The Stationers Guild

I continue to be amazed that “Cheap Wedding Invitation” websites continue to emerge on almost a daily basis.  Just today, I learned that Love Bug Invitations had just launched a website selling “cheap” wedding invitations.  While I have no quarrel and indeed encourage bridal couples to seek the most affordable wedding invitation for their budget, the idea of searching for a “cheap wedding invitations” strikes me as a bit daft.  Furthermore, I think most people agree with me.

According to Google, roughly 40,000 searches were performed in September using the search term “cheap wedding invitations,” while 1,200,000 searches were performed for “wedding invitations.”  This suggests that less than 4% of web searches had already decided on their market niche: “cheap”.    Not “affordable,”  “budget-conscious,” “inexpensive,” or “reasonably priced,” but “cheap!”   Beware bridal couples, you will get exactly what you are paying for.

The first tell-tale sign that you are being played is the About Us section.   The Love Bug About Us Section is most revealing:  

“Love Bug Wedding Invitations began as a result of the fun and excitement of planning weddings.  After many years of looking through bridal books and shopping the aisles of  stationery stores, we knew we had found our niche.  We love what we do and find immense joy in helping brides to find the perfect stationery for a day they will never forget. We only work with the leading manufacturers in the industry to assure our customers are getting the very best in wedding stationery.”

The first clue is that anyone could have written this.  You have no idea who you are dealing with and what level of experience they have in dealing with bridal couples.  The second clue is their claim to “only work with the leading manufacturers in the industry.”  The manufacturers listed on their website are Carlson Craft, Nuart, McPhersons:   Taylor Companies that use the same recycled designs under different labels.    The third clue is to see a percentage discount linked to a particular brand name.  Except for seasonal promotions, this generally signifies that the manufacturer does not stand behind integrity and intrinsic value of their brand.    In the case of Love Bug Wedding Invitations and the Taylor Company distribution channels, disounting is a way of life.   I find it amusing that Love Bug’s Tag Line is “LoveBugWeddingInvitations … where ‘discount’ is our claim to fame!”  How appropriate.

If you are looking for invitations and working on a tight budget, I strongly recommend that you contact a Guild Member store in your neighborhood to see the paper and design options that fit your budget.

Richard W. May
Therese Saint Clair

We just received an email from a friend of one of our European clients asking us how she can order stationery.  Found below is a slightly editorialized (names removed) and abridged version of her email request:

“I have just been admiring the (pale blue) card and envelope sent me by Jane Doe of Oslo, Norway, and would like to know how I can order some similar cards and envelopes as well as sheets of letter paper.  Until recently, I have used the stationery I bought through Merrimade, but after they went  ’modern’  they only answer standardized, in robot-like-fashion to my questions, and there is no r e a l  person I can write to or  e-mail with. So I have given them up. But I urgently need new stationery!”

I suspect that this is not unusual in our increasingly digital world:  personal service has been replaced robots.  As stationers, we are finding that there is a clear negative correlation in the “quality of service” and “quality of stationery” as our suppliers increase the level of automation in their front and back office.   As the email above suggests, the buyer is also finding it increasing difficult to interact with moronic robots that have replaced common sense with efficiency. 

As the  evidence of a disconnect between discerning clients and the skilled artisans that produce fine stationery continues to accumulate, I suspect that fine paper manufacturers must eventually decide whether they want to be all-things-to-all-people or concentrate on providing distinctive papers, quality designs and great customer service to a more restricted client base that appreciates personalized stationery and custom invitations.  It is not an easy decision. 

Richard W. May
Therese Saint Clair

The New York Times reports that a price war is developing in the merchandising of books that threatens to destroy the industry.  New York Times writer, Motoko Rich, says that a price war between Wal-Mart and Amazon accelerated on Friday with many bestsellers offered online at $8.99. 

