GNS CEO Alex Stewart provided the following in response to comments by others to a post here about stationery. I am posting the response in full. I’d note that my post was about a whole of store approach, hence my focus on Typo in the post. Here in the GNS response in its entirety. It has been written in relation to comments by a newsagent:
We have reviewed your comments and would like to provide a response where we see it corresponds to specific comments made. For that reason we have included extracts of your post in red to establish a reference point. We are addressing this as GNS only. Where Ancol is referenced we can only speak for GNS in context.
Whilst GNS and Ancol may introduce a range of “fashion” stationery it’s usually confined to notebooks and other associated lines.
There is no whole of stationery range concept.
We have introduced Skweek and Urban ranges and have been selling in hundreds of Newsagencies for almost 1 year now. It does cover a wide range of products within the fashion category, including Notebooks. It was introduced to allow Newsagents who would like to provide customers with a lower cost alternative to existing brands, with a sustainable margin position for Newsagents (see link to Facebook page and the many great examples of SKWEEK at Newsagencies https://www.facebook.com/skweekaustralia/ )
Skweek newsXpress Kyneton
newsXpress Sunbury Square
The range includes pencils cases, calculators, exercise books, scissors, lunch bags, gift sets, stickers, sharpeners, erasers, bag tags, key rings, pens, puzzle rulers, our big foot highlighters and more. The Colour blocked range across the 4 colours, provides plenty of opportunity for repeat purchases and provides attractive margins to Newsagents.
Similarly, our ‘Urban by Modena’ range, designed for teens and adults, has been ranged by hundreds of Newsagents and ANCOL have also taken up this range. This is a tighter range that focuses on core products, including pens, pencils cases, note books, journals and memo sets. Again, this offers attractive margins to Newsagents.
We will continue to develop products based on market demand but ultimately need support from Newsagents to justify the investment in developing, sourcing and stocking these products.
Just look at Sovereign brand, seriously, is that the best they can do , the packaging and presentation of that brand is doing a disservice to Newsagents.
Much could be done with new and bold colours enabling colour blocking and a new look to or shelves.
Invoice statement books, time books, ect ect yes they are boring ,but with a revamp you shop would have a new fresh feel.
It seems to me that GNS and Ancol do not have the will to look at stationery as an opportunity to create new and exciting ranges and designs.
Instead they stock product which looks the same as it did 20 years ago.
We are assuming here Mark that you have not seen the new Sovereign Packaging? This is progressively being introduced across the entire range. We think it represents a major advance in presenting the brand in a contemporary and consistent image. The previous Sovereign branding was very out-dated and a rebranding exercise commenced last year, with over 100 products now rebranded and available at GNS e.g. envelope range, packaging tape range etc.
Here are some examples:
We will continue to update and review the ranges and expect to have the full Sovereign re branding exercise complete in 2017. GNS will eventually disappear from all products and be replaced with Sovereign (e.g. Scholastic/ Exercise Book range last Back to School).
There has been a culture within our stationery suppliers to not change but instead wheel out the same product year after year.
Playing it safe has been their game, however this attitude will not cut it in today’s competitive market.
When you have Newsagents suggesting to our wholesalers, they need new products/designs and all you get back is every reason why not to do it , well then you have a problem a big problem , I have encountered this attitude many times over the years.
I can only speak for GNS when I say we have spent considerable time, effort and money to develop new products, brands, ranges. I would like to know recent examples of where GNS has not developed new products or introduced new lines for Newsagents.
There are many current and recent examples including Star Wars® products, improved Art and Craft ranges, Tombow® products, Giftware, Fashion Diaries, Sluben™, Marvel® products, better Xmas Toy lines, improved packaging, Adult Colouring Solutions, Tech Accessories, Impulse Medicines, Lonely Planet™ Travel Accessories and many more items.
We would be happy to hear from Newsagents about suggested ranges and if it makes sense, we will do it. If you believe otherwise, please let me know.
While the major retailers chase sales of the top selling lines in toy, gift and other categories, newsagents and other small independent retailers can do well by playing a niche game, serving what you could call the long tail in the categories. Sure majors serve the long tail but the size of their stores and usual lacking customer service makes serving shoppers interested in long tail products challenging.
