Christmastime is when the pens in my home get their main workout of the year. They have been designed to assist workers correct errors they made on typewriters without having to retype documents from the start. However, typewriters have disappeared from the modern workplace, relegated to lofts and museums. Even paper is disappearing from the modern workplace, as an increasing number of functions are digitized. Liquid Paper dates back to the 50s, when Bette Nesmith Graham, a fighting divorced mother, took on typing jobs to make money. The problem was that she wasn't a fantastic typist, and kept making mistakes.
In the pre-laser printer era, it was frequently easier to correct a document from a dot matrix printer than to reprint it. Handwritten documents in ink will also be more readily adjusted with Wite-Out than rewritten. In fact, the office supply industry as a whole is slumping. Based on a report from the analysis company Technavio, the U.S. Stationery and the office supply market is basically flat, estimated to go from $86.4 billion in 2015 to $87.5 billion by 2018. The newspaper industry had it particularly bad. As early as 2005, The New York Times pondered the product's destiny with trepidation.
Somehow, more than a decade on, it's kept its ground. By 2015 to 2016 to 2017, Bic, that makes Wite-Out and Tipp-Ex, reported that correction products increased in share from five to six at 9% of the worldwide stationery marketplace. It is a bit less clear how Liquid Paper is doing. Newell, that owns the brand, does not break down earnings sufficient to tell, and the firm did not respond to a request for comment. AdWeek implied that sales could be buoyed by artists using a fluid like paint. Even as paper sales sink, high stationery is one subsegment that's expected to grow, due to some Millennial affection for Personalized Stationery. Wite-Out is a peculiar spot for serial killing Millennials to offer clemency.
