79 RETAILER INTERVIEW management so we’re smarter with our spend and I’m working through some great advice from Catherine Erdely’s nook Tame your Tiger (great for shops and product businesses) which is helping with stock management. We have a wholesale service of custom printed pencils and that side of the business is doing the opposite and is growing fast, we are 110 per cent up on last year with the busiest period yet to come… We’re estimating we will print 70,000 pencils this year. We have a loyal customer base in store and online, we have regular annual visitors who pop in on their holidays. There’s absolutely more I could be doing in marketing and Alice Benham’s The Digital Marketing Handbook is super useful in validating what I do but also making some great tweaks to improve – just need to make it more consistent! Sara Dalrymple’s More Sales Please is also a great book for helping promote and sell online and through social media which I read earlier this year. Have you seen a boom in the craft industry recently/ a new type of customer? I feel that every couple of years there’s a new pen the younger customer is looking for, for their projects and crafts. Sharpies reigned for a long time but Legami’s erasable pens have become one of our best sellers, recently though paint pens or chalk pens are becoming very popular and we’re selling a lot of Posca’s and Schneider. We stock some beautiful papers too with a high gsm for wrapping but also very popular for crafts, scrapbooking and origami. And Washi tape is popular all year round for all manner of projects. Tell us a bit about what you stock? We have a wide range of stationery, notebooks of all shapes sizes and page type, planners, list pads, post its etc. We have a pen and pencil wall to find your perfect writing or sketching tool. We have lots of stationery accessories and gifts. We have a large print wall with posters and illustrations and lots of greeting cards. We work with mainly other small businesses, all of our cards, prints and wrap are made in the UK. What brands do you currently stock? Are you looking for any new products/ licenses or styles? Blackwing, Ohh Deer, Tom Bow, Koh I Noor, Kaweco, Makers Cabinet, School of Life, Roomytown, Ohto, Legami the list is long… I’m always on the lookout for new stationery accessories that cause intrigue. We’ve also just launched our own brand ruler and eraser and are looking to do more of this. What’s selling particularly well at present? At time of writing, we’re peak back-toschool here in Scotland. Our personalised pencil service is very popular, we can print children’s names onto pencils and we do a back-to-school special. Alongside Legami’s erasable pens! Do you visit any trade shows? We attended Top Drawer in September and are already booked for the January show. I do Spring Fair, London Stationery Show, sometimes PG Live for greeting cards and I do enjoy Home & Gift. As we’re so far north, I plan my shows in months in advance to make them affordable. Do you have any plans for the future of the store? Workshops etc? We’re working on creating more of our own range, we just launched a new eraser and ruler on Stationery Store Day, with much more in the pipeline. I run annual Goal Setting workshops online and in person to support our excellent Goal Diaries. Moving forward, I’d love to host some additional creative evenings, encouraging others to just take some time out to draw, sketch, knit and chat. What is the one product you couldn’t live without? Pencils. PENCIL ME IN 27 Batchen Street Elgin, IV30 1BH https://pencilmeinshop.co.uk
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