Martha + Michaels = ?

So I finally made it over to check out the invasion of Martha Stewart at my local Michaels store. I was surprised at the scope of what I saw in the papercrafts department. (Personal Disclaimer: I should say up front that I can’t stand Martha. Her supercilious attitude just irritates me no end. That said, she has in the past done some nice product licensing and so I was very interested to see what she was going to do in papercrafting.)

The very first thing that I saw when I walked in the door at Michaels was MARTHA, MARTHA, MARTHA. Not only had she been given prime real estate in the first half aisle to the left at the entrance, but the products and Martha’s books were also in the center aisle and on the endcaps by the entrance as well. It was impossible to even get into the store without navigating your way through a maze of Martha.

One of the first things I noticed about the display was what I didn’t see: EK Success’s name. Unless you look closely at the product packaging, all you see is the name of Martha Stewart Crafts. That is also true of the two flyers that I picked up promoting the line. There was no mention of EK Success on either of them, even in the fine print. It seems that in this deal Queen Martha was looking for a silent consort who would walk a few steps behind her, not that that should surprise anyone.

An overview of the products in the new line showed that they have an upscale and trendy design aesthetic. It’s an interesting feature that all of the paper items fit into the lines own storage binder with a custom ring system. The binders are somewhat expensive and so it won’t be worth having one unless you are storing a lot of the Martha Stewart Crafts line. I will be curious to see how that system does for them as a product feature. A few of the items, particularly a couple of the adhesives, are obviously just re-branded versions of previous EK Success products.

The scrapbook items are mostly fairly reasonably priced, but some of the craft items are horrendously overpriced for their target market, I believe. The 18” x 18” albums were priced at $79.99. They seemed like a good idea for storing kids school papers and other larger items but at that price there is no way I would be buying one anytime soon.

The bottom line is that I would describe the line as “nice”, not earth shattering or gorgeous, and there was nothing that I walked away with from my first viewing thinking that I just had to have.

In addition to being available at Michaels, the Martha Stewart Crafts products are available online through Martha’s own website. Interestingly, not much has been made of this in the controversy over the product line’s “exclusive” availability at Michaels until the fall of 2007. Apparently the stores that are being denied the line until then don’t see the Martha Stewart website as so much of a threat to their future sales as they see Michaels being.

As well as the addition of the Martha Stewart Crafts line, there were other obvious changes in the papercrafting section at Michaels. According to an April 25^th Wall Street Journal article, reducing clutter in their stores was a condition of Michaels’ agreement with Martha Stewart Crafts to carry the line exclusively, and there has been some obvious re-merchandising done in the papercrafts department of my local store.

Some of these changes perhaps reflect changes in the market for papercrafts. For instance, cardmaking supplies are now in prime territory, given almost an entire double aisle in a more visible location. Previously they were shoved back into a corner. The digital supply area is now larger and more prominent. Patterned paper is now shoved into the corner previously occupied by cards and stamps, and embellishments have been moved off of a sidewall into more prominent territory in an aisle. The albums and organizational items are now shelved where the scrapbook embellishments once were on the sidewall. Perhaps the merchandisers believe that buyers will seek out those “staple” items in that less prominent location?

All in all, it is obvious that control freak Martha Stewart has decided to take over more than just an aisle at Michaels. She is taking over much more than that. How long this will last and whether her company’s micromanagement of the retail environment around her products will help them succeed, remains to be seen.