Encouraging back to school figures

Released 03/09/2010

Positive signs for back to school as sector shows growth on last year

We've now arrived at the time of year where parents across the UK make frantic last-minute preparations for their children to return to school. Behind the scenes manufacturers and retailers alike are eagerly awaiting news as to whether the writing instrument markets have made a recovery following the disappointing back-to-school in 2009.

The writing instruments market faced struggling sales figures over 2009, driven by the tightening of both consumer's purse strings and office stationery cupboard budgets. So far the story is an encouraging one, with reported value growth of 4.4% in August this year compared to the same month in 2009.

Many top stationery manufacturers have benefited from these positive figures and fast-improving exchange rates mean the strain on profit margins begin to ease. While this is encouraging news for manufacturers, the favourable exchange rates should equally serve as a stark warning.

As the relative price of imported goods from the Far East continues to drop, it is inevitable that we will once again see an increase in own-labels taking further shelf-space from the key brands. It was a surprise to see that for the first time in 18 months the B2B channel grew year-on-year in June, however despite the positive trends observed within the high-street retailers and supermarkets this is unlikely to signal a recovery in the B2B market.

"After the election results, our expectations as regards the economy were firmly managed by the new government," commented GfK analyst Josh Fedder. "Following a subsequent fall in consumer confidence we can expect stationery budgets to continue to be carefully handled as the long and challenging road to recovery continues."

Return to news

Discuss this in our forum