Writes Motoko Rich, “Publishers, booksellers, agents and authors, meanwhile, fretted that the battle was taking prices for certain hardcover titles so low that it could fundamentally damage the industry and ability of future authors to write or publish new works.”   If you like Chainsaw Al, you’ve got to love Wal-Mart.  Once Wal-Mart  gets a stranglehold on an industry the resulting landscape will be as barren as Georgia after Sherman’s march to to the sea during the Civil War. 

A similar, but not so dramatic, battle is taking place in the stationery industry.  Yep!  Wal-Mart has got its paw into this industry too, selling greeting cards for $0.46.  American Greetings and many other greeting card companies are suffering by these predatory practices of Wal-Mart.  As Wal-Mart pushes for the last cent from its suppliers to provide the “cheapest” product on the market, hundreds if not thousands of artisans, craftspeople, workers and families are displaced and marginalized by their practices.  

While the current bestseller from Amazon, Wal-Mart and the town bookstore are identical, one might ask “why should I pay more?”   I guess it is for the same reason why discerning consumers pay more for “green” energy:  they are concerned by the implications of their purchasing decisions.    I think it would be a stretch of credulity to assume that Wal-Mart really cares about the future generations of authors, craftspeople and artisans that no longer can support themselves in an industry dessimated by Wal-Mart.   I guess these would-be artisans will be obliged to lay down their paint brushes, sell their Heidelberg presses and donate their book-binding tools to museums and become sales clerks at Wal-Mart.

As a stationer, I see many inferior designs and poor paper quality touted   as “fine stationery” by online marketing companies and their  paid internet marketing mercenaries who shamelessly promote their brand  in social media channels.   Stationers and Fine Paper companies simply must do a far better job in “educating” the consumer that there is more to fine stationery than a disingenous advertising ploy.

I just received an announcement from Hank Beresin, Vice President of Sales for William Arthur, advising me that William Arthur had launched a new website affiliate program for their dealers.    The program is open to all registered William Arthur dealers.  The affiliate program provides dealers a 20% commission on each retail sale that links from a dealer’s website to William Arthur.  The website affiliate program is managed by  LinkShare, “a well recognized and respected third party agent who will track and manage all outgoing activity and payments.”

In a very simplied form, the William Arthur website affiliate program works like this:

1. You signup for the program by linking to the website provided in Hank’s letter (I am not providing hyperlink for reasons of confidentiality).
2. You complete the application at LinkShare (about five to ten minutes of your time).
3. You then provide the William Arthur Sales Department  your “Site ID number” which is generated by LinkShare.
4. Using  your unique LinkShare’s ID number, you will be prompted to auto-create some html code that must be copied and pasted into your website.  Some have images and some are text links.  You can and should use both. 
5. Insert the LinkShare code into your website and each time a visitor clicks on that link, it will take the visitor to the William Arthur website.
6. Your unique code tells William Arthur and LinkShare that you are the referring website and should the client buy online from William Arthur, you will receive a 20% commission.

Let me provide a hypothetical example.  Let us assume that you write a Blog article about William Arthur or include a link to William Arthur on your website.  Instead of using the standard hyperlink to the William Arthur website:  http://www.williamarthur.com , you will now use the  special SiteID html code generated by LinkShare.  It might read (entirely fictional):  http://www.williamarthur.com/linkshare/?!xdbTr33.  Somewhere in the html code provided by LinkShare is a unique code that identifies your website/Blog as the referring website to William Arthur.  If the client closes the sale online with William Arthur, you receive a 20% commission on the sale.

While one can debate the conceptual merits of this program and online selling in general, I for one applaud this bold initiative by William Arthur.    It sends a clear message to its dealers:  Let’s work together to promote the William Arthur brand in whatever media or distribution channel the buyer prefers to use.  Furthermore, it is a strong inducement to storefront dealers to adopt “21st century” marketing and advertising strategies.    The quicker we start using these affiliate marketing strategies, the stronger we will become as independent dealers.  This is just the first of many changes I see sweeping through the industry.   As independent dealers, we have the best product(s) in the industry and far more experience and knowledge than online newbies.  Get started now!  This is one industry where a little knowledge goes a long way.  As Heraclitus said “A man with one eye is King in a land of the blind!”  Go for it!

