Originally published on July 11, 2009.
I love Post-it Notes.
It’s a habit acquired in my corporate years, when I had extremely easy access to free office supplies. The supply closet was stocked with an endless array of Post-it Notes: big ones, little ones, pop-up versions, multicolored cubes, yellow ones, neon ones, pastel ones, lined or unlined. In theory, I could have used a different style of note for every mood or presentation format….but I really wasn’t that organized.
When I opened the store, I tried to replicate this Post-it Note extravaganza. But this is one of the shockers of running your own business.
Post-it Notes cost money. A LOT of money! But you need them. You really, really do.
It doesn’t work to use whatever’s just laying around. Like scotch tap and merchandising bags. For one thing, you can never find the scotch tape when you need it. And perhaps more importantly, merchandising bags are first a foremost, merchandising bags. They look like bags, and act like bags, and in a rush, you wind up bagging a bottle of wine with your phone messages, or delivery address, or daily stocking list. This may add a charming bit of authenticity to your packaging, but it’s not so funny when you have no idea where you’re supposed to deliver those two cases of wine because the address just left the store wrapped around a bottle of Pinot Gris. Hypothetically.
At Frankly Wines, we use the Post-it 4″ x 6″ Line-Ruled Ultra Colors Notes. (That’s the official name. And the size and color matter because they’re big enough and bright enough to stand out from the usual counter clutter.) They cost $10.29/3-pack at Staples. We go through one pad a week, which works out to about $200/year including New York sales tax. For POST-IT NOTES!!!
I’m considering switching to Staples Stickies 4″ x 6″ Line-Ruled Recycled Yellow Notes. At $11.99/pack, I could whittle my annual sticky-paper outlay to $135. But the notes are really more white than yellow, which means they’ll just disappear among the clutter. So they’re nearly as useless as the merchandising bag approach.
So looks like we’ll be sticking to Post-it Notes for now. But I’m certainly not above accepting donations from those who still work in places where Post-it Notes roam free. Hypothetically.