NAMTA Pittsburgh 2014 Convention Highlights from our ace Account Managers Kurtis Hughes and George Bethurem
- Art Alternatives Super Value Canvas Stack Out – A great opportunity to compete with the big-box stores! Art Alternatives’ new stack out merchandiser is coming soon and helps take advantage of this powerful new range.
- Art Alternatives Wood Panel Stack Out – Play up the presence of wood panels in your store with a product category not vulnerable to web offerings. By taking these off the shelf and up front, capture a new range of customers with the powerful statement only a stack out makes!
- Art Alternatives Classic Canvas Deep – Gives retailers a true great price option to the competitor’s Pro stretched canvas.
- Art Alternatives Heavy Canvas – Brings the heavy-weight option to a different level of customer with a low-priced offering positioned between Classic Studio and Gallery and other Premium lines in the market. Coming in the fall along with Art Alternatives’ awesome new logo and branding.
- Mabef LOD 2014 Pre-Book – MBM-05 brings a crank feature to Mega-Studio Easels in the under $1k street price & best new item MBMA-40 Revolving Paint Accessory.
- Arches “Block Merchandising” Rack System – Canson/Arches releases a new boutique for their premier line. The line was a great seller without a display and this statement piece should increase the footprint of the line in most situations. It’s a total visual Wow!
- Talens Paint Markers – Amsterdam, an opportunity to get marker placement for customers that are not carrying Montana or Molotow, or who want to carry a variety of options.
- Talens from Canson Van Gogh Paints – Large oil cans offer a bulk option for students, good value for 500ml.
- Strathmore Printmaking Papers – Teacher’s design, Strathmore distribution. Customers are loving the union between school & company, a great cross merchandising opportunity with Gamblin or Speedball in Printmaking sections.
- QoR Watercolors –
Made with an exclusive binder, Aquazol, that conservationists have used for many years, these watercolors are brighter than traditional watercolors and will merchandise wonderfully with Art Alternative’s expanded wood panels & BARC wood sheets. Could help change the demographic using watercolors as it is so vibrant, intense and concentrated.
- Derwent Graphik Pigmented Pen line – Product works really well, will compete with Molotow fine line paint markers. The sample was VERY opaque & customers were pleasantly surprised with the juicy wet in wet watercolor painting possibilities. The line won’t be available until the fall but this is a truly unique product so it will be worth the wait!
- Princeton Redline – Solid handles, excellent display, a real value even at the price point. Made in Europe.
- Princeton Short Handled Polytip Brushes – An intelligent extension of the popular Polytip Long Handle brush, with sizes up to 4″ wide. Cross merchandise with acrylic mediums & new Art Alternatives 2.25″ Deep Canvas on end-caps.
- Princeton Sensu Duo – A new addition to the Sensu tablet brushes. This new model has a retractable brush as well as a soft stylus on the other end of the tool.
- Winsor & Newton Available this fall, Professional Oil Colours (POC) 37ml, 200ml – Winsor foresees the future of oils being solvent-free. They also see the market leader internationally in fine art oils to be Old Holland, and are targeting that level of quality without the use of solvents. A fine option for stores that cater to high end clientele.
- Winsor & Newton Watercolor Markers/Sticks – A good price point with water soluble capability. Winsor’s powerful brand statement is reinforced by their “Block Merchandising” in-store statement that will bring customers of all backgrounds to shop and new racks to stores already supporting the breadth of the line, as well as a free rack of Cotman brushes to offset their support.
- Daniel Smith Watercolors – Unique pigments for the artist who has used the brand before or for those new to the line. Daniel Smith colors are already sought after in stores & our customers may be driving their end users to the Daniel Smith website by not bringing in the line. Retailers can easily compete with the Daniel Smith website at a 38% margin if sold for 40% off in store.
- Cottonwood Laminated Canvas Board Pad/Packs & New Packaging – Similar to the popular Fredrix cut panel business, the Cottonwood Laminated Canvas Board is a sheet of canvas, laminate & then board, which give the end user the protection from warpage. These Cottonwood products are a bargain price for the perception of a premium product. Designed in the US, made in the US. Cross merchandise the new cold-press book with Holbein gouache (the only gouache of world famous Alex Ross) and the canvas book & panels to cater towards Plein air painters on end-caps.
- Royal Zen Brushes – A low price point & multiple options will give the Simmons brushes a run for their money.
- Daler-Rowney – Compact displays like the Daler XL line, are easy to find space on the shelf for. Add-on sales in the paint aisle?
- Daylight Wafer Light Boxes – Very similar price point to the Artograph LED, slightly better discounts but significantly slimmer.
- Fluorescent is still HOT! Speedball, Holbein and Daler Rowney have new items to offer. Holbein’s “Neon” color splashed booth featured their new acrylic paint line which includes fluorescents. This new paint which offers a longer working time, claims to be the first artist acrylic that doesn’t remain tacky once dry. Speeball’s booth also “screamed” NEON as they featured both Fluorescent block print and screen print inks. Last but not least, Daler Rowney has added fluorescent colors to their FW ink line. Very flashy!
- Speedball Inks New Packaging & Fluorescents
- Akua merchandising from Speedball – Customers looking for a home for their Akua products have now found it. Akua Printmaking ink is wet until you set it and a great value for teachers worried about waste. A great value.
- Daler-Rowney Simply Simmons Extra Firm Brushes – A smart extension on the XL lines released last year. Should be a winner, like the economical version of the Princeton Polytip.
- Daler-Rowney FW Fluorescents & Stackable Rack – FW Inks, a great selling line upgraded with neon colors. The slim stackable rack fits in tightly packed stores.
- Rotring Relaunch – new racks for pencils – Sanford’s relaunch of the once popular rotring pencils, should be great to go heads up vs the Alvin mechanical’s depending on relaunch price.
- Itoya New Small Format Photo Albums in contemporary colors. For those of you who think that digital images rule, think again. These albums are aimed at the younger generation who (like Andy Warhol) are using Polaroid style instant cameras to shoot and print pictures of their “famous for 15 minutes” friends.
- Crafters Workshop – This line of popular stencils continues to grow. It’s NAMTA booth featured many new designs including “Texturized”, “CityGrid”, “Stripes Explosion” and “Burlap Bits” along with some new retro “Fragment” images like “FilmReel”, “Rotary Phone” and “Instant Camera”.
- Rhodia – A new wooden floor display rack that holds many different sizes of the cool black and orange pads.
- Craftwell “eBrush – A semi portable handheld airbrush system with adapters for use with almost any art marker. It operates off of electricity or a rechargeable battery!
- Composi-Mold – This flexible mold making material is re-usable by melting in a microwave oven. A couple of my customers spotted this at CHA in January. A modern replacement for liquid latex.
- R&F Handmade Paints – A value priced set of three half “pigment sticks” at only $14.99 list. A FREE wooden pop is available with the purchase of six or more sets.
- New Wave Wooden Palettes – They’re still in high demand and the supplier has found a way to offer them through MacPherson’s. They’re on the way!
If you want to see some of these exciting new products, make your way to MacPherson’s Dealer Workshop in June. If you still haven’t signed up, go to the link in this month’s blog roll. Time is running out!