BTS to highlight fashion-oriented niche products - back-to-school supplies

Discount Store News, Feb 12, 1990

BTS to Highlight Fashion-Oriented Niche Products

NEW YORK -- Home office products, bright colors (particularly neon), and licensed characters are expected to be among the most sought after back-to-school/stationery items at the Back-To-School Merchandise Show to be held here this month.

Back-to-school basics also are predicted by buyers to be a strong merchandise category this year, particularly among smaller discount store chains and retail operators with rural store locations.

Held at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, the annual Back-To-School Merchandise Show is expected to offer stationery buyers more color and design alternatives in basic back-to-school fare plus more fashion-oriented products that coordinate with youngsters' apparel tastes.

The increased fashion orientation of the show has been growing in the past few years as students' appetite for color and design covers all products they consume, including back-to-school merchandise. This year will not be an exception.

What is becoming different these days is the fragmentation of the back-to-school/stationery business because of the increased use of color and design.

"We can't just think of students as a mass market," suggested Mark Rexroat, product development manager for Mead. "It's a more fragmented market with niches. No one look will have a total appeal to the market.

Mead, like many vendors, continues to develop products that are aimed at specific age and gender groups.

For example, at BTS, Mead introduced Safari Party, a line of paper-based, interactive activities and projects for pre-schoolers and kindergarten children; Looney Tunes licensed characters on a small assortment of basic school supplies for older children and teens; and Super Shades, targeted to females.

Another highlight of the show will be the increase in home office products, now booming for both specialty retailers and full-line discounters.

Many retailers, now beyond the introductory stages of home/office, are looking to broaden their offerings with more fashion-forward goods, multipacks in basic office stationery or commodity items, and new product lines.

More than 1,000 vendor booths were reserved for the 1990 BTS Merchandise Show and over 11,000 buyers were expected to roam the aisles in search of new products and vendors and innovative merchandise programs.

Neither buyers nor vendors expected to see any revolutionary new products or merchandising systems at the show this year but rather the continued evolution of products and systems.

Although revolutionary new products or categories are not anticipated at the three-day show, some big product introductions are highly anticipated. Chief among them is the reintroduction of Holly Hobbie, by American Greetings.

Holly Hobbie, the familiar blue girl with a bonnet, is being reproduced throughout American Greetings' greeting card and stationery lines and will be licensed to a wide assortment of manufacturers for social stationery, back-to-school items, toys, housewares accessories and other items.

Other product introductions include: a new pre-cut tape system for packages by 3M; Manco's removable self-stick notes; a special Student Survival Guide written exclusively for Esselte Pendaflex by The College Board; 3M's Post-It Notes, which are now celebrating their 10th birthday; and Gibson Greetings new kiosk display fixture and Concept 90 greeting card fixture.

Gibson's new kiosk display fixture will help retailers tie in merchandise for special or everyday sales. For example, for a holiday such as Mother's Day retailers can use all four sides of the kiosk to show such products as greeting cards, gift wrap, perfume and flowers.

Gibson's Concept 90 holds more greeting cards in the same amount of floor space and is similar to the display Ambassador introduced two years ago. Concept 90, said Greg Ionna, vice president, marketing, is a flexible display that can be customized to a retailer's individual needs.

Ted Wyman, divisional merchandise manager for Hills, suggested manufacturers create a similar display (see DSN, Jan. 29) for licensed goods as a way of tying in merchandise under a common theme to help sell-through.

Linda Harrison, stationery buyer, Stuarts, is particularly interested in Gibson's new Concept 90 display, which will soon be installed in her stationery department.

Stuarts' stationery department is currently being remerchandised and replanogrammed. The BTS show offers Harrison the opportunity to confirm buying decisions she already made, seek out new vendors and new products and help her determine which products to week out and which to add.

At the show, Harrison said she planned to look for just one to two new product categories. Primarily, she said she will stay close to basic assortments this year and keep "trendy" merchandise to a minimum.

Doug Ferguson, stationery buyer, Towers, the Canadian discount store chain headquartered in Ontario, will use the show to search for new fashion-forward merchandise, particularly products with greater use of color and contemporary designs, products that follow apparel trends.