Skyrocketing: Scrapbooking market blasts off

Scrapbooking has grown from virtually nothing in 1995 to an estimated $250 million in 1998.

You have the scissors, glue, paper, pens and markers. You may even have stencils and stickers. With the acquisition of a few more products vou could be well on your way to getting involved in a trend that is developing in many office supply stores and among con- tract stationers. According to experts in the field, this new niche, the sale of prod- ucts and accessories for photo albums, memory books and scrapbooks. is in its infancy and will continue to row and expand for many years.

Since the mid 90's, interest has been steadily growing in the art of scrapbooking. No longer are people sticking photos and souvenirs uniformly into albums or stuffing them into shoeboxes. There are products available to customize scrapbooks like never before with archival quality enhancements to ensure their longevity. 'Acid-free' and 'buffered' have become the words of the year with manufacturers altering products so that they can be marketed to other industries as well as the scrapbooking market.

Many attribute this growing interest to a company called Creative Memories. Since 1987, Creative Memories has been introducing people to scrapbooking. From instruction to product sales, Creative Memories has grown from seven sales consultants to more than 37,000 in 10 years through the United States and Canada. In addition to home parties, there are magazines and websites dedicated to this illustrious passion. Scrapbooking is not just a fad, it's becoming a national obsession.

Scrapbooking has grown from virtually nothing in 1995 to a $100 million market in 1996. "When all the figures are tallied, 1997 figures should exceed $250 million and continue to grow well into the future," stated Susan Brandt, Assistant Executive Director of the Hobby Industry Association (HIA), Elmwood, NJ. "With over 64 million families taking 4 billion snapshots a year, we are seeing the beginning of a crafting trend. The ideal aspect for office products dealers considering entering the scrapbooking market is that most office supply stores have many of the products for scrapbooking already on their shelves. It is just a matter of combining the products into a grouping for consumers."

According to Creating Keepsakes Magazine, a bi-monthly consumer magazine dedicated to scrapbooking, circulation has grown in the past 18 months to 200,000 subscribers. As well, based on their studies, the average sale for a scrapbooker is between $50 and $75 per visit.

Memory Makers Magazine, another bi-monthly end-user magazine for scrapbooking, has seen its circulation grow to over 160,000 in almost two years. Michele Gerbrandt, founder and publisher of Memory Makers has watched scrapbooking take off. "There are more products on the market for scrapbooking than ever before. Manufacturers are constantly creating new products and while those products will come and go, scrapbooking will be around for a long time."

Creating memories and profits

Manufacturers, too, have seen the power of scrapbooking. "Growth of the scrapbooking market has been phenomenal," stated Kevin Thays, Associate Communication Coordinator for Fiskars, a Wausau, WIbased manufacturer of craft and scrapbooking supplies. "While scrapbooking started more in the crafting side, it has gone beyond crafting and has begun to bleed into the office stores as well."

Fiskars began introducing products for scrapbooking in April 1997 and now has over 100 products for the scrap booking enthusiast. Fiskars' Photo Memories'> products range from adhesives, scissors, stencils, markers and cutting tools to decorative stickers, acid-free papers, and project and theme books with all the supplies and instructions needed to create fun and interesting scrapbook pages.

"Many small office prodcts dealers may not have the buying power to deal with several different vendors," Thays added. "Fiskars offers a full program with centers of scrapbooking products merchandised together."

Ellison Craft & Design, an Irvine, CA-based die, die cutting machine and die cuts manufacturer has watched its products grow from primarily educational use into the scrapbook market. "Our products let people create high quality, artistic and lasting scrapbooks," stated Sandy Genovese, Sr. Vice President and Creative Director for Ellison. "Our products take away the necessity for someone to be an artist."

If you did not want to purchase the die cutting machine and dies, which offers many other applications in an office supply store besides scrapbooking, "Memories in Minutes" from Ellison offers a video, instructional booklet and packaged cut-outs in 22 different themes for creative scrapbooking.

"Products that once were previously designed for a particular application, i.e. education, are now being used for more and more applications," said Genovese. "I think that scrapbooking is like quilting, it will be here forever."

A cut above

Sakura of America, a Hayward, CA-based pen manufacturer, has been making high quality, water solvent, pigment based, archival ink pens since the mid 1980's. Sakura's Pigma ink found in its pens is fade resistant and has been marketed to the scrapbooking industry as well as museum curators, book & paper conservators, and archaeological researchers. "Sakura's overall growth has increased by SOo over the past two years and we are the primary writing instruments recommended with photo albums and by scrapbooking experts," stated Donna Wilson, Manager of Advertising and Marketing for Sakura.

Pioneer Photo Albums, Inc., Chatsworth, CA, has been in the business of manufacturing albums for over 30 years. They have taken a different approach at providing customers and dealers with products for scrapbooking.

Although Pioneer offers a few novelty items such as acid-free pens, scissors and memory book and photo memory kits, they prefer to concentrate their efforts on the creation of the actual albums and products that will help the novelty items and photos being placed on the pages to last. Pioneer's memory books are manufactured with archival quality materials. Other key products include photo mounting paper, photo glue sticks and photo corners and mounts.

"The typical office supply dealer has a lot of products that could be used for memory books," stated Shell Plutsky, President of Pioneer. "The market for scrapbooks/memory albums is expanding as new novelty items continue to draw a customer's attention, our consumables are core items that will remain constant and in demand.

The art of sale

While you may be hearing about this new trend for the first time, there are dealers who are currently stocking scrapbooking/memory book supplies with great success. Shaheen Office Supply in Warner Robins, GA has been carrying scrapbooking/memory album supplies since July, 1997. After researching the available products, Ann Grantham, Director of Customer Service, recommended that they stock a small supply of products and see what would happen. "Since July, we have increased and expanded both our selection and our space for scrapbooking/memory album supplies," said Grantham. "Our average scrapbooking customer spends an about $40 to $50 per visit and we are doing very well."

Utah Office Products located in Orem, UT has been offering scrapbooking items for more than two years. "We started out with a small four foot section," stated Kathleen Nielsen, Manager of Utah Office Products. "Today we have an entire aisle dedicated to scrapbooking."

Utah Office Products started out with basic supplies and now carries die cuts, templates, stickers and designer papers. "Many people come into the store having been drawn in by our scrapbooking supplies," stated Nielsen. "Once inside the store, people see the range of other products we offer and tend to purchase more."

"We have tried to grow with this market and now offer our own theme packets with papers, stickers and die cuts for ready to make projects and will, in the future, be offering scrapbooking classes," said Nielsen. "Every store has to decide those things that are going to work for them. Scrapbooking was our niche."

Pasting it all together

Even though you may have everything you need for scrapbooking in your store, if your products are not in a dedicated space for scrapbooking, your chances for success are slim. "Dealers need to duplicate and enhance the scrapbooking products they currently have or move those products into a section clearly labeled memory/scrapbooking," said Pioneer's Plutsky. "You should have a minimum of four foot of space for core products and expand from there."

"It is important to combine scrapbooking products into a simple, dedicated space and grow slowly, expand as demand grows for products," stated Michele Gerbrandt with Memory Makers. "This makes it easier for the customer and will cause less frustration to the owner."

There are plenty of scrapbooking products to choose from core products like papers, albums and pens to die cuts and rubberstamping.

There is no end in sight as more people become aware of the products available and the ability to create personal yet professional looking scrapbooks that will last for years to come.

Copyright B U S Publishing Group, Inc. May 1998
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved