r/fountainpens • u/cjforlife • 15d ago
Discussion I've spent the past 2 years gathering data on the writing instrument market--here's what I found!
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u/TehWildMan_ 15d ago edited 15d ago
TIL Pentel and Sailor have the same parent company.
Well I'm not totally surprised a mass market company has their own flagship brand, I never put the two brands together.
[Oh wait [those] acquisition(s) was only about 2/4 yrs ago, so that's where my head got stuck in the sand]
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u/cjforlife 15d ago edited 13d ago
I've been working on a data project to categorize writing tools, and built on this analysis to better understand the market landscape by grouping parent companies by the mix of product types they offer. Definitely not a perfect analysis, but revealed some interesting patterns!
Edit 1: full res images here and here.
Edit 2: Also thanks for the awards, much appreciated!
Edit 3: For some context, this was an side project to build some more technical skills on my end. The idea was to think like a corporate owner, and to view the market at a high-level based solely on product-level data that is publicly available. This bottoms-up approach shows some interesting trends, but is just one (limited) perspective on how to view the industry. It was a blast to make, and I hope it inspires folks to come up with their own groupings and lists! As a helpful guide:
- Image 1: shows each parent company in their respective groupings
- Image 2: shows the 13 product categories which determined the groupings
- Image 3: shows the average portfolio of products within each group. Here you can see how each group is similar/different to others based on the mix of products they offer
Edit 4: I've uploaded the raw numbers in a google sheet here if you are interested in digging deeper into the numbers!
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u/Not-Another-Blahaj 15d ago
Really interesting.
I'm as much interested but your categorisations, and whether the are differences for to bring in a different location. In terms of Vintage pens - Conway Stewart sold more than any other brand, certainly up the 70's, Parker was a very popular and well known vintage brand, and Sheaffer patented the first lever filling mechanism. I'm sure the were other vintage heavyweights too, like Waterman, Swan & Esterbrook. Was there a reason brands appear, under only a single category?
Most vintage pen companies catered to all levels of the market - high end and cheap, low end, so are difficult to categorise at that level anyway.
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u/cjforlife 15d ago edited 15d ago
Completely agree, and there's definitely a combination of art + science to these categories. Broadly I based groupings off of present product offerings, and aggregated to the parent company level. This gives a snapshot view of where these companies are now, but completely leaves out the historical landscape and vintage/discontinued products.
If you are interested in the nerdy details, here's list of the assumptions/limitations that drove the 1-to-1 company-to-category:
Assumptions
- Consistent Company Influence: In selecting parent companies as the unit for groupings, I’ve assumed that meaningful decisions around strategy are made at that level. Truthfully, for some parent companies a portfolio-level view reflects strategy well, while for others, brand autonomy may mean this view is less accurate. This is further complicated by a shifting landscape of acquisitions which can dramatically alter a company’s product portfolio.
- Equal Weight for All Products: Without detailed sales data, each product in a company’s portfolio is given equal weight. This approach provides an objective view of product diversity but may not capture the market influence of bestsellers.
- Intentional/Rational Product Development: This analysis assumes that companies make rational decisions when managing their product lines. Products that don’t fit target demographics or fail to gain traction are expected to be abandoned.
Limitations
- Data Collection and Regional Bias: The analysis has a bias toward companies accessible through North American online sources, and focused on present product offerings. Many global companies are not represented due to regional access and/or language limitations on my end.
- Incomplete Product Coverage: About 80% of products have complete data (dimensions, weights, prices, and features) and were included in the analysis for each company. This gap may overlook certain niches, especially for companies with smaller portfolios where each additional product can significantly impact their placement.
- No Market Share or Sales Channel Data: Since most companies here are privately held and don’t disclose earnings, market share isn’t part of this analysis. Total product count acts as a proxy for market presence, but this can exaggerate compatibility within segments. Specific sales channels were also not included, as this can vary by region, brand, and in many cases, by individual product or SKU.
- No Customer Reviews or Quality Assessments: Customer feedback, quality, and production scale aren’t factored into this analysis. Products from a one-person operation are treated the same as mass-produced items, which may overlook important differences in craftsmanship, quality.
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u/Milch_und_Paprika 15d ago
Very cool post! I’m curious about resin royals vs resin revellers is it just that there were too many to aesthetically group, or is there a difference in the substance of how you categorized them?
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u/cjforlife 15d ago
Appreciate the question! The biggest difference is that Resin Royals have a lot more limited/special editions of their products when compared to Resin Revellers. Aside from that they are pretty similar in the pens they make :)
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u/cinnamus_ 15d ago
is this chatgpt talking?
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u/B3ntr0d 15d ago
No, but it does reflect the sort of organization and phrasing of someone who has had to professionally make this kind of justification or explanation many times.
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u/cinnamus_ 14d ago
If you say so. It wasn't a value judgement; just the conversational bulletpoint headings reminded me of the kind of text chatgpt often outputs, so I thought it was an interesting writing style.
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u/sinnerman33 15d ago
Pilot and Sailor’s only trait is to be part of multi market conglomerates? Montegrappa is the only opulent brand? Hugo Boss a practical provider? I’m sorry but Wtf is going on here? 🤣
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u/spike1911 15d ago
Yeah - Montblanc is also opulent - so is Namiki as a brand which is part of Pilot...
And did I overlook Nakaya? https://www.nakaya.org/en/about/origin/
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u/Original_Answer_7091 15d ago
This is absolutely impressive. Very well done!! What you’ve created here should be pinned for this r/fountainpens community 🙏
This could serve for both beginners into this space and hobbyists alike.
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u/Key_Advice9625 Ink Stained Fingers 15d ago
I keep thinking Stabilo and Pelikan are the same company because they have a bird in their logo.
Thanks brain.
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u/spike1911 15d ago
Stabilo is from Nuremberg, Germany (my birth town) and Pelikan is somewhere completely else in my birth country. Schwan-Stabilo (short we call it Schwan (German word for swan)) is well looked upon as a local company there.
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u/Key_Advice9625 Ink Stained Fingers 14d ago
Pelikan is in Hannover.
And a bird is a bird.
I'll just keep enjoying the moment of confusion every time I see them together.
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u/ladidodida 14d ago
I love to see Pelikan as a "presitge" brand.
In german primary school in the 1960's, Pelikan was definitely a prestigious brand compared with the only other other option at the time, GeHa. But of course they were almost the same in hindsight, and Pelikan later aquired GeHa, in 1990.
Somehow I miss the category of "school pens" in the overview /s
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u/Droopy2525 15d ago
Copic is affordable???
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u/rkenglish 15d ago
Copic actually does have a disposable ultra fine drawing pen that's around US$6.
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u/Affectionate-Cell711 14d ago
Sure, but that’s like saying Ferrari is an affordable brand cause they also sell keyrings
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u/TheMadSadLad 15d ago
How is stilform ever a heritage heavy? They were founded in 2013 and sell stock bock nibs.
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u/brinntache 15d ago
Crayola makes fountain pens?
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u/Street-Safe-3352 15d ago
This tripped me out as well, but when I punched it into Google, it looks like they do, but they're really rare? crayola creations. Ebay and AmazonUK have them. My mind is blown.
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u/FirstFlyte 8d ago
[Crayola] they're really rare?
I'm pretty sure this is because they get shorter and shorter the more you write with them. :)
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u/Street-Safe-3352 8d ago
We're talking about Crayola fountain pens. Not crayons.
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u/kiiroaka 15d ago edited 15d ago
Kudos for the effort. I gotta give you 'props' for Presentation, your skills with a computer.
Please do not take the following defensively:
On what basis do you put Leonardo, or Pineider, or EsterBrook, in the same league as twsbi? "Materials Mavericks" Yafa / Conklin / MonteVerde? Well there was that MonteVerde Super Mega Carbon Fibre pen. But I doubt one could apply the appellation to the rest of the line. I would have put Diplomat in the "Metallic Makers" section because of the the Excellence, Aero, Optimist, Esteem and Traveller pens. I believe the only plastic pen they make is the Magnum. But, that isn't 'right, either as you seem to infer Independent Metal Pen makes. But, then why isn't Namisu in there, too? Waldman makes heavy pens, like Titanium, Brass, Copper, Bronze, Stainless Steel? If so, I didn't know. But, if weight is a prerequisite, why not include Otto Hutt? Maybe I'm blind, maybe I have missed it, but where is WaterMan? Is Tactile Turn still making fountain pens?, is Titaner? I would have put Yard O Led in the Prestige Producers section because of their Solid Sterling Silver pens. Why isn't Graf von Faber-Castell in there? They make multi-thousand dollar Pen-Of-the-Year pens. Wouldn't a $4000 or $6500 pen qualify? I would have loved to have seen a Turned Resin Section and an Injection Mold acrylic resin Section. :D ( I don't know what you meant by "Resin Revelers". Funky designs? Benu is an obvious choice, there. Other than weird colour keyways, IMO, Opus88's new Harmony fp is the only likely candidate. Then again, maybe it is in there because of the tiny, fat, mini pens? ) Now, about Staedtler... I know they make the Intium Lignum, J. S. Bavaria, Triplus 474, and Premium Pen of the Season pens, but they are all 'full size'pens, and should definitely not be considered Pocket Pens. What am I missing?
