The US market for stationery products reached almost 6 billion in 2022. Stationery shops are a type of retail business that provide essential products to customers, like writing utensils, envelopes, and planners. Are you curious how to start a stationery store? Keep reading to discover critical actionable steps and the policies to include in your stationery shop insurance.
The price to start a stationery shop will vary. You can start a stationery shop for as low as a few thousand dollars, but it will take $25,000 or more on average. Below are some costs to consider when figuring out your business’s financials.
| Stationery Shop Expense | Cost |
|---|---|
| Business License | $100-$1,000 |
| Creating a website | $0-$2,000 |
| Starting product inventory | $4,000-$6,000 |
| Insurance coverage | $600-$3,009 |
| Employee salary | $20,000-$40,000 |
| Building rental | $1,000-$4,000 |
The next sections will describe the steps to follow when learning how to start a stationery shop. You must make a plan for your business that includes fulfilling registration requirements, finding your target customer, and hiring employees.
Your DBA or “doing business as” name is what customers will know you by. Business names are hard to change once they are officially decided, so you should put a lot of thought into yours.
Simple name: You should choose a simple name for your business that is easy to spell and remember. Make it easy for your customers to look you up online and share the name with their friends.
Appeal to your strengths: Your business name should effectively communicate your brand's philosophy. For example, if you want to emphasize the quick shopping experience, your name could be “Stationery Express.”
Be unique within reason: Pay attention to what other similar businesses are called. Your name should distinguish you from the competition in a good way. With that said, your business name shouldn’t be too out there. Ensure that customers know what kind of store you are trying to be and the benefits you offer just from your name.
Think of the future: Your business name should be something that can be equally applied whether you are just starting or have expanded greatly. Don’t pick a name that limits what your future could hold.
As soon as you start providing services to customers under your DBA name instead of your legal name, you are often required to register the business with your state. You can register your business as different legal entities offering unique advantages.
| Business Structure | Advantages | Disadvantages |
|---|---|---|
| Corporation | Can raise capital through issuing stocks, separates you from legal liability, | More regulations, double taxation |
| Sole proprietorship | Pass-through taxation means you avoid corporate double taxation, you are the sole owner, easy to start. | Personally liable for business debts, harder to raise capital |
| Limited liability company | Pass-through taxation and liability protection similar to corporate structure | Higher starting costs than a sole proprietorship, hard to transfer ownership, can’t issue stocks |
Your employer identification number (EIN) is crucial for starting a business bank account or hiring employees. The IRS issues this number and makes it easier for you and your employees when tax time rolls around. The steps for getting your EIN include:
Register your business legally.
Obtain a tax ID and use your social security number to complete the application.
Appling through the IRS website or by mail or fax.
Provide information to the IRS, like your business address, name, and phone number.
Complete the application by answering questions about taxes, your industry, and your products or services.
Submit the application and obtain your EIN confirmation instantly online or by mail.
Now that you have a clear idea of what your business will be called and its cost; it's time to figure out the market demographic you want to appeal to. You want to choose a focus or angle for your business because you cannot possibly appeal to everyone. Some customers you might focus on include:
Students: These customers will require stationery products like writing utensils and planners to help them complete assignments given by the school.
Organized professionals: Certain professions, like wedding planners, business assistants, and bookkeepers, use stationery products to keep them organized in their work.
Artists and craftsmen: While people frequently use electronic devices instead of paper, many still prefer the physical way. Many journalists, sketchers, and painters often prefer to use paper at some point in their process.
Older adults: Older generations dislike the change that has come with the digital revolution and still generally prefer to write and send letters over emails and text messages.
Keep your target customer in mind when deciding which products to offer at your stationery shop.
Letters and envelopes: Letters are still used by many Americans for special occasions, business relationships, and sending personalized messages.
Business cards: Business cards remain a staple among business owners and employees. They are an excellent way to network with potential clients and promote yourself through your business card’s unique design.
Posters: The humble poster board is still used often in business meetings, crafts, and school projects despite the digital alternatives available.
Accessories: You could offer accessories like rulers, sticky notes, highlighters, and stationery cases.
Planners: People use planners to help them better keep track of time and create healthy writing habits. Studies have shown that writing something down physically over typing is more effective for memorization because of how our brains work.
Just because you are a stationery shop that sells physical products doesn’t mean you should neglect the advantages of being digitally connected. Take full advantage of social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, and more to ensure your business is always part of the conversation. On Facebook, you can advertise products on their marketplace and create a group for your customers to know what you are up to.
You can use Instagram to publish inviting photos and stories about your business to entice customers to visit. TikTok focuses on short-form video content. You could produce short video clips of your store and customer interactions that have the potential to be seen by millions. TikTok has over 70 million active users in the US.
Another piece to consider when starting your stationery store is its location. Some tips for finding a location are listed below:
Go where your customers are: If you want to appeal to students, consider finding a location on a college campus or near a school. Make it easier for your customers to find you.