Richard W. May
Therese Saint Clair

P.S.  Heraclitus also threw himself into a volcano to prove that he was a god.  Just settle for being a king.

Yesterday, I received the following question from Lori London of Write Impressions in Royal Oak, Michigan:  “I’m a guild member.  I have a question that I wish I could pose to other guild members and/or maybe you can help me.  I took down my web site a few weeks ago as we are ready to launch our much improved web site by November 1st. Did other members provide links to stationery vendors … such as Crane, William Arthur, Checkerboard … even though some of these vendors sell directly to the consumer?  I am curious how other stores dealt with this.”

Please find below my slightly edited response to this most interesting question:

Very good question.  I will answer your question (at least try to) as posed, but then if you will stay with me a bit longer I hope to give you a “better” but slightly more technical explanation that might influence your decision. 
 
First, based on my research just under two-thirds of the 285 guild members currently listed in the StationersGuild have their own website.  Of those that do have a website less than 20% have outgoing links to vendor websites.  Those that do link to a vendor’s website do so primarily with companies where  they receive referral commissions (Sweet Pea or Printswell, Birchraft and Checkerboard).  Based on a cursory observation of member websites, I would say that very few Guild members (certainly less than 10 and probably less than 5) link to a vendor website that sells online unless they participate in a referral program.    
 
Now, as Paul Harvey would say “Page 2″:   While incoming links to one’s website are important in determining “search” relevancy, it is the quality and relevancy of  links rather than the number of links that determine whether one site will get a higher ranking than another.  Without trying to bore you, an incoming link from the Chamber of Commerce or a Trade Organization (StationersGuild for instance) is perceived by Google to be more valuable than a link from a paid listing such as www.1Wedding.com.  Authoritative links  from sites with a .gov (government) or .edu (educational sites) ending or websites with consistently high Google Page Rank are generally perceived to be “higher quality links” that will enhance the value of your website (or at least a specific page on your website).
 
The ThereseSaintClair website provides links to most of our vendors.  The reason is quite simple:  People who visit our website are interested in what brands we carry.  We provide them a lot of choice, give them convenient access (i.e. links) to many Fine Paper companies and then give them very strong reasons to shop locally.  In fact, the Therese Saint Clair and Stationers Guild websites have been designed to provide  buyers with  information in one location that would be difficult for them to find elsewhere.  It would be presumptous and silly of me to assume that that an online visitor found “Crane wedding invitations” through a visit to my website.    In other words, we help buyers research online without any aggressive sales pressure in the expectation that a discerning buyer has the common sense to shop locally.
 
Now, most people seem to think that one runs the risk of losing prospective clients by providing links to online suppliers.  You may lose a few, but I believe the risk is minimal.  In fact, Fine Paper companies would be far better served by providing hyperlinks to their dealer’s websites on their “Find a Dealer” page.  It would help their dealers build credible links and it would also help the Paper company promote their brand to customers looking for a local solution with an experienced stationer.  As long as the industry (storefront dealers and the fine paper companies whose lines they represent) fail to act on this simple premise,  companies like www.weddingpaperdivas.com will continue to disintermediate and eventually destroy the industry by substituting fine paper for fine technology.

Storefront stationers and the many fine companies we represent simply must do a better job of giving people the necessary information on whether they wish to shop locally or online.  Burying our heads in the sand and pretending that the consumer is in one camp or the other (online or store) is painfully naive and will eventually lead to an industry where toxic recycled waste paper from China with designs developed from pirated copies of PhotoShop will innundate the market under the pretext that these “beautiful” papers/invitations are “green” and “eco-friendly.”  This is not science fiction, it is happening today!  Furthermore, wedding portals, self-appointed etiquette specialists and “born-again” environmentalists are all tooting the same horn in merchanidizing inferior products on the internet in the hope of prying loose the “green” from your wallet. 

