Editing The Pen Addict 514/transcript (section)

== Retailer Dilemmas ==


'''Brad:''' It depends. So, we're going to, there's some nuance there. So, like what I want is honestly, like I understand that that's also not realistic. Like I'm not going to completely bag on any retailer for continuing to carry Noodlers for the time being. Because there's a lot more that goes into that, right? Into that decision then, hey, my customer, you know, may no longer support this brand, may no longer buy this brand. But like these retailers have inventory. Most of these retailers are smaller businesses. These smaller businesses have payrolls to meet and they can't just, you know, throw the ink in the trash. Like my two bottles of Noodlers doesn't impact me. It impacts real businesses with real bottom lines and real responsibilities to themselves and to their employees. So, I'm not going to really like get into each individual retailer's decision. But the way I see it as a business person myself, I also have a moral code, right? And it's easier for me because I'm a single employee to apply my morals to a very clean black and white decision, right? Like I don't like Noodle Guy. He is a bigot. Therefore, I will not support him. A retailer that's carried this brand for a decade has a different set of questions that they are having to ask themselves. How do I continue? Do I continue to support this person? Do I continue to allow these products to be sold? How does my choice to carry this brand affect my relationship with the upline distributor, right? And this could go for any brand, right? I'm not singling out like Noodlers or any particular retailer or any particular distributor, right? It's not a singular decision like me, Brad, can make that vendor X has to make against the choice of either stopping and carrying the products, continuing to carry the products until they sell them through, making any kind of statements on the products, things like that. My only question for retailers is, is it worth it in the end to continue to carry the brand? And the first one is, well, the first reply to that is, well, they must make them a lot of money if they continue to carry the brand. Aside the fact that I wouldn't be making decisions based on money, I'd prefer decisions to be made around morals. How much money can they really be making? If Noodlers is the number one ink seller for the biggest retailer in the world, what is that percentage of sales? Do you think?

'''Myke:''' I mean, how many inks do they carry, would you say? Right. How many brands?

'''Brad:''' If they're the biggest pen retailer in the world, they carry a lot of brands. And if Noodlers is the number one ink brand of all the brands that they carry, to the bottom line, how much is Noodlers? My argument, and I mentioned this to you, my argument that it is not more than 1%, right? It just defies logic that it's more than 1%, 2%.

'''Myke:''' Because I would assume from all the things that could contribute towards a large part of a brand's bottom line in the pen world, ink isn't it, right? Right. Because ink is much cheaper than other products, especially for higher-end distributors. Right. So, will I compromise? Well, I mean, but this is the thing. But what if it isn't, though? Right? Like, I know what you're saying here, but, like, I don't know what the wholesale price is like on ink. For all I know, it's the largest profit margin that a retailer has.

'''Brad:''' Even if it's a huge profit margin, just, you mentioned just a second ago, the scale of a low dollar amount, even if you're making 100% on a bottle, like, say you buy it for $8 and you sell it for $16 and you're making 100%. That 100% still, I would argue, accounts for a very fractional percentage of any business's total bottom line. Yeah. So, where does the moral decision come in?

'''Myke:''' If I could add some context to this, a little bit from my perspective. Mm-hmm. This is kind of the price of doing business today. Yes. Like, you know, we have had sponsors that have done things that aren't great, but we stand by them for whatever reason because we think it's, like, okay or whatever. Or we accept their explanation for it or whatever, as long as we feel like, you know, there's, this is all taken care of. Right. We've worked with companies that some of our listeners don't like their product, but some do, right? So, you get, you know, like, oh, I don't like this kind of thing. Why do you do that? Like, for example, one of the ones that, like, we work with Capital One on some of our shows, and it's about their kind of technology, kind of like a recruitment-y kind of message. But some people just don't like that credit cards exist in the world, right? Sure. Like, for that, for me, it's like that doesn't pass my test. But then we have companies that they do something bad or, like, they go in a direction which is really uncertain. And we've had to cancel big deals, right? Mm-hmm. Sure. Or turn down, like, large renewals. Like, because if we were to continue, it would sour the taste of listeners to us. Yeah. This is the cost of doing business in today's world, where, like, consumers have choice, but consumers are also very vocal. Mm-hmm. And you have to understand that. Like, people, like, principle is now, like, people's principles is now, like, a much stronger thing than ever before in the things that they choose to support. Mm-hmm. And so, you kind of have to understand that if you're in a business where you are selling anything to anyone. Right. You are beholden to your customer more now, I think, than you have been before. Right. So, if your customer says, like, I don't want you to stock this. You should not do that. You have to consider it. Like, you have to consider it. And, yeah, you might have a loss. Right. But that's just what it's like now. Like, and I don't... You know, it's complicated. When things are being thrown at me, I can, like, get upset and be like, oh, why are people going to be this way? But also, I understand, like, I understand why people are like that. It's good that people talk about the things that they don't want. Mm-hmm. Because then you know as well, right? Like, if people didn't tell us, they would just stop listening and I wouldn't know why. But this is a complicated thing to handle. Yeah.

