The Long Tail of the Social Stationery Market

Personalized Triple Thick Stationery from Minnie & Emma

When I first encountered Chris Anderson's The Long Tail in 2006, I told my work associates that it was the most important business book that I had read in a decade. Anderson predicted that the nearly unlimited product choices available in online media services like iTunes and Rhapsody would not only transform the music industry, but also impact the future of all businesses.

Rhapsody was eclipsed by Pandora which is suffering at the hands of Spotify, but the basic premise was completely accurate. Today, no matter what you want, someone makes it, Google will find it for you and Amazon will get it to you in two days with free shipping.

It has taken longer for the Long Tail effect to impact the social stationery market. Just a few years ago, when people wanted to send out a card or write a quick note, they would pick up something from a Hallmark store, a discount store or an office supply store. You had to live with the limited number of designs those outlets carried.

HP Indigo Presses are used for on-demand printing at Black River Imaging

Today you can match your card and notepad to your personality and even your mood. Hundreds of specialty boutiques, online stationers, even Etsy shops supply unique and personalized stationery and gifts. These companies are able to provide such a wide variety of choice because of the on-demand printing capability of the digital press.

Before the digital press, the only way to reduce the unit cost of a printed item, was to increase the number units printed. To launch a new stationery brand required a gigantic investment in inventory along with storage space and a distribution network to move the items to the retailers. To keep these expenses manageable, companies limited the number of different designs to those that had the most general appeal. Most social stationery companies still operate that way.

The New Dime Store offers unique stationery by Ann Page

On-demand printing allows a stationery brand to launch without any investment in inventory. They can focus on design and sales without printing anything beyond a few samples.  When the orders begin to arrive, they print exactly what is needed and send it to the store or the final customer. Without worries about inventory build up, they can offer a greater number of standard designs and customize designs to fit the regional tastes or the preferences of a particular store.

Minnie & Emma Correspondence is a perfectly example of this new trend. Created by a group of New York City designers who love smart design and clever execution, they offer luxury stationery and gifts that allow "you to communicate in a simple and tasteful way." They encourage their customers to "push the envelope and work with our designers to create something unique."

Thank you card by Minnie & Emma Correspondence

What personalized items have you ordered lately?

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Manufacturing Matters

Rail service between Lowell and Boston began in 1835.

My wife and I have just returned from a road trip in the Eastern United States. The trip gave us a great opportunity to visit some of historical and industrial landmarks from the 19th century. My reading over the last few months has also focused on that time period.

These experiences have brought home how important manufacturing has been to our country.  In the Civil War, the Union had a greater population and greater manufacturing capacity than the Confederacy. While the link between manufacturing capacity and the ability to make more and better weapons is obvious, the population superiority is also linked to industrialization.

The mill towns like Lowell and Fall River, Massachusetts and the railroad centers of New York and Chicago provided employment and opportunity for a much greater group of people than the agrarian economy of the South. Once the Union was able to mobilize its resources and focus on the war effort, the outcome was inevitable.

Cotton looms in a water driven mill in Lowell, Massachusetts

In both of the World Wars, the United States was able to play a pivotal role in preserving democracy. Roosevelt's "Arsenal of Democracy" was possible because of the investments made in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century in rail infrastructure, steel mills and vehicle manufacturing.


In times of peace, manufacturing has been the engine that powered the growth of the middle class. Making things provides employment and opportunity for people with wide sets of skills.  Those people fuel the consumer spending that creates more opportunities to make things.

I feel that our country has outsourced too much manufacturing and I am pleased to see the trend reversing. Apple's announcements that the new models of their desktop computers will be built in Texas is both real and symbolic good news.

Trends away from mass production and toward personalized and personally configurable production also bode well for a manufacturing renaissance in the United States. The future of manufacturing will feature small work cells, equipped with 3D printers, close to the final consumers.

Terri at the first Crane Paper site.

What role do you feel manufacturing should have in the 21st Century United States?


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