If you’re looking to start your own e-commerce business to sell products, a great industry to tap into is the stationary industry. Custom notebooks and custom journals are always in high demand, as they’re extremely versatile and offer numerous personalization options. These products can include both lined and blank pages for better customization.
But how do you start a personalized notebook business?
In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know on how to make custom notebooks to sell, from finding wholesale custom notebooks to creating an e-commerce website for people to find your products.
Choose an e-commerce platform
In order to sell custom notebooks, you're first going to need to choose an e-commerce platform that allows you to sell your products online. By choosing a platform like Pietra, you'll get help during every step when it comes to creating your business. Not only can you sell your custom notebooks, but you can gain access to our sourcing marketplace and fulfillment services that allow you to create and sell personalized notebooks and ship them to your customers.
Pick a notebook style
There is a wide range of notebook styles to choose from that can be appealing to your audience, such as:
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Notepads
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Notebooks
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Notebooks without lines
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Notebooks with calendars
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Journals
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Bullet journals
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Diaries
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Subject notebooks
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Idea journals
You don’t have to pick just one type of notebook — having several styles of notebooks can help you attract a broader audience and make more sales. For example, you can market notebooks with calendars to business professionals or teachers while promoting journals or diaries to a younger audience. Starting your business with a small product offering can help you tap into the market and scale for the future.
Create custom notebooks designs
One of the most important steps in creating a custom notebook business is designing unique notebook covers and pages for your notebooks that attract buyers. At Pietra, you can find top-notch freelance designers who can take your ideas for your personalized notebooks and create one-of-a-kind designs that make you stand out in the market. Additionally, consider using recycled paper for eco-friendly designs that appeal to environmentally conscious customers.
When creating your custom notebook designs, consider making themes, such as an ocean theme, mountain theme, or animal theme. With unique artwork and themes, you can narrow your audience and promote your notebooks to your niche segment of customers.
If you’re wondering how to make a notebook, you can find custom notebook printing services that can produce your notebooks for you. With Pietra, once you and your freelance designer have finalized your custom notebook designs, you can find a supplier to produce your notebooks, which we’ll cover more in-depth in the next step.
Find a manufacturer
Finding the right supplier is a crucial part when creating a custom notebook business. As you search for notebook suppliers, it’s important to ensure they have the selection of notebook styles you’re looking for, as well as the ability to provide custom notebook printing to manufacture personalized and professional journals, including customized notebooks. You can also create a custom spiral notebook with company branding to make one-of-a-kind spiral bound notebooks.
To find the right supplier, you should sample different notebooks from different suppliers to get a sense of their quality and materials. Once you’ve chosen a supplier, you can work with them through Pietra to customize the samples you like most.
Determine your shipping and handling
Once you've finalized your designs and found a supplier, the next step is determining your shipping and handling logistics. With Pietra's Fulfillment Services, you can take advantage of our many benefits, such as two-day shipping, global shipping, inventory management, and more.
Our Fulfillment Services also provide $1 kitting and assembly, so you can ensure your brand stands out when customers receive their packages with custom inserts and packaging. With low-cost warehouse storage, you can operate your custom notebook business from anywhere in the world, as our team will take care of managing your inventory and shipping it to the doorsteps of people across the globe.
Set up your own website
Now that the logistics of your custom notebook business are complete, one of the final steps is setting up your e-commerce website. As a Pietra Creator, you’ll be able to set up shop on the Creator Marketplace that is easily configurable and can be created in a few simple clicks at no additional cost. Once your shop is live, you’ll receive your personal shop link that you can add to all of your social channels to easily sell your personalized notebooks on platforms like TikTok or Instagram.
To assist with website customization, Pietra offers free templates that can provide inspiration and customization options for your online store.
Additionally, you can also work with Pietra’s team of freelance designers to create your custom online storefront on Shopify. Shopify is another e-commerce platform that allows you to create your own e-commerce website to sell your products, which can easily integrate with Pietra’s fulfillment and supplier services.
When creating an e-commerce website for your personalized notebook business, there are some best practices to follow, such as having category pages for all of the different types of notebooks you sell to make it easier for customers to find the notebook they’re looking for. Additionally, it’s important to work with your designers to create a website that’s user-friendly, easy to navigate, and has fast page speeds to reduce bounce rates.
To help you get started, you can work with freelance designers through Pietra to design your logo, choose a brand color palette, and create branded packaging to go with your personalized notebooks. You can also customize your own notebooks by adding colors, fonts, graphics, text, borders, and photographs, or even create custom logo notebooks with company branding.
From there, you can start promoting your brand across your social channels like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Social media marketing is a great way to engage and interact with your followers, and reach a broader audience. Other ways to promote your custom notebook designs include email marketing and boosting organic traffic through SEO and blog articles.
At Pietra, we make it easy to integrate your account with social channels like Instagram Shopping and Google Shopping to gain more leads.
Start a custom notebook business with Pietra
Now that you know how to create a journal to sell and open a custom notebook business, consider ordering a personalized journal as a sample to see the quality firsthand. At Pietra, we make it easy to open your own e-commerce store and find suppliers and fulfillment service providers to produce and ship your custom journals. Learn more about how Pietra works and review Pietra pricing to open your custom notebook business today.
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