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A 1958 advertisement touts a $2.98 ant farm, promising "a real, inside look into the ant world" and "hours of relaxation."
The glass-encased ant farm -- "Another Scrantom First!" -- may not have survived, but Scrantom, Wetmore & Co. has. These days, the firm sells a bug bottle -- the kind with a perforated lid -- in which to keep fireflies caught on a summer evening.
"We think our customers are constantly surprised and pleased by just how many different things they can get," says Bonnie Brauer, vice president of the 122-year-old firm, now called Scrantoms Book & Stationery Co. Inc. "We like to think of ourselves as a mini-department store."
Diversification and flexibility may be the reasons Scrantoms has weathered the stormy Rochester retail scene -- and what may help keep it going as competition from book discounters and high-volume office-supply chains intensifies.
Despite consolidation at all levels of the office-supply business and "tremendous price-consciousness," says Eileen McCooey, editor of the Long-Island-based trade publication Office World News, full-service stores that stress personal attention can thrive.
So confident are Scrantoms' owners that customers still like their blend of quality merchandise, product variety and old-fashioned service that they recently announced plans to add four stores over the next year to their current total of eight -- an expansion financed without borrowing.
"Whether we add product lines or add new stores will in no way (dampen the factors that built our success)," says Evan Brauer, 33, president and CEO. His Scrantoms career, which began in 1971 with a broom, spans more than half of his life.
In that time, the book and stationery industries have undergone sweeping changes.
As paper costs rise and best-selling authors command higher fees, publishers are charging more and backing fewer new writers. Thus, selection of in-stock titles has dwindled.
In response, Scrantoms has greatly increased its special-order business and an emphasis on trade paperbacks -- high-quality, oversized volumes by lesser-known authors.
Scrantoms also sells more cookbooks, children's books and business/computer volumes than any other single Monroe County bookstore or chain, Evan Brauer adds. He estimates Scrantoms' share of the local new-book market at 15 percent to 20 percent.
The stationery business, responding to the boom in electronic office equipment, has evolved...