Well, it’s done. William Arthur, arguably one of the three largest personalized paper lines, launched their online store last week, selling direct to consumers.
Unlike the Crane’s site, the current iteration focuses soley on selling their branded items. Don’t get too excited, though; there online buyers were trolling the aisles at NYIGF this winter in search of product to add to their online store.
The entire line appears to be available (having not gone item by item by item through several hundred pages to verify each and every one)…including Vera Wang, that required retailers to invest in a high buy-in to get the line, including a hefty selection of pricey boxed goods.
Yes, this is a major blow for storefronts. The company sells the sample albums to them as retailers, then turns around and sells against them as head-to-head competition. The consumer may think it’s a great deal, but the reality behind these transactions is murkier. When a vendor sells through a retailer, they only get paid wholesale. When they sell direct to the consumer, they get both cost and the retailer’s cut. Double dipping, in its truest form.
Full personalization is available in their online store, so there’s no safe haven for brick and mortars.
Should make for a few tense conversations at the upcoming National Stationery Show in May.
Click here to tell me what you think....
Well, it looks as if the trend has now spread far and wide. Is this just an indicator of the latest economic downward spiral or is it a recognition by the vendors that it is time for them to broaden their horizons to “cash in”? One downside for them is that a consumer must first know about them to find them and it is a big bet that anyone knows about them ( or really cares about them without having a retailer to personally extol their virtues!) Have they truly investigated how their business has been built and where their customer base is actually derived? In a retail storefront, they can be found when a customer is doing some friendly “browsing”. Now they will have to rely on heavy print advertising, pay-per-clicks, public show forums,campus bridal shows, and what else? Maybe they have already spent the time and money to do an in-depth study, maybe not.
I don’t know why a vendor would want to be in direct competition with their loyal retailers – or maybe I do. Something about killing off the middle-man comes into mind. It’s not pretty, and we don’t especially like it. But, and here is where the rough patch lies, we as retailers have to work around it and fast. As vendors change their rules we must also be preparing to change as well. We must take the lead and not only think of changing the rules, but we must invent an entirely new game. All puns intended here, but it is time to think outside the box and push the edge of the envelope.
I know there is a lot of soul-searching going on out here in retail-land and there will be some truly breath-taking decisions being made. And soon.
Support your indie vendors that don’t compete with you online. I love the middle man! : )
Seriously though, that a company with such a large and loyal dealer base would jeopardize those relationships is surprising to me. I won’t lie, the thought has crossed my mind– the way so much is moving to the web, you have to think about it. But it won’t pay for vendors to compete with their dealers, (not even on sites like Minted.com) and frankly, I don’t want to run a 2nd business (see Karen’s comment above about the separate marketing campaigns). I think the game is changing for sure, but with movements like the 3/50 Project, I am hopeful that it will all be for the best.
As a vendor, who sells only wholesale, I often wonder how to please/captivate an end user/consumer. I know our consumer base wants to be able to buy our product any time of day, without leaving her home. There is not a web site or retailer that sells all of our product lines online. So do we need sell online to capture that sale? Not sure. But would like feedback.
Haile, my advice is to stick to your wholesaling. I spoke recently with our sales manager at William Arthur regarding their decision to sell at the retail level. He tried to convince me that it would benefit us all! I wonder how so, I pay employees to guide brides throught the intricacies of ordering their once in a lifetime invitations, spending countless hours providing customer service so that they can then go online and order directly from the manufacturer. I don’t think so. William Arthur is suffering like the rest of us, and is using it as an excuse to make up for lost revenue. Good luck to them, without our books for brides to view, they won’t even look at William Arthur’s website, much too daunting. And yes, we have pulled their books from our repertoire, in fact, we have pulled all the books and will concentrate on our gift business- something that cannot be “ripped off” by our very own vendors.
As an aside, we generally don’t order products from wholesalers that also retail on the web, and drop lines that end up in big boxes. So, which side of the fence do you really want to be on?
