Stylus

Terrible Customer Service. Will not recommend to a friend.

The store is organized and the owner is friendly and helpful. They let you test the pens before buying and don’t pressure you to purchase lot of accessories. They also offered a quick tutorial on how to refill and care for the pen.
Stylus has a wide variety of quality fountain pen, drawing tools, ink and paper for whether you plan on drawing, letter writing or finding a nice gift for someone at the office.

This is the only major pen store in Edmonton and I am very disappointed.
The staff need to be retrained. Or they could just restaff the store. Unfortunately, I find this to be the case with many pen stores, but Stylus really takes the cake. The employee who «helped» me did seem to know her pens, but she does not know her sales. Maybe this is how they are trained, but she had the same delivered lines over and over again. In order to simply hold the pen you’re interested in and see if it feels right to you, you have to bring her over to the display case, have her remove it, and then go sit at a special little desk and the employee will sit on the other side and hand you the pen. This is the only way they will do things. This is a nice set up for actually testing the pens, but as someone who knows fountain pens, sometimes I simply want to hold the pen quickly — for 2 or 5 seconds — and establish whether I am comfortable with the pen’s weight and barrel width. I don’t need it inked up, I don’t need paper, I don’t want to sit down; I just need to feel the damn pen. You know right away whether you like the feel of the pen and want to try it out, or whether it’s not for you. It’s really irritating to have to walk back and forth to this little desk. Especially because by the time I’ve walked to the desk, sat down, waited for her to sit down, been handed the pen, held it, handed it back, and gotten back up… I’VE FORGOTTEN WHAT I WAS LOOKING AT. If you test a pen, they take it behind the desk to clean it right away, which makes me feel bad when I want to test it again 5 minutes later to compare it beside another pen. Normally I would simply pick the pens I want to examine further (AFTER HOLDING THEM) and have them all inked at once, but the layout of the store prevents this. Honestly, if you had a really nice, friendly, personable sales rep, this layout wouldn’t be 100% horrible. But throw in an awkward, kind of rude salesperson and you have a recipe to not sell anything because people are afraid to ask to try the darn pens.
I understand the «boutique», studio style look. You’ve tried it. Great. It doesn’t work. Please redesign your store like a normal pen store, with jewelry-​style counters. That way, the sales attendant can be on one side, I can be on the other side, and we can hold pens happily all day long. Also, when the pens are being displayed horizontally in a row (stacked), it doesn’t make sense to place the price cards in front of the rack left-​to-​right. They should be stuck beside the pen, or tied to the pen. It does me no good to know that Parker has a range of pens from $ 80-​$ 800, and they’re all on this one rack… it needs to be clearer which pen is which price. And, like most pen stores, the pens should go from cheaper (the cheap Asian brands, Lamy, Conklin) at the front of the store) to more expensive (Sheaffer, Parker, and eventually Mont Blanc at the back of the store). This way I’m not wandering around looking for a mid-​range pen, getting distracted by $ 4,500 Mont Blanc limited editions and missing a display I might like because it’s sandwiched between two rainbow racks of $ 28 Lamy Safaris.
If you’re looking to go in and spend less than $ 40 on a cheap plastic fountain pen, and your main criteria is that it’s got a double-​digit price and bright colours, go here and buy the second pen you try. There’s NOTHING wrong with that; we all start somewhere, and I encourage you to do this so that you eventually get hooked on fountain pens and give the manufacturers reason to keep producing pens for me to buy. If you’re already a serious pen enthusiast, and you might want to handle and test a dozen or so pens, then go… I don’t know, I guess you’ll have to move somewhere that has a decent pen store.
PS — I also want to note that when I asked she had a recommendation for a pen with a nib that would bleed less, I was told I would have to use a higher quality paper. I know that paper is the biggest factor when considering ink bleed, but obviously I can’t write on $ 18/​package paper all the time (especially when I’m filling up 3 – 4 100 page legal pads per week), and a dedicated pen salesperson should be able to come up with SOMETHING.

Stylus sells fine pens and desk accessories. While I was still going to the university, this store was one of my favorite places to shop. Stylus has a truly great selection of beautiful and yes, espensive pens. They are great as a treat for youself and make a fantastic gift. Most of the pens and pencils sold at Stylus look good enough for a table of an executive.
In additon to writing instruments, Stylus carries a nice selection of notebooks, journals, paper products and desk accessories such as staplers, letter openers and pen holders. If you are looking to beautify your work table or to spruce up your home office, I highly reccomend you check out Stylus.

I’m a dedicated fountain pen user, and I love this shop. I’ve spent a lot of time and money online ordering fountain pen friendly notebooks, inks and other paraphernalia from all over the world over the years: Stylus has assembled the crème of the crop in one small but stylishly appointed space. While many items have been selected with fountain pen compatibility in mind, any pen and paper lover will enjoy browsing through (and using) the high quality products. The prices, while high when compared to what you pay for standard office supply store fare, are very reasonable for what is quite literally some of the best stuff of its kind in the world. That said, there are still some inexpensive gems: for example, check out the fabulous Apica notebooks from Japan. As the previous reviewer said, the atmosphere is relaxed and the staff is friendly and knowledgeable but happy to let you browse on your own. I’m thrilled to have this top flight specialty shop right here in Edmonton!

As a writer, I am a pen and notebook junkie. It’s a fairly safe addiction, except it can sometimes cost me a lot of money. Stylus is a store I enjoy browsing, as it is packed with different kinds of pens, inks, papers, and notebooks. The items here are on the high end of things, so I have not purchased anything just yet, although a few of the smaller, less expensive notebooks have caught my eye. It is a small, bright store and the sales clerk was happy to let me quietly browse.