Richard W. May
Therese Saint Clair

Just received a Blog posting from Paper Emporium in Coral Gables, Florida informing me that they will be hosting calligraphy classes during November.   Calligraphy remains an art form and for those anxious to delve more closely into the secrets of fine calligraphy, attending one (or more) of Paper Emporium’s calligraphy classes might prove useful.  If you are thinking of addressing your wedding invitations, brushing-up on your penmanship skills with modern-day calligraphy techniques may prove useful and save you a few dollars at the same time.

Paper Emporium has been a fixture in Coral Gables community since 1984.  Friends and now owners, Bonnie Pato and Lisa DeNunzio,  purchased Paper Emporium in 2006 and have both added their personal touches to this lovely store.  Call Lisa or Bonnie at Paper Emporium (305-445-7090) to register for your calligraphy class.  Don’t miss this great opportunity to learn more about  the fine art of calligraphy.

As a stationer, I am often asked whether digital Christmas photo cards are “better” than 4″x 6″ photos mounted on a personalized holiday card.  There really is no simple answer to this question, but I will share a few insights that might be useful to consider when making your choice.

While the reproduction quality of digital photos has improved significantly, photographs developed commercially still have an edge.  This should not be surprising since commercially developed photographs are produced under ideal printing conditions using papers specifically designed to create uniform quality prints.    While I have seen exceptional digital prints using high resolution ink-jet printers on archival papers, this printing technique is best left to professionals.

Digitally-reproduced holiday photo cards are generally less expensive than photographs mounted on Christmas greeting cards.   The price of digital photo cards is generally a function of the paper stock and quality of the design templates.   While some photo cards resemble commercial mailers, some leading design companies have beautiful frames to enhance the setting of your photograph.

There is a common misconception that “it is easier” to select a digital holiday card than a conventional photo-mount Christmas photo card.  This is certainly not the case.  When you print digitally you have an unlimited range of color options.   I have personally witnessed the frustration than sets-in when a buyer is faced with so many design and color options to print their digital photographs.    Pre-designed frames from leading paper companies are generally of much higher quality than the limited template selection provided by most online printers.

William Arthur, one of the leading holiday photo card designers, provides the consumer with the option of using photo-mounts or having the photo imprinted digitally on the same high quality paper stock.  The price of William Arthur’s holiday photo card is the same regardless of which printing  process is chosen.  While the quality of photo prints is better than digitally reproduced images, printing your William Arthur photo card digitally can save you time and $0.19 per photograph print.

To see all of the printing options available, we suggest that you contact a Guild member store in your neighborhood to see which printing process works best for your family photograph this holiday season.

Richard W. May
Therese Saint Clair

I have long held the view that Google Local  and Yahoo Local and Microsoft Local (now Bing) are far better advertising and promotion solutions for many small businesses than the Yellow Pages – online and in print.  This view was strongly reinforced this week when I received my Google local search results for August and an unsolicited advertising request (fax) to list my business on www.YellowPage-Connecticut.com.

First the good news.  During the month of August, the Therese Saint Clair listing on Google Local was seen 2,172 times with 95 clicks for the website, 22 for more information and 4 clicks for driving instructions.   A click-through rate of close to 5% is far better than the 1% to 3% we get for our Google adwords campaigns.   Make no mistake, this is highly focused search traffic from buyers seeking to make purchases from stores in their neighborhood.   More importantly, your local business listing is free!  Granted, it may take 30 minutes to an hour or more to get your listing configured the way you wish for it to be displayed, but it is hard to argue with the cost/benefit results.

Contrast this with the offer I received last week to advertise on YellowPage-Connecticut.  With a two year contract, I can list my business in the Connecticut Yellow Pages (excuse me, Yellow Page singular) for only $89  a month.  This website is virtually devoid of content but has the familiar Yellow Pages logo.  Is it really the Yellow Pages?   If you read the fine print, it is actually a UK company hoping to do what many other Yellow Pages clones are trying to do:  Namely, part small unsuspecting businesses from their hard-earned cash!   While the Yellow Pages could have become a dominant force in local search, their name has been seriously compromised and their archaic marketing model is little changed from the days of peddling ads for their annual Yellow Pages publication.