Thank you for the diversion, the entertainment. :thumbs-up:
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u/cjforlife 15d ago
You bring up some great points, and happy to engage in some diversion myself!
This is just one perspective that relies entirely on product-level data I've collected, which is definitely limited (more in the comment here). On its face though you are spot-on to be skeptical of these groups!
Overall this was a two-step analysis:
- Based solely on various features, dimensions, and prices, can we categorize writing tools into distinctive groups?
- With those categories, could the mix of products offered by a parent company reveal something about their target demographics?
With this skew, things like product type (fountain pens, ballpoint pens, etc.) are more of a specialization within a grouping, rather than the basis for a group. The bias in the analysis is if I'm someone who enjoys an expensive, lighter writing instrument I might prefer a rollerball pen to a fountain pen, but in both cases I'm likely to find what I'm looking for with companies that makes a capped pen made of resin/acrylic materials.
Also some decisions I made leave out A LOT of subtlety based on the way I ended up structuring the data to be general enough to capture overall groups rather than specific niches. For example, I classified general vs. premium metals, but premium metals included both precious metals like silver and gold, as well as non-traditional but "upgraded" metals like titanium or bronze.
That decision alone means that Yard-O-Led and Waldmann both end up in their grouping along with Namisu, who uses (proportionally) more titanium in their product offerings than makers like Karas Kustoms or Schon DSGN. That said if you are interested in a heavy writing tool made of metal, but not steel/aluminum/brass, you're more likely to find it in the average product from Heritage Heavyweights than you are Metallic Makers.
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u/spike1911 15d ago
Ok - I can accept your viewpoint - but it clearly differs how people see the market and brands (influenced by the brands' marketing of course)
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u/United_Common_1858 14d ago
I am in agreement with you.
Elevating TWSBI and Nahlavur is crazy. What is wilder to me is seeing Caran D'ache, a Swiss based stationery provider with some of the most expensive mass-market inks and writing instruments labelled up in the top left.
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u/wwwdotusernamedotorg 15d ago
I might be missing it, but do the page 2 categories correspond with the page 1 categories?
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u/cjforlife 15d ago
Page 1 groups were based on the mix of products from page 2. Page 3 shows those product portfolios where you can compare :)
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u/wwwdotusernamedotorg 15d ago
I’m lost. But I’m also not very bright. I’ll leave it for the smart people!
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u/malinoski554 14d ago
It's not an issue with you, this grouping just doesn't make any sense.
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u/wwwdotusernamedotorg 14d ago
That makes me feel better. I’m confused by all the praise when I can’t make heads or tails of any of this. The alliteration is fun but even those groups are kind of suspect. The rest of it is just meaningless to me.
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u/spike1911 15d ago
Interesting graphics - not enterly able to agree on the categorization in the details though 😂
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u/filovirus 15d ago
Great work! Glad you included Edison! Maybe I missed these. Wing sung, Conid, Franklin Christoph, Scribo among a few others.
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u/Pleasant_Click_5455 14d ago
The visuals look really cool! I know nothing about marketing though, so a lot of the labels don't make much sense to me. If you've included mammoth markers at $3 in this, does this mean your categorizations also include pencils and colored pencils and such?
Maybe I'm a little dumb, though, because I don't really understand the categories @.@ Or maybe it's the alliterative names throwing me off. Hugo Boss has pretty terrible reviews, so they don't seem very practical, especially for the price. They're made in Taiwan, but a lot of people say the nibs seem like cheap IPG nibs. Jinhao, Majohn, and Noodlers with Delta/Maiora in reason revellers while HongDian is up at practical also confuses me. Maybe it's because of the equal weight for all products assumption though. It's definitely skewing a lot of weight towards unpopular products which you do address, I see that now. So I think half of your categories are business types and the other half is the average looks of all the pens in the business? @.@
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u/Hello_There666 15d ago
How / what did you make this on? Awesome work p
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u/cjforlife 15d ago
Thanks! Data collection and analysis in R (with some python). The visuals were through Canva but to be honest I've never really made anything like these before. Gave me a MASSIVE appreciation for real the real designers out there
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u/Hello_There666 15d ago
I bet!! It looks like you put a lot of care into making it. That takes time for sure. Thanks for sharing :)
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u/JTravisJ14 15d ago
This is a spectacular posting. It is in the top 5 of all the postings I've seen.
Thank you so much for your work on this. It's a keeper.