Busy areas: Your physical store will significantly benefit from places with high-foot traffic. These can be downtown areas with many shops, malls, or near a place where many people work.
Consider your budget: Don’t forget to factor in the amount you will pay for a location in rent. Typically more attractive locations will cost more.
Work from home: You could decide to eschew renting a building altogether and start a business from home. While missing out on potential foot traffic, you could save on overhead costs by selling products to people you know or reaching new clients online.
Consider hiring employees as your business operations ramp up. You can use employees to delegate tasks, which allows you to increase the earning potential of your business.
Cashiers: A cashier can help ring out customers and reduce the lines in your shop. If you are in a position where your store's lines are too long, customers may leave because they don’t want to wait.
Customer service employees: You should hire sales associates to provide customer care. They can answer questions that someone might have and help encourage them to make the purchase. If a customer understands the benefits of your products, they are more likely to make a purchase. A big reason customers will often state for refusing to buy with a business is terrible customer service.
Bookkeepers: Your bookkeeper will help you track business expenses. You can have them produce reports to get a solid snapshot of your business's performance. Bookkeepers also manage payroll, pay business debts, and manage invoices.
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Do you wonder how to start an online stationery store? An online stationery store has many advantages, like reducing business costs and setting your own hours. Below are some steps to take when starting an online stationery business.
The first step when learning how to start a stationery business online is to create your own website. A website allows customers to read reviews, purchase products, and interact with your business directly. The steps for creating a website include:
Buy a domain name: The first step in creating a website is securing your business’s domain name. Try to find a domain name that matches your business's name. You can buy a domain name from many places, including Google or a domain registrar.
Choose a web host: A web host like Godaddy will store the data for your site and customers to access your site by controlling web traffic.
Design your site: You can use a service like Wix or Squarespace to design your website from a template. Alternatively, you can hire a web designer to help you implement your unique ideas.
Publish content: Your website should host content that attracts potential customers and helps increase your brand’s awareness. You can include a blog about your business or create articles answering common questions people have about stationery topics.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an excellent way to generate high-quality organic traffic. By publishing content on your website that targets keywords, you can ensure people searching for stationery-related topics have a higher chance of finding you. Target keywords and create content that addresses your customer's search intent. The benefits of having an SEO strategy for your website include:
Customers who find you are more likely to make purchases
Makes you seem trustworthy if you are ranking highly on search engines like Google or Bing
Gives you the edge over competitors who aren’t ranking as highly as you are
Saves you money on buying ads
Sometimes, an instinct of new business owners is to try to sell products to their customers for the lowest price possible. Sometimes owners become so narrowly focused on things like the price that they forget that price isn’t everything to every customer. Don’t be afraid to sell products at a higher price to the right customer. If the customer sees you are charging a higher price, they can assume you are offering them a higher benefit.
By offering your customer quality products, you establish yourself as a credible business that cares about its products. You need to give the customer a reason to come back to you. If a customer saves money on purchasing a cheaper product but ultimately is not satisfied with the end result, they might not choose to come back. Using quality products naturally leads to more customer loyalty because they will remember your products' reliability. You need to establish your business as one that takes pride in the quality of your stationery products.
Promoting your brand and generating traffic to your website is the key to success in the online space. There are many forms of online advertising to consider investing in.
| Advertising method | Benefits | Difficulties |
|---|---|---|
| Pay-per-click ads | Increase traffic quickly, cost-effective, easy to make changes | Requires time to set up, doesn’t guarantee sales. |
| Influencer marketing | Access to a popular influencer’s audience, appeals to a younger audience, instant credibility. | Tying your reputation to an internet personality can backfire if they get into a scandal. |
| Email marketing | High return on investment, reach customers directly with personal messages. | Emails may be caught by spam filters or ignored. |
While your website should be your main focus when starting out, you can also sell products on different E-commerce websites. The advantage of selling products on these sites is access to a built-in audience.
| E-commerce site | Benefits | Monthly active users |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon | Huge audience, instant credibility, constant growth year over year | 197 million |
| Shopify | Reach a niche audience, customizable, quick to set up | 2 million |
| eBay | Huge audience, low listing fees, over 300 store categories | 100 million |
Your stationery shop must have adequate insurance protection, or you risk catastrophic costs from asset damage or lawsuits. The following insurance policies are required to protect your business and boost the income you take home instead of spending it on unexpected events.
General liability insurance protects your stationery shop from third-party claims of bodily injury, property damage, and personal injury. For a general liability policy, we recommend Thimble. They offer short-term general liability insurance backed by A-rated insurers. Thimble has sold over 125,000 policies despite only having launched in 2016. The Better Business Bureau gave Thimble an A+ score.
Your professional liability policy will protect you from professional errors and negligence claims from your customers. Hiscox is our top choice for professional liability insurance. They offer specialty insurance that is tailored perfectly to your needs. You can save money when bundling multiple insurance policies. Hiscox has an A rating from AM Best.
