Pens and refills account for 34% of our stationery sales. Stationery for us does not include ink and toner, photocopying, art supplies or papers – each of these has their own department. So, in what we call pure stationer, pens and pen refills account for 34% of sales.
This is pretty good from what I can see. However, the percentage depends on the range of stationery carried. In a high street or rural regional situation the percentage would be lower because of a considerably more diverse range of stationery.
In my newsagency for which I am writing about here, the range of stationery is focused on impulse and every day convenience purchases. We have not stocked the business to be a stationery retailer of last resort. If the majors do not stock it then it would not be valuable of us to stock it in my view. We have very limited (expensive) space and need the best possible stock turn to pay for this.
I am curious as to the percentage of stationery which pens / refills achieves in other newsagencies. I think this figure could be an interesting discussion point … we could learn a lot about how others run their businesses.