'''Brad:''' As simple as I want the retail decision to be or the distributor's decision to be to say, hey, get rid of this fool. It's not that simple. And I do understand that. And that's where some of the angst for me personally comes in to where I can make a very clean black and white decision.

'''Myke:''' It's easy for you to sit there and say it, right? Because you've got nothing on the line.

'''Brad:''' Right. So, I just want people to understand that these retailers and distributors have bigger stakes that they think about than just, you know, let's just fire this brand off into the sun.

'''Myke:''' And it is more complicated than what I'm talking about too. Right. Because, you know, we can sell our sponsors if we work hard at it. But the stock issue is the problem. Right. Yeah. That, you know, you've paid for this stock maybe depending on what your deal is. Right. If you're just sitting on that, I don't know what you do with it.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, yeah. So, you know, sometimes like I'm wondering like is it just a write-off? Like how much are we talking about? Like it's in some cases it's a lot. So, it's a bigger decision than my individual decisions. Like my individual decision, you know, a long time ago was, you know, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you. Noodler's into like fool me a couple dozen times. And there is no redeeming value of this brand in my eyes. But that's a personal statement, a personal perspective that I have from seeing this for a long time. Seeing the people that Noodler guy actively hurts. Actively hurts my friends. And I will not stand for that. But my individual consumer decisions are a much different calculus than retail and distributor decisions. So, you know, I do preach patience with that a little bit. It's not an easy situation for a lot of these companies to be put in. But it's, you know, again, you know, it's a moral stance from me personally. This is my morals align a certain way. And that means like this company is pretty much does not exist to me. So, I hate seeing it continue to creep up and continue to affect other people. And the hate from Noodler guy affecting my friends negatively. It really impacts me on a personal level. So, yeah, that's kind of my thoughts on this. You know, we could spend an hour like breaking down like all the business decisions and all of this. But that's my personal stance. If you have thoughts on that, feel free to email me. Hello at penannic.com. But, yeah, I hate seeing a brand like this detract from what is generally one of the most amazing communities on the Internet. And they are not one of us, in my opinion. They are an outlier and a hate monger. And I'm just not going to stand for anything that Noodlers does. And that's it. All right, you got a segue for this?

'''Myke:''' No, let's just talk about the next thing.

'''Brad:''' Let's put on our shades, Myke. I just threw some shades. Let's put on our shades. How about some Kaweco sunglasses, Myke? I know when I saw this, I looked at my calendar and said, Hey, Brad, is it April 1st? Is it April 1st?

'''Myke:''' Who is Michael?

'''Brad:''' Michael Guprele. Oh, my God. The man who torches your fire blue fountain pens, Myke. Why is he not melting these things? You know what I'm saying?

'''Brad:''' Clearly, you have not gotten the images that I have of, oh, there it is, last image in the thing. That's Michael Guprele. No, I see it, but it's like, why just Michael?

'''Myke:''' It's not like Prince.

'''Brad:''' You know? What is he going to do? Michael G?

'''Myke:''' Yeah.

'''Brad:''' Kenny G.

'''Myke:''' Sure.