A commercial property insurance policy insures your physical assets from fire damage, theft, vandalism, and more. It protects your business building and products or equipment on the premises. CoverWallet is our pick for commercial property insurance. They offer a digital platform to browse policies from over ten top insurance partners like Hiscox, Traveler’s, Markel, and Chubb..Another benefit they offer is their insurance dashboard. It helps you easily track claims and policies from one convenient place.
Commercial auto insurance protects your vehicles from damage when used for work-related purposes. It also provides liability protection for vehicle accidents. For commercial auto insurance, you should choose Tivly. Tivly is an online platform featuring over 200 insurance partners. The company helps you narrow down your choices with information about your business. Tivly boasts a 4-second phone answer rate for service and an A rating from the Better Business Bureau. They have been accredited by the Better Business Bureau since 2010.
A workers’ compensation insurance policy protects your employees from the costs related to their injuries and illnesses. It pays for medical treatments, and supplements lost income if an employee misses work or performs at a reduced capacity. For your workers' comp policy, we recommend The Hartford. The Hartford benefits your employees with increased access to pharmacies and medical care. They also offer a nurse-back-to-health program that helps employees get medical access during all recovery points.
A business owner’s policy is one of the most comprehensive forms of insurance you can purchase. It combines the coverage of general liability insurance and commercial property insurance. NEXT is our choice for your stationery shop business owner’s policy. They offer affordable insurance and respond to all policy claims within 48 hours. They are online-based and give instant access to your live insurance certificate after a short quote and purchasing process. NEXT is highly rated by its customers. They boast a 4.7/5 rating from customer reviews.
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1 / 5
Use anyone except Employers. Period. They are non-transparent and shameful. After I complained long enough to warrant a call from a supervisor, the supervisor called back from a PRIVATE NUMBER (no caller ID), left a message that they are not reversing their decision (without any communication with me), and failed to leave a phone number for me to call back. She was hiding! They also fact find via email and phone calls, which is terrific for speed and communication. However, after setting a precedence of email or phone calls, they send time sensitive information via email, without any heads up... they are hoping you miss it and forfeit via expiration. Evil policies. Go elsewhere.
1 / 5
This place is an absolute joke of a company and should be ashamed of the way they conduct business. I was hurt on the job at the end of July and it took them just shy of 7 weeks to issue out a paycheck to me. Yes the amount was back dated but still. Not many have the luxury of not receiving a paycheck for almost 2 months. To top it all off, the original adjuster marked me down for the wrong state which caused a problem from the get go, I've had 3 different adjusters now since each one can't seem to figure out the simplicity of my claim. All my paperwork which includes, my job, house, and drs visits all are from the same state and city but yet some how I have been filed under a completely different state 1500 miles away. They do not answer your phone calls or emails no matter how many you leave. I've had to escalate my frustrations to the supervisors of each of these individuals in order to even get some kind of response. I've had more communication and information given to me about my claim from the customer service representatives then the actual adjusters.......... please tell me how that works?! A serious overhaul needs to happen here in order to serve your clients the way they deserve to be taken care of. 10/10 do not recommend this company to a single soul on earth
1 / 5
I have never had the displeasure of working with a more incompetent and disrespectful person in my life. I’m an injured worker and the adjuster that was assigned to my case was named Carrie Furgeson. In the past 6 weeks that I’ve been injured and out of work I have only been able to get ahold of her twice, not for lack of trying. I have left countless voicemails, countless emails, and she ignores them all. When I am finally able to get ahold of her I’m greeted with terrible customer service. She is rude, she talks over me and I’m hardly able to get a word in edgewise. She spelled my name wrong on my documents even after I spelled it for her properly countless times, this caused a whole new issue with my bank. I have bill collectors from the hospital calling me demanding payment and Carrie Furgeson won’t do a single thing to help, or to get them paid. All of my documentation is in Colorado, my job is in Colorado, my address is in Colorado, all my Dr offices and appointments have been in Colorado and Carrie still managed to hold my claim because she wasn’t sure what state she needed to file it under. It’s been 6 weeks since my Injury and my company still hasn’t received the wage paperwork to fill out so they can get me my correct wages. When she’s not ignoring me she’s answering my questions with “I don’t know” well I don’t know how she got this job, because apparently she doesn’t know anything about it. She is a disgusting morose individual inside and out and I genuinely wish her the worst in all of her future endeavors. I highly recommend you don’t use this company. Please if you are a business owner and your looking into this company please don’t use them. I’m sure they have the cheapest payment and that’s why companies use them in the first place, but you will be doing your employees a grave disservice by forcing them to venture into this absolute dumpster fire of a company. I would rate 0/5 if possible but 1 was the lowest I was allowed.
5 / 5
Their general liability insurance purchase process is simply the best online experience I've ever had in my life!
5 / 5
As long as they cover your line of business, you're literally covered! best rates, best coverage, best online experience, best professionals, can't be happier that I chose them!
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