Store Scene: Pinney Kelly Paper
By Larry Siegel

The owners of Pinney Kelly Paper successfully juggle a brick-and-mortar store, an e-commerce website and a direct-mail catalog – and they’re also stationery manufacturers.

The 2004 National Stationery Show was a “make it or break it” year for Katie Vincent and Sarah Nusken of donovandesigns. For five years, the two women had been manufacturing imprintable invitations out of a Columbus, OH, basement and selling them on evenings and weekends to family and friends. Now it was time to see if their stationery line – named after Donovan Hall at the University of Kentucky, where the two Ohio natives met – had national appeal so they could quit their day jobs. After opening 250 accounts at the show, Vincent and Nusken were able to give their two-week notices and devote all of their time to selling stationery. However, it didn’t take long before a dilemma came up: all of their loyal customers in Columbus still wanted to buy from them.

“Our original customers got us to the point where we were able to go the manufacturer route, and we wanted to keep them happy,” says Vincent. “Having them walk into our warehouse to buy product just wasn’t practical, since it was a huge space with no showroom.” The solution: opening an 800-sq.-ft. retail store in a two-block shopping district in the Upper Arlington suburb of Columbus. Using the maiden names of their grandmothers, Vincent and Nusken launched Pinney Kelly Paper – both the brick-and-mortar store and its e-commerce website (www.pkpaper.com) – in June 2006. Today, Vincent serves as president/CEO and Nusken is vice president of both Pinney Kelly Paper and donovandesigns.

Vincent is quick to point out that while donovandesigns might be considered a “house” brand – along with 2Skirts, a stationery line that they recently purchased – variety is the key to successfully retailing stationery. “There is no denying that our local customers have a strong desire to buy locally made product at Pinney Kelly,” she says, “but, our employees listen to what the customer wants, and then they pull albums that are appropriate. If someone is looking for a gymnastics invitation for their daughter’s birthday party, we’ll pull an album from Sugar Cookie Cards that has something suitable.” Among stationery/invitation lines offered at the store are Whitney English, Sugar Cookie Cards, The Paper Menu, Boatman Geller, Christie & Company, Verbatem, Truly Mom, In Good Company and Julia D. Azar Designs.

At the Pinney Kelly Paper website, Vincent and Nusken have taken a more conservative approach to stationery sales by only offering designs from donovandesigns and 2Skirts. “We haven’t added lines from other stationery vendors yet, because we decided not to put anything on the website for which we cannot guarantee delivery,” says Vincent, citing that there is nothing worse for building a brand than being out of stock and disappointing a customer. This applies to the store’s gift items, too – merchandise such as photo albums, bag tags, key chains and tissue-box covers – which also haven’t made it online yet. “We’ve been building solid relationships with all our vendors and are getting comfortable with their ability to support our vision. It’s just a matter of time before our website reflects more of the store’s full product mix,” she says.

The “guaranteed delivery” philosophy applies to another sales channel that Vincent and Nusken have been developing over the past two years: the Pinney Kelly Paper catalog. Originally targeted to reach people who couldn’t come to the store and who were adverse to shopping online, the catalog showcases the same product mix as the website and is able to use the same artwork and product shots. “We’ve chosen to do things realistically rather than risking our reputation by moving too quickly,” comments Vincent, explaining that they are eagerly climbing an “enormous learning curve.”

Some of the retailing lessons learned while managing the store, website and catalog have surprised Vincent. For instance, while the first catalog mailing deliberately excluded people living in Columbus, the second mailing the following year did include local residents – a group that ended up placing 60 percent of catalog orders. “We assumed local people would just come into the store, but we are happy to be proven wrong,” she says. “Perhaps people wanted to support an Ohio-based business, or maybe they knew about us from all the press coverage we’ve gotten for our promotional events, but the numbers don’t lie.”

Also interesting is that website sales jump once the catalogs are delivered. Says Vincent: “I envision people comfortably sitting on their sofa in the evening, leafing through our catalog and deciding there’s no time like the present to order. Local customers see that we close at 5 p.m., and people outside Ohio probably don’t want to deal with time-zone differences, so they go online to order.” (Why 30 percent of online sales are picked up at the store by customers still puzzles this retailer.)

According to Vincent, it is important for the world to know that a brick-andmortar Pinney Kelly Paper store exists and that the catalog and website are not just “façades for selling stuff.” She is optimistic that sales from these channels will transcend those from the actual store when they start doing search-engine advertising online for the website and buying expanded mailing lists for the catalog. “But, there will always be a Pinney Kelly Paper in Columbus,” states Vincent. “It’s at the core of our business, and, to paraphrase an old adage, we want our customers to ‘think global and buy local.’”