Editing The Pen Addict 551/transcript (section)

== Article discovery and discussion ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Had an interesting article come across my feed right as we ended last week's show. I think it's been out. Yeah, it came out February 8th. So a week ago. From Edison Pen Co., who makes some of my favorite pens. I think a lot of people who listen to this show are familiar with Edison as just one of the good, great pen makers in our space. And I want to read this article. It's not very long. And the title of this article from Brian Gray, the owner of Edison, the title is A Price Reduction in the Production Line. And seeing that title come across your feeds and everyone starting to share this with you, it's like, this is really interesting in the current state of events that we live in.

'''Myke Hurley:''' You got one of the words wrong?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Brian, you got a typo here? I need you to check this, please. So let me read. I'm going to read this, Myke, because it's pretty short. And I think it gives some good insight about the state of the market right now. So it says, Hi, pen fans. I wanted to announce that effective immediately, our production line will see a price decrease. The price for any of our production line pens with a steel nib has been $169. The new price will be $149. A few factors are driving this. For those of you who remember, these pens were originally priced at $149 when we first started offering the production line about 12 to 13 years ago. Then in 2018, we announced a price increase to $169. This increase was driven by many factors at that time. Much more expensive overhead when we moved to a very nice and spacious commercial location, having outgrown our location at home, a large investment into a lot of new machinery, and hiring more employees. Since this price increase in 2018, we have accomplished more than a few things that have allowed us to reconsider production line pricing. Over the years, I've been able to optimize all aspects of programming for faster assembly line production regarding our newer automated machinery. We've also been able to streamline our manual assembly line process. We've had the same fantastic employees for a minimum of five years each now. Frankly, all of us have honed our skills for faster production while retaining high quality and committing fewer time-wasting mistakes. Finding employees that have previous experience in pen making isn't exactly easy. It definitely takes a long time to develop expertise in this field. I'm thankful to say that all of us here have become very highly skilled pen makers, which makes everyone here very effective at what we do. Our overhead costs have been reduced a good bit since we now own our commercial building rather than renting our space. The bottom line is that our cost to manufacture, the production line has gone down. We feel that adjusting the retail price accordingly is the right move.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I don't really know what to say about this. What I'll say is this is awesome. It doesn't make sense to me. Appreciate you, Brian. I will say, and I'm not saying this is the reason, this is great marketing. This is great marketing, whether it's intended or not. I don't believe that's the intention, but it is good marketing.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's not free marketing because you've reduced your products, but for a period of time at least, people will have a greater feeling about Edison. I know I do. I've gained additional respect for Edison with this. This is wild to me because they could just say, hey, we're committed to not increasing our price. That would do half of the job here. That would do more than half of the job. Right? I really appreciate in this the level of detail as to why this has occurred. Right? I love that detail, but I would have said you should have just fixed the price. But awesome that you decreased it. That's also great. And considering the amount of detail in this post, I'm very confident that they know what they're doing. Right? That this is totally fine for them because they seem to have really got their heads screwed on correctly. So much respect to Edison Panko for this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it was really neat to see. And just a little bit of the driving force. The production line is actually a very... That's the retail arm of Edison Panko, right? Like if you buy something from a retailer who had... Like Edison has maybe... I didn't look at it before. Say four or five pin models that go to retail. That's the production line. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's called production line. I know that there are obviously production lines. But they have what's called the production line. And they have the signature line. Right. Obviously, the signature line is more custom, right? Right. And different. And then you've got the production line and more complicated, I assume, to produce. Yep. The production line depends that they can produce in large quantities and stock them all over the world. The Menlo and the Comet are the two models.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah. In the past, like one of my favorites, the Beaumont, has been in and out of there. The Perlet has been in and out of there. You know, it depends on... They change the production line from time to time. Not like a very high rate. But, you know, every year or two, there might be an addition or subtraction there. So, yeah. That's the retail arm of it. Like if I go up to see Brian and Andrea at a pin show and I'm looking at their table and I'm picking out the specific material that I want with a specific filling system that I want, it's probably going to cost me like $300 and something. Which, like, is fine too, right? That's what those pins go for. But I have several production line pins that I love. And I think this is a great way to get more people into Edison pins. It's obviously, like you said, it's a very good bit of marketing for people to consider this. I think it's a great... It's an unbelievable price point. Yeah. For pins, like I focus a lot of time and effort in this price range in fountain pins because that's... This seems like a really big upgrade price point for people, like in like $150. Yeah. And, you know, like Edison's always been there, even at $169. And they're right there with like Franklin Kristoff and, you know, some of the other pin makers that we, you know, shop at.