Let's See Where the Pen Market is at Today! (...with your help.)

[Shibumik]

Let me start by saying I am an growing pen maker. I do it for fun and relaxation. However, my more analytical side is curious about what the pen making market really looks like. I've read through posts here and there seems to be a lack any truly actionable examples because it's predominately a local market. I think we can do a bit better and perhaps help everyone a bit along the way. Luckily I am a R&D director and have a few quants that can help us out a bit.

We have a research division at our company that has been looking into the writing instrument buying habits of men vs. women in 2014 to test out some new software. It has been both interesting and revealing. What I can tell you is ~87% of women in our sample (female sample size: 667) prefer acrylic pens whereas ~71% of men (male sample size: 413) prefer wood. The reasons for this are many, but women appear to be more idealistic and creative and choose pens that reflect those attitudes (escapist), versus men who remain more traditionalists - more so than 10 years ago by almost a 20% margin! Our surveys suggest men are becoming more traditional and women are becoming less traditional – people and analytics are weird sciences indeed!

To gain a better understanding about what this means for pen makers and turn it into actionable knowledge, I would be interested in knowing what your ratio or male to female purchasers are (male/female format).

If you know, it would help also to know what percentage of buyers are purchasing for themselves or others as gifts.

I would finally be interested in where you feel your pricing sweet spot is as of today. For example, is your market weighted to low-cost pens (<$25), medium cost (>$26 but <$60), upper middle cost (>$61 but <$126), or high-level pens costing more than $126.

I realize demographics, product and cultural preferences come into play here, but with enough responses, I will post what it all means in a general sense in the scheme of today's market places and perhaps it can help everyone here with some direction in one way or another.

Thanks,
K. Williams

 

[wood-of-1kind]

Thanks for your valued input.

I sell more to women vs. men. Sorry but I do not have abreakdown as a percentage.

My 'sweet spot' is at $40 and I consider these as 'entry' level custom crafted pens.

 

[Tclem76]

I sell a lot of bolt actions down here in the country so I sell 90% to men. And the other 10% are women buying for their husband.

 

[jondavidj]

I have sold to more females and average sale for a pen is $100-$150.

 

[Shibumik]

Great start so far!

If you can even throw out a WAG about your percentage of male to female sales, that would be extremely helpful. We don't need great precision here, but an educated estimate or guess would be very helpful to those who count the beans.

If you also want to add any thoughts, please feel free to do so. Nuggets are often important clues to something bigger.

Thanks for your responses so far!

Kevin

 

[edman2]

About 85% of my sales are for gifts. Most of my customers (aprox. 75%) are women and they do buy acrylics primarily. Men indeed do tend to buy wood or deer antler and usually with a theme (sports, hunting, cartridges, etc). The heart of my market is in the medium range with a small amount in the upper middle range. Women primarily use credit cards and men tend to pay cash. My sales therefore are mostly by credit card since most of my customers are women. Interested in what you discover.

 

[jttheclockman]

Not sure how any of that can help. One size shoe does not fit all. One person's market does not reflect anything except that is what they sell and the quality of pens from one person is not the same so you are not comparing apples to apples. Types of pens vary. Types of markets each sell in. How much of a salesperson are they.

I understand you are looking for generalizations. If you have been a member here long enough the price range is suspect too because of what I had mentioned above. What one person sells a cigar pen for can vary by as much as $100. That is the same pen sold by different people with the same blank.
I do know women like color and that is why acrylics sell better with women. Women may not like this statement but there are more men woodworkers than women and probably that is why they gravitate more to wood pens. I see the evidence whenever I go to woodworking shows. Men outnumber women there tremendously.

As far as my sales go I will vote even. No one gender stands out above the other. One show could be more women at and the next show more men at. I do not sell any low dollar pens so my pen $$ is average and above and above that. I would say I am not a good candidate to your survey I guess.

 

[Shibumik]

HI John...

We will toss what we hear from other turners with normative data to compare against. It's not perfectly precise, but can yield other insights that may be helpful.

Kevin

 

[jttheclockman]

We will toss what we hear from other turners with normative data to compare against. It's not perfectly precise, but can yield other insights that may be helpful.

