Good news! Both Poppin and HitList have their web shops open and ready for business!
Ctf is selling the HitList notebooks in packs of five, but there's a limit of three packs per order. I've heard that that's because he has a limited number available from the first shipment. I've had my HitList for a while now, and I can tell you that it's held up well.
I'm loving Poppin's website, and they've linked to my blog on the press page! I feel so official. I adore their tape dispensers, but why, oh why don't they come in orange? The signature ballpoints that I reviewed do only come with black ink, but they haven't skipped on anything except the stone paper. Poppin's prices are reasonable, and kudos to the copywriters for their clever item descriptions.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
A Tale of Two Shops
Brick and mortar shops have one distinct advantage over internet shopping, and that's the chance to provide personal, reliable customer service on a face-to-face basis. Some retailers understand that and some don't. This rule was reinforced on my recent road trip in northern Colorado. It's beautiful there this time of year, with the mountains and the clear sky. I stopped at two pen shops, one in Fort Collins and the other in Denver, and had two very different experiences.
First, I was in Fort Collins, which is a great town with lots of good restaurants and interesting mom-and-pop shops. There I dropped by Sign with Prestige. I had to drive around a bit to find it, but it was worth the trouble. The people there were very welcoming and helpful. I told them that I was from out of town, but they still took the time to ask my name and answer the questions that I had. It's a small shop, but it has a range of products, and I found the notebooks droolworthy, not just Clairefontaine and Rhodia, but Field Notes and Whitelines. I'd never actually seen Whitelines in stock in a store in the middle of the country, but they had an entire display of them. They also carry Crane stationery and have a wide range of fountain pen inks. The people at Sign with Prestige have also made their own ink sample book, which they were happy to have me leaf through. I ended up buying some inks and Whitelines, which I'll be reviewing soon. The next time that I'm in the area, I'll definitely make the trip to Fort Collins. The Sign with Prestige staff is helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. They also mentioned that they're going to be adding an online shop in the future, so I'll be watching for it.
The next day I drove down to Denver and visited Meininger Art Supply downtown, which is a much larger store than Sign with Prestige, and its focus is on art supplies, but it has a large fine pens section at the front of the shop just behind the checkout counter. What a difference one day and fifty miles make! I was there on a weekday afternoon, and there were about five cars in the parking lot, so the shop wasn't busy, but I couldn't get any employees to acknowledge that I was even there, let alone help me. I must admit that Meininger has a good selection of pens, but I found that their ink and notebook selections were not as interesting or as varied as they were at Sign with Prestige. Most of the notebook shelf space was taken up by Moleskine; it looked like they carried most of the line. But for a shop with a large selection of fountain pens, they had very few really fountain-pen-friendly notebooks that I could find. I also found that the shop lacked some organization. The Noodlers inks were all mixed up, and it took a bit of digging to see what they had, which amounted to about a dozen colors, mostly black or other dark colors. This was true of most of their inks. They carried lots of brands but usually only a small portion of the range of colors from each brand. The notebooks also seemed to be scattered across the north end of the shop. I wanted to look at the pens, but all but the cheap pens were in locked cases. I was at the pen counter for a good ten to fifteen minutes, and there were two employees standing about ten feet away, but although they both saw and heard me, neither one of them came to help me, so I ended up leaving without buying anything. It's too bad because I had heard good things about Meininger's stock, but I couldn't find what I wanted, and the employees were too engaged in talking to each other to help customers.
Well, on the next trip to Colorado I'm going to skip downtown Denver and go straight to Fort Collins. My thanks to the good people at Sign with Prestige. I highly recommend stopping by if you happen to be in northern Colorado.
First, I was in Fort Collins, which is a great town with lots of good restaurants and interesting mom-and-pop shops. There I dropped by Sign with Prestige. I had to drive around a bit to find it, but it was worth the trouble. The people there were very welcoming and helpful. I told them that I was from out of town, but they still took the time to ask my name and answer the questions that I had. It's a small shop, but it has a range of products, and I found the notebooks droolworthy, not just Clairefontaine and Rhodia, but Field Notes and Whitelines. I'd never actually seen Whitelines in stock in a store in the middle of the country, but they had an entire display of them. They also carry Crane stationery and have a wide range of fountain pen inks. The people at Sign with Prestige have also made their own ink sample book, which they were happy to have me leaf through. I ended up buying some inks and Whitelines, which I'll be reviewing soon. The next time that I'm in the area, I'll definitely make the trip to Fort Collins. The Sign with Prestige staff is helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. They also mentioned that they're going to be adding an online shop in the future, so I'll be watching for it.
The next day I drove down to Denver and visited Meininger Art Supply downtown, which is a much larger store than Sign with Prestige, and its focus is on art supplies, but it has a large fine pens section at the front of the shop just behind the checkout counter. What a difference one day and fifty miles make! I was there on a weekday afternoon, and there were about five cars in the parking lot, so the shop wasn't busy, but I couldn't get any employees to acknowledge that I was even there, let alone help me. I must admit that Meininger has a good selection of pens, but I found that their ink and notebook selections were not as interesting or as varied as they were at Sign with Prestige. Most of the notebook shelf space was taken up by Moleskine; it looked like they carried most of the line. But for a shop with a large selection of fountain pens, they had very few really fountain-pen-friendly notebooks that I could find. I also found that the shop lacked some organization. The Noodlers inks were all mixed up, and it took a bit of digging to see what they had, which amounted to about a dozen colors, mostly black or other dark colors. This was true of most of their inks. They carried lots of brands but usually only a small portion of the range of colors from each brand. The notebooks also seemed to be scattered across the north end of the shop. I wanted to look at the pens, but all but the cheap pens were in locked cases. I was at the pen counter for a good ten to fifteen minutes, and there were two employees standing about ten feet away, but although they both saw and heard me, neither one of them came to help me, so I ended up leaving without buying anything. It's too bad because I had heard good things about Meininger's stock, but I couldn't find what I wanted, and the employees were too engaged in talking to each other to help customers.
Well, on the next trip to Colorado I'm going to skip downtown Denver and go straight to Fort Collins. My thanks to the good people at Sign with Prestige. I highly recommend stopping by if you happen to be in northern Colorado.
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