Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

No matter where you go, scrapbooking is popular.  Do you have any hobby, craft or fabric stores in your area aside form Walmart?  If you do, you might approach them when you get your ideas formalized.  You could also contact the local community college and offer an adult ed course.  If the college dose not have a building in your town, they may use the local high school as a satellite campus. 

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The older we get, the more excuses we make for not chasing after our dreams. But truth is, goals are attainable at any age.

No, there are no craft stores in my area....but there are many scrapbooker and cafter. I know a few who sell as concultants and do home parties. But there too the supplies are limited. I did research on the demographics and there are enough potential customers in the area. By the way my friend and I are attending a workshop tomorrow on starting your own bussines. Hopefuly we will be able to get more information and education then.

On the face of it I`d say you should be able to make it a success. After all it is a very popular hobby  which most of us have pursued at some time or the other.
I saw an online scrapbook, but the look and feel of a real one is very different.
Best for your venture.

Having been involved in helping retailers set up businesses the scrapbook industry for 8 years - through thick and now thin, I wouldn't touch opening a scrapbook store with a ten foot pole.  The industry has taken a TREMENDOUS down-turn in the last 3 years but we've been sliding since 2001.  The result has been a BLOOD BATH for retailers first and now manufacturers in the industry.  We have lost a TON of both.  This has been the year of the manufacturers and magazines failing.  We've already lost about 50% of all stores and have one single trade magazine left (we had 5-6 just a few years ago).  The consumer magazines are also disappearing - just this month, Memory Makers published their last issue.  Creating Keepsakes is in bankruptcy protection and closed all but one of their magazines.   Some estimate that in the end, there will only be about 600 independent scrapbook stores across the U.S.  There were 3,000+ at one point.  Look at what the big box stores are doing - many are shrinking their scrapbook sections - that should tell you something right there.  Walmart only stocks what sells....

Why is the scrapbook industry is such a mess?

• No marketing by the industry - we assumed everyone who was going to scrap IS scrapping but we were SO WRONG.  We stopped catering to newbies a long time ago and scrapbooking looks overwhelming to many
• no high ticket items.  Anything that is more than paper and embellishments gets dumped right into the big box stores.  Provo Craft is the WORST!  They just got retailers all excited about their new Gypsy tool at CHA-Summer and then immediately announced that Michaels would get it exclusively for 30 days.  Well, those 30 days are right at the start of the holiday shopping period so by the time small retailers get it - who cares.  They did the same with the Cricut.  They delayed shipment for 9 months and then sent them all to big box stores to retail them at same price retailers had pre-ordered them at WHOLESALE. 
  
• It takes a LOT of paper (at less than a dollar a sheet) to pay the bills and thanks to the lack of big ticket items, that's all you're about left with.  Run the math - it rarely works - especially when you're trying to divide profit between TWO people. 
  
• Digital scrapbooking - HUGE disruption.  Many, many, many scrappers left to go digital.  Retailers have their heads in the sand about this, but it's a fact.  Scrappers haven't quit scrapping, many have changed the way they preserve their photos and memories and traditional retailers failed to follow.  The scrapbook store of 2009 looks virtually the same as the scrapbook store of 1999, yet scrappers are VASTLYdifferent now. 
  
• supply collectors - we encouraged everyone to buy the LATEST products the minute they came out and now we've created a whole generaton of scrappers who will have enough stuff for YEARS.  Now that those new introductions have slowed dramatically, many who were just in it to collect have stopped buying.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but the market is past being saturated.  We reached that point a couple of years ago.  Now it's on the downhill slide and, frankly, while some stores are doing well, the majority are barely hanging on in this economy.  The stores that are doing well have been in business for YEARS, though, and have the customer base and knowledge to survive the major bumps OR they have invested in digital options for customers OR they have a very unique position of being in a small, scrapper-rich town and being the only game in town.  But on the whole, opening a scrapbook store is extremely risky and you will most likely lose your shirt in the end.  Unless you have a pot of money to burn, I would find something else.

Crop events or week-end retailing might be a better way to start.  There is less risk because you are an occasional one-time event.  If you build a good local following, then you can jump into a store.  But I would never start with a store.   I wouldn't even open an online store - there are way too many of those, too, and your best and most loyal customers are always going to be found in your backyard.

~Kim

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