know, out there. Some a lot of first time vendors. A lot of second time, you know, appearances at the show that, you know, have ramped things up. You know, a lot of retailers, you know, like traditional, you know, online or brick and mortar type of retailers, like still doing their thing, doing well. So it was, Atlanta retains that good mixture of all the things. And like I didn't go lacking for anything at the show. And it was just in general, a really, really good time and really fun to see.