People feel special when they get a personalized card or a “real” invitation. Email and the internet are great for a lot of things, but generally people don’t print out an email and save it like a treasure tucked away in a drawer…That’s why personalized notes will never go out of style and are even more special than ever before. What is old is new again and even better! Besides, it sure is way more fun than junk mail.
We see stationery and paper goods as the perfect platform for combining all of our favorite pieces together. We love beautiful paper, bookbinding, calligraphy and painting. Plus, it’s like getting art in your mailbox! giddy paperie’s owner and designer, Leslie, has long been a painter. From years of painting she’s discovered you can’t beat working one-on-one with a client to create the perfect piece of art to use for an announcement, invitation or even a gift. Every painting and project takes on a life of its own.
Setting up a stationery and gift shop seemed like the perfect way to share our favorite things. Eventually giddy paperie came to life after years of working with clients individually.
How did you earn your first sales? Which channels are now generating the most traffic and sales for you?
Our first sales came from friends of friends and business acquaintances. From there we grew our business through wholesale orders and social media/bloggers. The power of bloggers is incredible! If you find the right blog for your consumer, it's really powerful for sales and repeat customers. We've been amazed how working with a few bloggers and sharing on our social sites has increased our presence and sales!
Tell us about the back-end of your business. What tools and apps do you use to run your store? How do you handle shipping and fulfillment?
We invested in a template, which was one of the best business decisions we made. It made setting up our store so much easier and cleaner on the front end.
The Shopify App is crucial to us for processing sales. We are always notified on our phones and via email when we get a new order. After a brief happy dance we get things into production and mailed within 5-7 business days. If something is delayed we always contact our customer right away! Most customers are understanding and appreciate communication if something is delayed. We always try to send a thank you email to our customers as well. The Customization App is crucial for our store too and was so easy to install. Our customers can enter their monograms and initials when ordering and the information comes seamless to us!
What are your top recommendations for new ecommerce entrepreneurs?
Don't be afraid to spend money to make money, but be smart. Find the right outlets to promote your business and form relationships with shop owners, vendors and bloggers or local media. Having others speak to your products is really powerful.