Stampin' Up! Overhauls Color Palette
Stampin' Up! announced Tuesday that the company is overhauling their core color palette with the release of the 2010-2011 catalog this summer and making major changes to their product offerings.
The changes will go into effect on July 1st and will create a new 40 color core color palette at Stampin' Up!. It will include five completely new colors: Marina Mist, Cajun Crazy, Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso and Daffodil Delight. Ten previous In Colors will be made part of the new core color palette: Melon Mambo, Rich Razzleberry, Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, River Rock, Soft Suede, Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, and Wild Wasabi.
* new colors
Neutral colors will now be part of the core palette instead of a separate palette. Sahara Sand, Very Vanilla, Whisper White, Basic Gray, and Basic Black from the former neutrals palette will be part of the new core palette. The existing color Kraft will be renamed Crumb Cake for the new palette. The rest of the 25 core palette colors will be drawn from the existing Stampin Up core palette: Regal Rose, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red, Chocolate Chip, Elegant Eggplant, Night of Navy, Not Quite Navy, Always Artichoke, Garden Green, More Mustard, Bravo Burgundy, Pretty In Pink, Rose Red, Perfect Plum, Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, and So Saffron.
Palette colors will be reorganized into four color collections, called Brights, Neutrals, Regals and Subtles. In addition to the 40 core colors, each year there will be five new In Colors, which will have a life of two years.
The overhaul will also mean a large group of colors will be retiring. Thirty colors will be retiring in all, unavailable after the end of June 2010:
Kits of new colors for items such as card stock, markers, classic ink pads, pastels and watercolor crayons will be available for sale to help Stampin' Up! fans fill in their color collections and transition to the new core colors.
The new color offerings will be smaller than previously, 50 in all when the second set of rotating In Colors is added next year. By comparison, the 2009-2010 catalog offers 62 colors. Stampin' Up! explained the reasons for the reduction:
We retired colors based on sales history and focus group feedback. Members of our focus groups indicated that they had some colors they didn’t use; for instance, they purchased a whole family of ink pads and then rarely used some of the colors in that family. In addition, sales on many colors were very low, and the cost to support those colors was not worth the return. We were careful to choose the most popular and up-to-date colors.
Another reason we reduced the number of colors is that we wanted our collections to be less overwhelming to new demonstrators and customers—we wanted it to be easier for new stampers to get started. And with fewer colors in each collection, demonstrators and customers can save money and use that money to purchase more of what they love—stamps, accessories, and other items.
Stampin' Up! is making other moves that seem influenced by the current economy as well. Besides reducing the selection of offered colors, Stampin' Up! is also almost completely eliminating a long-offered product. Full sized Craft Stampin' Pads will be available after July 1st only in Basic Black, Whisper White, and Very Vanilla. The Craft Stampin' Spots mini ink pads will continue to be offered for the full core color palette, along with the ink refills for them.
The pigment ink Craft Stampin' pads, at $7.50, have been the more expensive of the two ink options offered by Stampin' Up!. Their dye ink Classic Stampin' pads are priced at $5.95. A 12 count color collection set Classic Stampin' Spots sells for $22.50, while the Craft Stampin' Spots sell for $25.95. (These Stampin' Spot collection prices will likely change in the new catalog since the new collections will have 10 instead of 12 colors in them.)
