Founded in June 2020 by young entrepreneurs and stationery lovers Sonia Mehra Agarwal and Pulak Agarwal, Inchpaper aims to provide a full range of stationery items starting from eraser to various teaching-learning material for school, colleges, students, and parents, along with catering to the needs of working professionals and offices, at large. Currently, Inchpaper.com is delivering the products in over 50 Tier I & II cities and towns like Delhi, Mumbai, Gurugram, Noida, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Bangalore, Pune, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Indore, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Jammu, Dehradun, Surat, Patna, Ranchi, Trichy, Udaipur, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar and Chandigarh. Inchpapers aims to add new products and services regularly.
Our journey so far as entrepreneurs and the problems that we are trying to solve through Inchpaper.com
We (Sonia and Pulak) have been on the journey of being entrepreneurs for nearly two years now. Hailing from the education sector, stationery items were always of interest to both of us. Our love for stationery followed us even during our travels exploring the world. So, during the pandemic of COVID19 when parents, schools, working professionals were facing a grave challenge of buying stationery products directly from the market, Inchpaper was launched. Everyone is hesitant to step out of their homes.
Inchpaper wants to be a solution provider for all stationary requirements to each age group and aims to deliver all kinds of stationery items at the doorstep. Inchpaper provides a full range of stationery items starting from erasers, pens, activity books, whiteboards etc. to various teaching-learning material for school, colleges, students, and parents, along with catering to the needs of working professionals and offices, at large.
The founding story of Inchpaper.com
Founded by two stationery lovers, we believe that stationery shopping brings solace. Everywhere we travelled, stationery shops were always a part of their itinerary. We (Sonia and Pulak) have always been intrigued by colours, designs, patterns, concepts revolving around stationery products. This led to the birth of Inchpaper in June 2020, with a thought of spreading the wave of happiness which one experiences while shopping for stationery. We also observed that there are hardly any places online and offline, which could be a one-stop solution for all your stationery and books and where people can get a discount. Textbooks and notebooks, which are required every year by students, are not available with discounts in one place. Parents either must buy them from different places or buy them from one place without any discount. Inchpaper solves this problem for them.
One of the major challenges for us has been supply chain management. There are not very many pocket-friendly and trustworthy options available in the market. We are continuously working towards tying up with various such logistics partners to ensure timely and efficient delivery to our customers.
Unique services that Inchpaper.com offer today
The product range of Inchpaper includes all types of schools and office stationery, notebooks, textbooks of various brands, and promoters. Inchpaper is also planning to start the personalised and customised stationery. Inchpaper attends the specific needs of customers with procuring items that may not be available on the website like a schoolbook set or birthday party favours or hampers directly thru direct emails or phone calls.
One of the USP of Inchpaper is that customers get many options to select at one place while sitting at home and secondly our quick home delivery system, especially in Delhi NCR. Also, we are selling almost everything at a discounted price, and the percentage of discount ranges between 10% to 50% so that clients can feel happy and satisfied shopping from Inchpaper.
The core team that helped us to build the organisation
Our core team members have expertise in handling various aspects of e-commerce platforms. We as co-founders have been in the education sector for over a decade to understand the stationery item’s needs and requirements by parents and schools.
Our work ethos strongly advocates in walking the talk. Our top management has always believed in being hands-on with their training of the team members. Be it finalising of packaging, handling customer inquiries, complaints, or even personalised requirements, our leaders believe in being a part of each process. We constantly engage in hackathons with our team members to devise solutions for our issues. This has always helped our team to know that their suggestions are valued and are heard upon.
The most unexpected lesson in leading for growth
Over the past 2 months, the journey has been more or less smooth as far as our operations have been concerned. Our major learning has been in handling not only customers but also vendors who provide us with our stock. Ensuring that they follow our procedures of procurement has been a curve block for us. Most of these places are family-run businesses, who still follow a haphazard way of handling demands. Our team has worked tirelessly to maintain our processes along with ensuring all our vendors feel comfortable working with us.
Our milestones during as entrepreneurs
There is nothing more exhilarating than being your own boss. But with this comes an important lesson and that is to learn to be responsible for each and every action that you take. Any step that you take not only affects you but also jeopardises the livelihood of the people working for you. So being a new organisation, building trust amongst school management, staff, parents, office going people and even teachers has been one of the most important tasks for us as an organisation. Even with many years of experience to back your work, you must ensure to prove yourself time and again. One of the most rewarding outcomes from this has been the 100% renewal rate for all the contracts signed in the first year, even in the case of a pandemic.
Our plans for the Inchpaper.com
Inchpaper houses everything from basic stationery to the top of line products. Any stationery item other than the ones listed on the website can also be procured by contacting on our email id. InchPaper understands the need for perfect stationery and works relentlessly to make sure the customer receives exactly what they want. Our current and short-term goal is to increase our line of products to ensure each basic stationery item is covered across brands.
By the end of the year 2021, we aim to ensure that Inchpaper expands its services in more towns, especially tier II & III towns across India. Inchpaper also intends to venture into its personalised stationery at competitive prices.
Anytime anyone wishes to buy stationery, we want their first thought to be Inchpaper.