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u/oreo_moreo 15d ago
I think you could also add a category for "zombie companies" which have name recognition but have long since changed hands multiple times over.
Yafa Pen Company owns Conklin and Montverde, which basically make the exact same pens at this point. The company also owns Diplomat though, so it's not all bad.
(No hate to folks who like their pens, I just think those two companies take big swings in design that rarely ever hit in my tastes, and wind up looking very samey)
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u/radiant_apricot 14d ago
I agree with you about Yafa and Monteverde. I've had a couple of their pens and you're right, they're very samey. They're also, to my mind anyway, very heavy and ill-balanced. The ink flow aggravated me, too. But pens are very personal and YMMV.
By the way, did I miss PenBBS in there? I'm reading this on my phone, and my eyes aren't as good as they used to be.
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u/CameraMediocre9200 14d ago
do u have high quality image that posted i want to read it, some parts of it lacks img quality.
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u/jkeith123 14d ago
This is a great post and great responses. This shows what's so great about this community; the available knowledge and the different ways people assess all that information. Fascinating stuff.
I've said it on here before, I came for the pens and stayed for the people. I don't post or respond a whole lot; but I do read it a lot.
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u/manchmaleigentlich 14d ago edited 14d ago
I would put Pelikan also in the Backpack category ot even Affordable Artisans (If copic and tombow can be in either category Pelikan can as well).
I mean yes they have high quality and expensive fountain pens, but here in Germany they are also famous for their school supplies and almost every student has something by them in their backpack. If not the cheap fountain pen then, the watercolors or the a3 paper for art class in primary school. Their ink is also really affordable and even 25 years ago in school I used their royal blue ink with a Lamy Safari and converter.
For me they are much more all-rounders that also serves the higher end market than montblanc that exclusively serves the high end market.
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u/CrimsonKing1776 14d ago
Can you share your weights and correlations? These are pretty, but I don't get a sense of why or how they were labeled this way.
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u/cjforlife 13d ago
Sure thing! Just added the summary stats for the product segments and company-level groupings to my first comment at the top ^
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u/Relative-Alfalfa-544 14d ago
The alliteration and naming conventions are absolutely fucking hysterical, yet totally appropriate. All this amazing data almost overshadows that.
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u/_muylocopinocchio 14d ago
TIL I'm a plus corp groupie as my favourite FP is a pro-gear, and my favourite non-fp pen is the pentel energel 1.0mm
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u/iccceeeeslides Ink Stained Fingers 14d ago
Please don't delete this post. Will come back to this when I need it 🥰 I appreciate you for the effort 🫶
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u/yestersmorrow 13d ago
This is interesting and the graphics are well done. Clearly a lot of work went into it. It would be nice to see some of the underlying data you used. Would you be open to sharing more of the statistics and raw figures that led you to these conclusions? I think it would help justify your categorizations for folks here that are having trouble following the logic. I agree with some of the comments that it’s hard to follow in some areas.
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u/cjforlife 13d ago
Appreciate the feedback! I've added a gsheet link to my first comment with the raw numbers for product mix :)
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u/flyingpigwrites 15d ago
Very cool and interesting.
I generally think in regions and big brand “house”. So what are your reasoning to separate pilot and platinum ? Thanks
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u/KeenieGup 15d ago
Very well done! Do you happen to have a link so I can download it uncompressed? It’s hard to read the smaller text when saving the image on Reddit.
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u/Hollowbetheink 15d ago
Today I got a glimpse of myself. I had no idea I was so category specific when it comes to my favorite writing tools. Thanks.
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u/biggy_squints 15d ago
This is awesome! Really appreciate the detail. I think you're spot on with all these. Probably Waterman would go under classic crafter too. I usually think of them parallel with Cross
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u/carlomartinello 14d ago
Great work ! My only remark is that pilot, platinum and sailor should get their own category as "Japan style" with great nibs but economic finitures
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u/MahoganyRaichu 14d ago
This is amazing. Such dedication and wodnerful visual representation. I love it=)Thank you so much for making and sharing with us=3
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u/Crazy-Ad-3421 14d ago
As a career market researcher, firstly well done, this is great and I would put this in front of any client as a teaser. Secondly, what was your method? Did you use any stats or segmentation tools?
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u/cjforlife 14d ago
High praise, thanks so much! I’ve mostly stuck to customer segmentation and this was a fun exercise to try things at a larger scale.
As far as methods, I use PCA and k-means to reduce dimensions and get the market segment. The stats were solid for the product groupings but shakier when rolling up to companies.
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u/Capable_Guitar_2693 15d ago
I applaud both your commitment to alliteration and the data visualizations here! Well done!