Kevin

I was going to go back and delete my post but I see you answered to it so I will leave it. I did not want to offend anyone and I hope you find what you are looking for. Have a great day. By the way I see you are a new member so welcome and hope to see some of your creations soon.

 

[Shibumik]

None taken...

None taken. It's just a way for us to test our new software and see what we can help a few others learn in the process.

 

[ed4copies]

One of the variables that will be most pertinent: What is the male female ratio at the venue? IF everyone attending a craft show is a woman, everyone buying a pen will be a woman. When we did the Chicago market, this statistic was very close to 100%.

However, if a pen maker is selling at hunting shows, I suspect the numbers will be nearly 100 percent reversed.

And yes, the selling skills of the vendor will determine the price point. You will never know that the best price point is $80, if everything you offer is priced at $40. Can't tell you how many times I have heard, "my market won't support a higher price". So, if you don't ask for more, should you be surprised that you don't get more?

Just some random thoughts----scientific studies should use scientific methods---the information you will find on IAP will have dozens of variables, distorting any "conclusions".

But, welcome and have fun!! Show us a pen or two---we can give you a better idea of price point, if we know what we would be selling!!!

Ed

 

[jttheclockman]

One of the variables that will be most pertinent: What is the male female ratio at the venue? IF everyone attending a craft show is a woman, everyone buying a pen will be a woman. When we did the Chicago market, this statistic was very close to 100%.

However, if a pen maker is selling at hunting shows, I suspect the numbers will be nearly 100 percent reversed.

And yes, the selling skills of the vendor will determine the price point. You will never know that the best price point is $80, if everything you offer is priced at $40. Can't tell you how many times I have heard, "my market won't support a higher price". So, if you don't ask for more, should you be surprised that you don't get more?

Just some random thoughts----scientific studies should use scientific methods---the information you will find on IAP will have dozens of variables, distorting any "conclusions".

But, welcome and have fun!! Show us a pen or two---we can give you a better idea of price point, if we know what we would be selling!!!

Ed

Thanks for the back up Ed. Those were my points too. Too many variables when it comes to surveys like that. Maybe I am reading something here that is not there. I hope I am wrong.

 

[TonyL]

90% Women - all but cigars; 10% Men - mostly bolt actions, followed by rollerballs

 

[Chasper]

I know better than to question the numbers provided by the quants, but I also know to always question the context of their research.

We don't sell locally, we sell in 15 states, primarily in the southern and eastern half of the US. We only sell at art shows so the traffic is 80-90% female. More than half of total volume is sold as gifts, many of which are gifts for men. Less than 5% of our sales are wood, but more than 10% are antler. Various types of polymers and composites make up the majority.

We cover your medium, upper-middle and high end price point brackets. The highest unit volume is in the medium range, the highest dollar volume is in the high end bracket. The volume mean is somewhere in the upper middle. The start of your high end bracket seems very low, I break out sales in a couple more higher levels.

I appreciate your effort to put quantitative analytics to work here and I look forward to seeing your if you can come up with actionable conclusions. I'm sorry that our stats don't fit well into the context of your query.

 

[Shibumik]

Findings...

I posted a base of our research findings here.

Enjoy.

 

[Shibumik]

Hi Chasper...

First, ALWAYS question quants! You are absolutely right. I have made a career of that very thing. (I like to see them cry.) I just want to see what they can derive and add to everyone's knowledge here - and how effective a new software they are using is in the context of writing instruments. It keeps them grounded and might help others like yourself.

The prices I indicated are what consumers consider low, medium and high - within a purchasing context for pen pricing. Many exceptional pieces are well above the highest indicated point. These are artificial metrics in any case.

This was a small project designed to provide people with actionable knowledge derived from a focus group rather than episodic experiences. It's just a fun thing for me that can hopefully help people in this community.

In the link above, I put up a general post citing some of our findings. My curiosity here is how well actual recent vendor experience correlates with what consumers are seeking and being satisfied by. Combine these along with the real-life experiences of people like you and hopefully some pretty interesting insight can be revealed.

All my best.