BTW what is your website/business? Who knows, you might end up with new retailers interested in your line……
Since William Arthur believes they are helping us -perhaps we can help their inventory levels and not buy any of their everyday boxed goods as well as Christmas boxed cards(since they don’t change any designs-they probably don’t care) They are starting to think like their parent company(Hallmark) and trying to eliminate the independent retailers.
It will be quite a while before Iput their books on the “must” look at list in my store.
This move by William Arthur almost confirms to me that there are less brides going into retail stores browsing through albums to choose their wedding invitations. Retailers out there, is this the case? Is there a way to separate less foot traffic from economic downturn or because more brides are turning to online sources? As a small, high-quality stationery company, the best place to showcase our work is most definitely in retail. However, it is tempting to keep [the industry minimum] of our margin and sell direct to consumers via online. Retailers, might you consider anything less than a [minimum] margin? Would love to think of some innovative ways to solve this together…
Editor’s note: The actual percentage offered by the author had been replaced with the ”the industry minimum” and “minimum” since consumers view this blog.
The brides that care about their invitations are the ones that I want in my shop, because they care about taking the time to look at the quality and design and are not out there to get the cheapest price. My experience has been that online shopping is not acceptable for these types of brides. If the cheapest price is what a bride wants – go ahead, shop online, I do not begrudge them that option at all. Every bride has priorities and I understand that.
I do not believe, however, that the cheap shopper is what William Arthur (or Vera Wang) wants. If it is, then their branding is way off base. They should be encouraging quality, personal service, and care when it comes to social stationery and invitations. This is why their decision to go online is astounding. I assumed – due to the high cost of getting their albums and boxed stationery, their territory protection, their 3-page application – that they were interested in protecting their brand and their mission in this way, by focusing on their retailers and acting in partnership with them. They have proven to me by providing everything online that this is not the case, and that they’ll take direct sales regardless of the investment we retailers have made.
Any company that understands branding knows that you do not sacrifice your brand or your mission just because sales happen to be down in a given quarter or year. So this action gives retailers a lot more insight into how this company prioritizes than what they have indicated in the past.
And no – I will not accept less than a [traditional] markup. Our time and expertise (not to mention the investment we are making into albums and promotional efforts) is worth that. In fact, if the product is now being offered online, I expect MORE of a cost savings to offset what I am losing by the company taking my customers directly and cutting me out of the equation.
Editor’s note: The percentage offered by the author has been changed to “traditional” since consumers are able to view this blog. Typically, I use the word “minimum” to reflect the standard industry markup, but that word would insinuate something other than what the author intended in this particular sentence.
As with most of you, we have had the same conversation with our Account Manager from William Arthur, and though we do not condone or prefer that they offer their products online, there is also not much we can do. If they choose to canibalize their relationships with their vendors, then I simply feel sorry for them as they are the ones who will ultimately pay for it in the end.
However, don’t let it be said that I am happy about it either. It cuts into the profit we make from the boxed products — we charge more than a [the minimum] markup — and it cuts into our sales from brides entering the store as well. And I’m sorry, but to Kristen, are you serious?! Why should we accept less than a [minimum] markup? We have a prominent retail location and staff that we have to educate and pay in order to serve the customer that William Arthur is looking for and that we want as well. It doesn’t come cheap! And while William Arthur does have a [minimum] markup, there are other vendors that do not. We DON’T carry their lines because of it. We put in a lot of hard work to simply break even at the [minimum] rate as it is, and as many others do.
Editor’s note: The actual percentage number provided by the retailer has been replaced with the word “minimum” since this blog is also visible to consumers.
The thing our vendors don’t seem to understand is that we are selling their products to OUR customers.
Retailers are paying rent, telephone, utilities, signage, advertising, payroll, payroll taxes, workmen’s comp, etc., etc. in order to present what they believe are the best products for their customers, to their customers. My customers know my point of view and they trust me … If the vendors think they can sell direct, without having us to show the products “in person”, I believe they are in for a surprise.