34-35_Stationery House.qxp_Grid 09/04/2024 13:10 Page 1
Indie Insights
THE ADAMS FAMILY The Stationery Shop of Tehran is a novel written by Marjan Kamali, set in the most populated city in Iran about a young woman’s fascination with a stationery emporium run by a committed independent retailer. What seems like a million miles away in the sleepy idyllic Somerset village of Somerton is Stationery House, one of a trio of greeting card, stationery and book shops owned by Malcolm Adams, whose eyes twinkle as he reveals: “We have sold almost 40 copies of that book, there’s just something special about stationery shops!” PG was pen poised to hear his story from WHSmith stalwart to indie champion. Left: Somerset-based Stationery House has sold almost 40 copies of this novel. Right: Malcolm administering WD40 to the shop’s squeaky door. Below: Stationery House was opened in 1990, but Malcolm bought it in 2018. Below right: Part of the greeting card area in the Somerton shop.
How do you tell that a shop is at the centre of its community? One sure sign is that a customer cheerily brings in a can of WD40 to solve a squeaky door issue, proffering it as a birthday gift for the owner. This is exactly what happened on the day of PG’s visit to Stationery House, which happened to coincide with Malcolm Adams’ 62nd birthday, who wasted no time in putting his unusual gift to good use. “We are so lucky so have so many loyal customers who come from far and wide. They might come in for one thing, but invariably leave with a handful,” says Malcolm. As the saying goes, you make your own luck, which is something which rings true for Malcolm and his ‘family’ team. “I always had a hankering to run my own business, but it just took me a little while!” he says with a gentle avuncular smile. By ‘little while’, he means 40 years. “I joined WHSmith as a trainee straight from school in 1978 and remained with them for four decades in store management throughout the south west,” revealed Malcolm. “I loved the customer interaction and the products we stocked, especially in the early days when we were able to do localised branch buying. Looking back I was always a bit of a maverick, but my time at WHS gave me a commercial awareness as well as recognising the importance of having a good team,” he added. 34 PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
Instead of cruising into retirement, in 2018 Malcolm “removed the shackles of the corporate world” with his attention drawn to the opportunity of acquiring The Stationery House, an anchor retailer in the village’s market square. While Covid played havoc with many retailing businesses, in fact it brought some benefits to Stationery House with the pandemic prompting many people to move out of London or other major conurbations and down to this tranquil area of Somerset. “This may be a largely agricultural area, but the shop has always attracted customers from a wide radius. That, added to its good links to London, means that our customer base has continued to grow, which is something we are very happy about,” says Malcolm. Something else he is very happy about is his team, the majority of whom have been working at Stationery House for many years. “I was very fortunate to inherit a wonderful team, in fact the best in my 45 years of retailing,” said Malcolm, showing genuine
affection for his closeknit work family. “I always wanted to retain the essence of The Stationery House, being somewhere that people could just pop in for a pack of envelopes, to collect some bookbinding pick up a card, pen refill or notebook while they were there. It still reminds me very much of a