The three major search engines have very attractive advertising solutions for local businesses.  Unfortunately, the Yellow Pages needs to do much to clean up its image before it can become a credible resource for local search.

Richard W. May
Therese Saint Clair

After much cajoling and perhaps some bribing, you have finally managed to snap a great digital photograph of the family – even the dog was smiling.  You think to yourself, this would look great on our Christmas photo card.  You do a little cropping and editing to get the photo exactly the way you want it, save it to your flash drive or CD and rush down to the photo store to print your 4″x 6″ photographs.  Painfully, you discover that the top of your husband’s head was cut off when you get your print.  What happened?

Last year, I published a Blog on some of the differences between photographs taken with a 35mm camera and a digital camera.  Except for hardened veterans that still cling to their 35mm cameras, most everyone has gone digital.  Digital cameras are simple to use and one can easily share pictures with family and friends with very little technical skill. 

Unfortunately, there is a small problem (quite easily addressed) when printing a 4″x 6″ from a digital image.  The aspect ratio of a 35mm camera is 3:2 while the aspect ratio of digital camera is 4:3.   When the photo printing equipment takes your digital image, it does a little cropping and re-sizing of its own to create the 4″x 6″ print.  This leads to some rather unpleasant surprises as the photos below demonstrate (courtesy of Ritz Photo, Greenwich, CT):

Actual Digital Photo with 4:3 aspect ratio

Cropped Photo for 4"x 6" print

Unless you are a very skilled photo editor, the best way to avoid this problem is to avoid cropping too closely to the top of the photograph.  Give the photo printing automated  ”editor” a little space to “accomodate” the necessary cropping.   In fact, it is often preferable to do a large portion of your editing at the store.  Just a little simple planning will help you avoid this common problem during the holiday season.  Always, print one photograph to make sure that you achieve the desired result before committing to print your 300 photos.

Richard W. May
Founding Member Stationers Guild

Over the last week or so, local search pundits have been debating the impact of Google’s launch of Google Place Pages.  Andrew Shotland who publishes the Local SEO Guide Blog recently wrote an article on the impact of Google Place Pages on the local search market.    As described on the Google Blog, a Place Page is  “a webpage for every place in the world, organizing all the relevant information about it. By every place, we really mean ‘every’ place — there are Place Pages for businesses, points of interest, transit stations, neighborhoods, landmarks and cities all over the world.”  Indeed, this is pretty heady stuff.  One might ask: “Who needs Big Brother?” 

If you are a local business owner, you definitely need to take control of your business listing on Google.  Simply log on to the Google Local Business Center and add your business or update your existing one.   One can debate the merits of Google’s strategy, but I certainly am not going to tangle with the 800 pound gorilla of internet marketing. 

Personally, I think this is very good news for local businesses and very bad news for the many so-called local search engines and search portals that have sacrificed the integrity of their local search function to pursue advertising revenue.   As I commented on Mr. Shotland’s Blog, ” Local.com, the YellowPages.com (including the many YP varietals) and most search category portals (i.e. The Knot for weddings) have compromised local search by ’selling’ zip codes and towns/cities to online marketers under the premise that ‘they are serving local markets.’  It’s not the same! In fact, it is deceptive and comprises ‘real’ search results.”

While I doubt very seriously that these deceptive advertising strategies will soon disappear, I encourage anyone who owns a small business to take control of their business and the way it is represented on the Internet.  While I do not have any particular insights into Google’s long-term business strategy, I do know that Google’s Local Business Center is packed full of useful tools for local storefronts.  These tools are free!  While you are at it, also claim your business on Yahoo and Microsoft. 

Before spending a penny on advertising  in Local.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, The Knot, or the online Yellow Pages or any other portal make sure you take a look at competitor advertisers in your search space.  If online dealers occupy that space, save your advertising dollar for something more worthwhile.

Richard W. May
Founding Member Stationers Guild