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KITCHENWARE NEWS & HOUSEWARES REVIEW • MARCH 2020 • www.kitchenwarenews.com 4 PUBLISHER Kimberly Oser SR. ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Jules Denton-Card jules_d@oser.com EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Lorrie Baumann lorrie_b@oser.com ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Anthony Socci anthony_s@oser.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Jeanie Catron ART DIRECTOR Yasmine Brown GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jonathan Schieffer CUSTOMER SERVICE Susan Stein MANAGER customerservice@oser.com CUSTOMER SERVICE Rae Featherston ASSOCIATE CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Tara Neal CIRCULATION MANAGER Jamie Green jamie_g@oser.com OSER COMMUNICATIONS GROUP KITCHENWARE NEWS & Housewares Review Kitchenware News & Housewares Review is a publication of Oser Communications Group Inc. 1877 N. Kolb Road • Tucson, AZ 85715 520.721.1300 www.kitchenwarenews.com www.oser.com FOUNDER Lee M. Oser Periodicals postage paid at Tucson, AZ and additional mailing office. Kitchenware News & Housewares Review (USPS012-625) is published 7 times per year (Jan., March, May, July, Sept., Nov., and Dec.) by Oser Communications Group, 1877 N. Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ, 85715 520.721.1300. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material or prices quoted in newspaper. Contributors are responsible for proper release of proprietary classified information. ©2019 by Oser Communications Group. All rights reserved Reproduction, in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher, is expressly prohibited. Back issues, when available, cost $8 each within the past 12 months. Back issue orders must be paid in advance by check. Kitchenware News & Housewares Review is distributed without charge in North America to qualified professionals in the retail and distribution channels of the upscale kitchenware and tabletop trade. For subscriber services, including subscription information, call 520.721.1300. Printed in the USA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Kitchenware News & Housewares Review, 1877 N. Kolb Road, Tucson, AZ 85715. I was in New York City recently for a press event previewing this year's Inspired Home Show and took the opportunity to visit a stationery store that will remain nameless. You'll see why in a moment. I spent about half an hour in the store, wandering down the long aisle of blank journal notebooks and past a case of fountain pens. Then I came back to the fountain pen case and stared down into it. I recognized several pens that I already own, so I had the sense that I was looking at my price range even though all the price tags were facing down. This is important once you know that a fountain pen that retails for over $1,000 is not especially rare. I own none of those. Then I noticed that there were some fountain pens on a shelf behind the display case, so I wandered back there. I found a cute little pen that just fit my hand. It was a brand I'd never heard of, but it looked well made, and it was in my price range. I made a mental note of the brand and wandered back to the display case to stand over it some more. I walked back down the length of the aisle alongside all those notebooks. Then I came back to the pen case, where I did all but drool a little longer, casting glances across the 10 feet of space between the case and the cash register, where the two teenage sales clerks sat chatting to each other. So, after a few more minutes, I left the store, empty-handed except for a purse with a wallet full of credit cards. When I got back home, I opened my laptop, clicked onto my favorite online stationery store and ordered one of the little pens I'd seen in that shop. By the time I paid the charge for expedited shipping, it cost me almost exactly the same price I'd have paid in New York. The point of this story is that it's almost impossible not to sell me something once you've gotten me into a stationery store. Many of you who've met me at trade shows have asked me about the fountain pens I use there, and a few of you have commented on my choice of note- books, too. I've shown some of you my writer's calluses – I have several. I assure you that if either of those sales clerks had so much as asked me if I'd like to have a closer look at something inside that case, they'd have made a sale. I can't imagine that kind of thing happening in a specialty kitchenware store. The clerks in specialty grocery stores have no trouble spotting when I can't find what I want to buy, and they race to help. So I know for sure that every single time a retailer takes the trouble to ask for a sale, the odds that I'm going to walk out of the store with a purchase have materially advanced. See you in Chicago at The Inspired Home Show! KN Lorrie Baumann, Editorial Director editor from the

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