Back to School (BTS) sales data from GfK has revealed there was a slight decrease in the turnover of writing instruments (-1%) compared to last year. Results are based on weekly tracking figures from July - August on offers in French hypermarkets and supermarkets.
After strong weekly year- on- year trends in July, August demonstrated extremely poor results, with some weeks experiencing double digit declines of -10.8% and -19.2% in value terms. A remarkable amount of "last minute” purchases on the final day of BTS deals rescued the overall trend (+79.4%).
The ballpoint pens segment is once again the biggest category, with 18% in terms of sales value. There was only a 2% drop in value against last year and colouring products (felt pens and pencils), which account for 21% of the turnover, experienced a slight value increase.
Much like last year, fountain pens experienced a drop in demand (-11%) as they are now facing competition from other erasable products.
The roller gel segment posted very positive results (+14%); this underlines the strength of some thermo sensitive ink enabled products. Writing felt pens saw a boom in sales due to some manufacturer’s promoting products which are in between writing and colouring.
Additionally, French consumers still prefer to buy products from manufacturers – private labels amount to only 21% of the total sales in value.
Contrary to the belief that prices increased due to a rise in raw material costs, GfK research shows strong promotions during the final weeks of the BTS period saw the price per piece grow by a mere EUR 0.01.
In the last few years, the share of small packs (containing fewer pencils inside), especially those containing ballpoint and colour felt pens, has been experiencing a positive trend.
On the other hand, new products have begun performing well during the BTS period. They represent 10% of the total turnover, which is impressive when compared to highly successful products launched decades ago.
Green products also demonstrated strong growth and account for 6% of the overall turnover. This increase was boosted by efforts to promote the industry beyond price awareness.