The beginning

Kpop Stationery was born from a collaboration with Kpop Nara. As a growing community spot for local Kpop fans and collectors, Kpop Nara (like most of our retail customers) began to look for ways to better support the collector's community with specialized accessories and stationery for collecting. It wasn't that photocard accessories did not exist in the market. Some were underwhelming but some were actually quite good and well received by the community. However, as a retail store, there were some unique challenges.

1. Ability to create a product that is easy to display, explain and sell offline
2. Willingness to support retail customers
3. Knowledge of retail challenges
4. Economies of scale with pricing and logistics
5. Extreme focus on user experience, quality and coherent, consistent design
6. Experience on B2B

A lot of existing products met some of the criteria, but there were no brands that met all of them. Most importantly, most were designed just for D2C digital sales that when actually displayed offline, they did not have the same impact and user experience as they did online. 

So, we began! With hundreds of customer interviews offline, tens of factory searches in person, hundreds of design iterations, production growth pains, we built Kpop Stationery. 

Our focus on offline experience

Lots of our customers, even online, usually experience us first hand through our retail partners in their neighborhood and sometimes during travels to concert locations. While we love online sales, we love offline sales through our retail partners even more because you get to try out lots of different products, test it, see for yourself, touch it and feel it out! We are very focused on quality and design and that is what we do best. And our strength shines through offline, when you are able to see our products first hand. We almost feel our .com is a disservice to our products because we do not spend enough time working on making our web, pictures, and videos as good as the actual products. 

We also love coherent and functional design we chose, and it shines through when they are together. If you have seen some of our offline displays, you will know what we mean. It's like you are looking at a beautiful color pallet. 

Lastly, we do not want you to have a headache with returns. Try it out offline, right then and there when you purchase your albums and unbox them!

Retail and customer success

Selling B2B is very different from B2C (at least based on our experience) and it definitely isn't for everyone. It's a different ball game and a different setting. You have to have a very long-term focused customer success in the core of it. And it becomes even more complex because you have two customers. The retail partners who buy it from you and the end customers who actually use your products. Focus on end-users is an obvious things, you can't live without it. So let's put that as a given, since it is unavoidable. However, B2B is avoidable, its a choice and you need to want it badly.

Because we were initiated through a B2B retail partners' needs and because we shine through offline, we want it badly. We want all our retail partners' to succeed terribly well. We want our retail partners to be able to say 1) It was so rewarding to see my customers enjoy Kpop Stationery 2) It is so pleasant to work with Kpop Stationery and it give me great business as well! 

We are focused on our retail partners' success. We provide menu guides, brand assets, display suggestions, and sometimes even collaborative customized products! We do not sell to any retail partners, we first meet and greet our potential retail partners before we decide to sell our products, because we want to ensure 1) our retail partners are successful and 2) our end customers will be happy with how they meet Kpop Stationery offline. 

For retail Kpop Store owners

Would you like to find out more about how we can partner to serve your most avid collector's with the right tools, accessories, and stationery to bolster their collection? Give us a shout!