Store is writing its own epitaph

The letters on the sign are red, green, blue and large: Going out of business.

Inside Village Stationery, which has had a presence at Countryside Village near 87th and Pacific Streets since 1975, clerks smile as they help customers, but there is a sense of marking time.

The store's cards, party napkins, photo frames and gift items are discounted for clearance by month's end, when Village Stationery is projected to close.

Louise Rasmussen, a former teacher who bought the shop with her husband, Wayne, five years ago, has been trying to sell it for more than a year, but several potential deals didn't pan out. Rasmussen plans to return to her first love, teaching, after a vacation following the store's closure.

Internet commerce has hurt the store, Rasmussen said. Sales of wedding invitations and graduation announcements, for example, are down 15 percent. Even Christmas card sales, normally a big seasonal boost, have cratered over the last two years.

Rasmussen is not alone, said Annabelle Stefanski, co-president of the Invitation & Stationery Alliance, a national group of stationery business.

“This past year was quite a low,” Stefanski said. “Sales were down, and clients did not want to spend on things that were not necessities — stationery obviously being one of them. I believe people are now cautiously optimistic, and things are certainly looking much better.”

Still, Stefanski said, the Internet definitely plays a part.

Rasmussen puts it in stronger terms: “People are doing it all online.”

That includes correspondence. Fewer people sending handwritten notes is one of the challenges facing stationery stores, she said.

That saddens Rasmussen, who sees a handwritten note as “a history” to be saved and savored.

“You can look at it again and again. It's different — holding a piece of paper and reading it.”

Stationery employee Judith Brodnicki agreed, saying that she still treasures notes received years ago from her mother.

“Handwriting, in and of itself, is a technical skill, the foundation of literacy,” Brodnicki said. “But it's also become a way to make something incredibly personal. It's unlike a phone call. A letter pretty much sits there and waits for you. It is there to go back and look on. ”

Stefanski said e-mail is fine for quick, informal invitations, but people still should use paper for more formal events. They deserve something tangible, she said.

“That also speaks to the thank-you note,” she said. “When an individual sends a handwritten thank you, it expresses sincere gratitude. An e-mail just doesn't express the same sentiment.”

Village Stationery started as a side business in the shopping center's bookstore around 1975, according to former owner Fred Gacek, who bought the bookstore with his wife, Judy, in 1979. Countryside Village itself opened in 1953.

The Gaceks expanded the stationery section and renamed the store the Village Book and Stationery. In 1994, they broke off the stationery business into its own storefront, across from the bookstore and in Countryside Village's north building.

The Gaceks sold the bookstore in 1999 but kept Village Stationery. By 2003, though, they had downsized to about 1,000 square feet, less than half the original size.

When they sold the store to the Rasmussens in 2005, it was because Gacek was ready to retire, he said. “I was about 68 at the time.”

But even then, he said, he could see the effect of mobile phones and the Internet.

“It's hard, because of the advances in technology. ... It's harder to sell retail stationery in this day and age,” Gacek said.

Stefanski said the industry is reviving as people become more optimistic and retailers more flexible.

“We are all starting to think outside of the box and coming up with ideas to differentiate ourselves while keeping cost a major factor,” she said.

For example, Stefanski said, retailers are streamlining processes to reduce costs, tailoring invitations to clients, printing on demand and creating their own Internet sites to counter online competition.

Village Stationery has tried to be creative and flexible. Rasmussen said she and her staff artist organized a big “wedding week” two years, showcasing different styles and designs for invitations in an effort to boost interest and sales, but the results were disappointing.

She gets visibly choked up talking about Village Stationery's 10 employees, who will lose their jobs.

“I have extremely good employees, and we know all our customers,” she said. “That's the hardest part.”

Stefanski believes the worst is over. “Those that have survived and endured the last year or so, I believe will make it.”

Sadly, Village Stationery won't be among them. Countryside Village owner Larry Myers said he was sorry to see the longtime tenant go.

“They're really nice people,” he said of the Rasmussens and their employees. “And it's a lovely store, but stationery stores around the country have been impacted by the Internet. It's just a case of changing economic times.”

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