56 AUTUMN//WINTER 2017 STATIONERY BIZ SMALL BUSINESS FOCUS: AUSTIN & CO Describe Austin & Co to our readers We are a small independent card and stationery shop in Great Malvern, Worcestershire on the slopes of the Malvern Hills. It is very much an extension of the owner’s personality who has used his lifetime love of stationery and travel to curate a collection of design-led stationery items that would previously have involved a visit to a larger retail centre such as Worcester or Cheltenham. Tell us about what you did before Austin & Co I worked in records management and research. This included a spell in the Diplomatic Service, gaining my librarian credentials in medical and academic libraries before going on to develop a career as a business researcher at Mars Confectionery, WHSmith, and finally a number of leading UK corporate law firms. What made you decide to set up shop and when did you open? The shop opened in 2011. For the previous couple of years I had been selling greeting cards on markets and car boots to supplement my income after the 2008 credit crunch. In 2008, the law firms I worked for were some of the first to be hit by the downturn. When the work dried up there I bought a job lot of cards off ebay, a wallpaper paste table from Homebase and started on a circuit of car boot sales around the West Midlands. Why stationery? Why Malvern? Stationery was among my first pocket money purchases and was always at the top of my Christmas list. I grew up in Worcester in the 1970s and my stationery mecca was AO Jones: four floors filled to the brim with stationery. It was my sweetshop. I did consider opening in Worcester but the saturation of card shops and the lack of the ‘right shop in the right place’ meant I cast my net further afield. Malvern was my summer holiday playground as a kid so I knew it well. There was a gap in the market and the ideal premises were there. How has your previous experience helped you run your store? My previous work experience as a librarian helps behind the scenes. Research still forms part of the job. When looking into new trends, understanding Boolean logic helps you to search the internet more effectively. Knowing how keywords work goes someway into what I post and how often on social media. But the best experience was from my time on car boot markets. I learnt how to sell, negotiate, understand the tax system, deal with wholesalers, and how to grow a relationship with the public and my customers. What makes Austin & Co different from other indie stores? The most obvious difference is that the owner is male. Looking at who attends the trade shows, who most of the suppliers are, and who actually runs an independent card and stationery shop, it is a heavily female-dominated We speak to independent stationery boutique owner SEAN AUSTIN