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As published in
Greetings Magazine
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Personalization Creates Destination
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Like many owners of stationery and gift stores, Ring Torrence of Torrence Stationery and Gift in Gastonia, North Carolina, faces the problem of how to make her store a destination. Which is why she is considering a new line of destination products from Personalized Expressions.
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Industry veteran Angie Becerra from Colors By Design, who developed the new product lines, observes that many gift and stationery stores are facing decreasing traffic. "Stationery stores used to rely on greeting cards to drive traffic," she says, "but now the majority of greeting cards are purchased at large chains such as grocery stores, drug stores, and Wal-Mart." She feels the same is true for gift stores, albeit in a different way. According to Becerra, "the problem for gift stores is that gifts can be found almost everywhere now. Just look at Crate and Barrel, the Pottery Barn, or Pier 1. Not to mention Wal-Mart or the on-line retailers like Red Envelope."
In her view, stores need to move aggressively into more service oriented markets in which the chains are ill equipped to compete. "What's great about service," she says, "is that consumers want it, are ready to pay for it, and will go out of their way to get it." And she has a quick answer for anyone doubting this: "Sometimes store owners tell me that they don't know if their customers will pay for service" she says shaking her head. "And I tell them - they're already happily paying for it! How many customers pay for dry cleaning, to get their hair done, or to have their nails done?" The answer is all of them are. "Consumers love service because it makes their lives easier, so it's actually easier to sell service than product" she concludes.
Helping make gift and stationery stores a destination is this year's top priority for Becerra, so much so that her top selling personalization software - Personalized Expressions Pro - will add Personalized Stationery and Personalized Gift to its existing line of on-demand invitations and announcements. "One of our major thrusts this year is Personalized Stationery," she indicates. And the decision apparently wasn't too hard given recent industry trends. According to Becerra, "With email and increasing informality in our correspondence, people are embracing personalization like never before. Personalized stationery is really hot - it's definitely an old trend being revisited." And the facts seem to bear out her observation. The top party planners in the country have put personalized stationery into the top three gift items for all hosts and hostesses, joining the perennial favorites wine and flowers.
The PE personalized stationery line will consist of monogram notecards, embellished initials, and traditional correspondence stationery. But Becerra is even more excited about the new Personalized Gift products. That line comprises two categories never before seen in the personalized gift and stationery industry - certificates and gift card-notecards.
Certificates are the most easily understood. "Everybody loves certificates," says Barbara Van Baush, sales manager for Personalized Expressions, "I have soccer and school certificates all over my refrigerator, and I have needle point hanging from my wall - but not everyone has the skill or time to do them." The very pervasiveness of the product is what makes the new product line so appealing for making the store a destination. According to Van Baush: "Moms and dads across America would love to have one store they can go to for certificates and personalization, so there are obvious advantages to being the one store that can do it all."
Gift note cards are a little more difficult to understand. Building on the hottest consumer trend in years - and one expected to continue growing very quickly - the gift-notecard is similar to the old "money card", which has been popular for years. Never before seen in the gift or stationery industries, it's a personalized fold-over notecard with tabs to hold those plastic gift cards from any store.
"Gift cards are a big trend. People love to give them because you don't have to worry about sizing for apparel; you can use them to give gifts or services like movies. They work great when you know what a person likes but don't know exactly what they want. According to Becerra: "As great as they are, gift cards have two main problems -- they're lacking in presentation value - usually a piece of plastic stuck on a backer card -- and they are totally impersonal." The PE Gift-Notecards are designed to address these problems. "With our basic software and this product," Becerra continues, "a store can give every customer the ability to make an impersonal gift card totally and completely personal, even down to the name, the event, and the date - there is simply no limit." Examples might be dressing up a gift card to Home Depot given as a graduation gift or a gift card to Starbucks as a "Thinking of You" gift.
All of this sounds good to Ms. Stafford, who seems to like what she is hearing. "You have to offer things which make people want to come to your store," she observes. "Once you get a customer to your store, it's likely that they'll find other things to buy as well. It's getting them in the first place - that's the challenge." And drawing them into the store is a challenge that PE and its new "destination" products are up to.
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