'''Brad:''' Oh, my gosh. So, Kaweco is selling sunglasses, 149 euro, made or in collaboration with Kaweco collector and CEO, Michael Guprele. See the world from Michael's point of view. With the limited sunglasses designed by the passionate Kaweco collector and CEO, Michael Guprele, you become part of the Kaweco family. The stylish and timeless design of the hour model ideally takes you through sunny days. I need some sunny days in my life after that previous segment. So, I'm just going to abstain from putting on some glasses so I can continue to bathe in the glorious sunlight that I need. And if I did need sunglasses, Myke, they're not going to be Kaweco branded on both sides of my head. I don't need Pen Company branded eyewear, especially premium eyewear. Swag eyewear, you're going to throw me in a bag that, you know, we can post on Instagram and joke about. Knock yourself out. 149 euro fancy eyewear with Kaweco on it. Hard pass. These are soon, these are getting ready to be your five-year anniversary gift at Kaweco for working because I don't know. I don't know what's happening here. They're about to be gift with purchase. This is, this is a lot of self-importance happening. I get it. It's supposed to be fun. Do your thing, you know what I mean? Like, if that's what you want to do, do your thing.

'''Myke:''' But it's all just very funny to me.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, so I got that in my, in my inbox yesterday, I think. And I was like, what did I really, I was like, April 1st? It's not April 1st. And this is a real product by Kaweco. We're going to talk about someone in a minute after our sponsor who does do some really special creative things that we're going to have some thoughts on. Multiple products. But first, I want to talk about a product that you and I have, a product that I love specifically. And that's the Le Volani from our good friends at Canalea Pen Co.

'''Myke:''' Canalea Pen Co. Makes stunningly beautiful pens that are inspired by images of Hawaii. Canalea's founders, wonderful people, Hugh and Carol, believe that these locations can help recharge our spirit and help us connect with nature. And they actually bring that spirit, that visual, to a beautiful product that you can hold in your hands. The execution is really what sets Canalea pens apart from what you might find elsewhere. Every single Canalea pen is handmade. In a process that means no two pens will ever look alike. And when you buy them, you know, they come to you perfectly tuned. Hugh smooths and tunes every single nib himself before it leaves Canalea's shop so that it's going to write beautifully straight out of their lovely black walnut keepsake box. Canalea fountain pens feature Yoha No. 6 nibs. You can buy steel or 18 karat gold nibs directly from Canalea. They offer sizes from extra fine to 1.1mm stub. Today I want to remind you about the, as Brad mentioned, the new Le Volani collection from Canalea. This design represents the sky at night in Kauai with its deep, beautiful dark blue with vibrant stars and a visible shimmer of the Milky Way. That's not just the image that they use. That's what the pen looks like. It really is incredible. The Le Volani collection consists of the fountain pen offered in five styles. They have a ballpoint and also the return of the Mailele band, which is a wonderful option made of Argentium silver, adorning Canalea's classic fountain pen profile. Canalea also now offer medallions and clips made from Argentium silver too, so you can add that little bit extra to this beautiful new pen. We got tons of great reports from Hugh and Carol about the energy of the Chicago pen show. They were just at last week or a couple weeks ago, and they were showing off the Le Volani to people that were there. They actually told us that many pen addict listeners were there checking out the new collection because they'd heard about it on the show. Nice. I also want to just thank pen addict listeners who let Hugh and Carol know that they heard about it from us. I think that's really great. Talking about pen shows, the next show that Canalea will attend is the St. Louis Pen Show from June 24th to 26th. This is the first time they are attending this show, and to celebrate, they have an awesome surprise for those that will be attending. We'll be telling you more about this episode on June 15th, so stay tuned. But this is one of these things that Canalea very rarely tell us things in advance. They have told us what this is, and I am so excited for the people that are going to be at that show and incredibly jealous for them. So you'll hear more about this in a few weeks' time.

'''Brad:''' Yeah, both of us. We get individual content packages from Canalea, and this was something I was like, did you get the thing that I got? And he's like, yeah, I got the thing that you got.

'''Myke:''' I'm really excited for what this will mean for their pen show there at St. Louis. As a reminder, every purchase from the new Le Volani collection, Canalea is also giving back to conservation funds and community programs in Kauai and the North Shore community. So go and see these wonderful products for yourself, including the new Le Volani collection at CanaleaPenco.com. That's K-A-N-I-L-E-A-P-E-N-C-O.com. Just find the link in the show notes. That's CanaleaPenco.com to choose your aloha today. Our thanks to the Canalea Penco for the support of this show.

'''Brad:''' Myke, I am so excited to talk about these next few topics. Okay. I want you to lead the first one.