Why Did Cross Buy Sheaffer?

[welch]

Why did Cross buy Sheaffer? Only to shut it down, except for $15 ballpoints?

 

- eliminated all high-end fountain pens with inlaid nib: Legacy Heritage, for instance

 

- cut the mid-level Prelude (with gold nib).

 

- currently selling the re-formulated ink bottles, but for how long? Is there much of a market now for any Sheaffer ink except in cartridges?

 

I'm curious about the Cross business reasons; not meant as a rhetorical jab at Cross. It's just hard to understand why they have bothered. Cross has kept the Sheaffer logo and the white-dot, but what's the point?

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

To answer most of your questions, not a clue But a local-ish stationers/card shop/novelty shop carries several colors of Skrip ink in bottles -- and presumably I'm not the only person shopping in there buying it (a guy in my local pen club actually works in the store).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Uncial]

I wonder did they see Sheaffer as their main competition so they just bought it to eliminate it?

[Parker51]

It was cheap. Cross has it's production in China, Parker continues to sell well in China, Sheaffer was historically Parker's competitition and to go head to head for market share against them it made sense to buy Sheaffer as Cross, while it does have a history, it wasn't historically a major competitor & exporter of Fountain Pens during much of that history and doesn't have the brand strength of Sheaffer. Now, the question is does Cross have the money to back up it's purchase with product? So far it looks like they don't. They are currently buying market share with licensed products. This is a very expensive way to sell products. MontBlanc has avoided this by having Limited Editions with unlicensed tie-ins which allows for greater profits. Parker is owned by a largely efficiency and profitability chasing conglomerate that historically has had no loyalty to any product line and that thinks it's systems approach and fostering of innovation will let it prosper while harnessing the talent and creativity of it's purchased divisions, without the upper management really learning it's divisions business. Cross may be trying to do better, since it doesn't have the resources of it's competitors. I have to respect them since they literally salvaged their Company and returned to Fountain Pens after having left them for a long time. Give them a little time to figure out their next move. They may resurrect Sheaffer, but they will need cash, which they are building up bit by bit.

Edited September 18, 2017 by Parker51

[AL01]

Yer write. (Pun intended.)

 

Cross isn't the richest stationary company, (I.E: Montblanc, Pilot, Pelikan, etc.), but it seems like they DO want to get some $$ in the bank and DO want to get a jab in the stationary/ fine writing business.

 

Heh. I like Sheaffer. I hope they bring back the inlaid nib soon.

[dadbar]

Usually, at the "end of life" competitors merge to save on operating costs. Then you can better utilize manufacturing capacity and only need one finance/sales/operations management group. If it's done right, there can be a lot of synergy if two companies are not operating at 100% capacity.

[max dog]

Another way to look at it is, maybe thank Cross for saving a floundering Sheaffer brand.

Looking at the reduced Sheaffer line up, it looks like Cross strategy is to streamline the brand to make it profitable again, and then start building it up once it can stand on it's own, re-introducing the higher end models. Wouldn't make sense for Cross to buy Sheaffer and let it continue on it's current trajectory of losing money. That's what I suspect is happening.

[EMQG]

Another way to look at it is, maybe thank Cross for saving a floundering Sheaffer brand.

Looking at the reduced Sheaffer line up, it looks like Cross strategy is to streamline the brand to make it profitable again, and then start building it up once it can stand on it's own, re-introducing the higher end models. Wouldn't make sense for Cross to buy Sheaffer and let it continue on it's current trajectory of losing money. That's what I suspect is happening.

Hopefully you're right. Sheaffer's made some of the best pens ever, it'd be a shame for them to continue like they are.

[DavidDecorator1]

Perhaps when people of taste in writing instruments stop buying the poor quality excuses for Fountain pens that these asset stripping conglomerates are purveying upon the history of those who produced those that wrote the greatest scripts, love letters, poems, books and stories of the last century then perhaps companies like Parker,Shaeffer etc can return to their former glory as separate entities. Still even though there is a resurgance in the popularity of Fountain Pens it may be that like Conway Stewart these companies are lost forever.

[AL01]

I guess so.

 

But I do want to have faith in Sheaffer.

 

At least the guys at Cross are still headquartered in RI.

 

... AND they seem to be contributing to the local economy...

 

That's good.

 

But I can't put bets on Newell Rubbermaid with Parker and Waterman.

 

I guess only time can tell.

[bob_hayden]

It is not unusual when companies merge that one disappears. Think Studebaker/Packard or Nash/Hudson 50 years ago.

[Tom_Moritz]

I should hope Sheaffer comes back around. One of their pens was my first foray into fountain pens and they ones I've acquired since have for the most part been lovely. That said I have vintage all Sheaffer pens save one, the Taranis.

 

To be honest I can't think of any pen aside the Legacy and Heritage lines made in the last few years anyone can genuinely get excited about. Even the Prelude series in my opinion was milquetoast. The Taranis is kind of the center of what I'm talking about. I bought it when I was trying to build me collection, hyped up as it was by those who liked it and abhorred by those who didn't.

 

While this pen is unique I think of it like the older Sheaffer Intrigue in that both have no real viability. I can't see either having a huge market and they were the most daring ventures Sheaffer had made in years as far as I know. It brings to mind the domestic versus import wars that raged throughout the 90's and 2000's.

[max dog]

I think the one thing Cross could do to breath life into both brands is to move manufacture back to the US, even if it means producing fewer pens for a while. . Its hard to compete with the European and Japanese brands on the basis of value and quality when your pens are all made in China.

Edited September 26, 2017 by max dog

[bob_hayden]

Actually I would prefer the Sheaffer name die with the closing of the plant in Fort Madison. "Selling" or acquiring a brand name seems inherently deceptive. The name only has value if it convinces people your product has the good qualities of the products who once carried that label. I lived through this and remember the inks disappearing, the dreadful Reaktor with a crimped nib, and the fairly nice Javelin that looked a bit like a Sheaffer but did not write like one (and I think it was made in Japan?) I'd favor having to label products with who actually made them.

[AL01]

It is not unusual when companies merge that one disappears. Think Studebaker/Packard or Nash/Hudson 50 years ago.

 

Nash cars are in museums now....

 

(I jus' thought of that.)

[AL01]

I think the one thing Cross could do to breath life into both brands is to move manufacture back to the US, even if it means producing fewer pens for a while. . Its hard to compete with the European and Japanese brands on the basis of value and quality when your pens are all made in China.

 

I wonder....

 

But they moved for cheaper manufacturing costs.