Personalized stores are one of the most unique and fulfilling ways to create a fantastic experience for your customers.
Why is that?
Think about all the different kinds of regular and generic products people buy. Now think of a unique product that is for them.
Which one is more memorable and unique to the user?
You've probably guessed unique products because unique products have a chance of building a stronger brand while keeping competition lower.
There are many other ways personalized stores can take your business to a new level.
So here are 15 personalized stores we've found to be highly successful, and we'll take a look at why that is for each of them.
The list of 15 personalized store examples
I've gathered 15 successful personalized stores doing something unique that you can learn from!
Let's dive in with the first one now.
Important reminder: These examples are intended to inspire creativity and innovation in building your own brand.
While it can be helpful to learn from successful businesses, it is essential to avoid simply copying their strategies and ideas. Instead, strive to create a unique brand that sets your business apart and resonates with your target audience.
1. Craft & Oak
"Pay tribute to your favorite city, revisit unique travel spots, immortalize a place where something extraordinary happened, or create an incredible piece of art" is Craft & Oak's mission in designing beautiful and detailed maps for their customers.
It's an excellent look at designing locations people love visiting or what to visit. This location can have special meanings in what they love while being a great decoration to show off.
What can you learn from this store?
Maps can be an ordinary tool used for traveling, but since Craft & oak are using them as art, it holds a more special place of these locations. They're essentially selling memories of classes a customer has been to or dreams of where they like to go someday.
When creating a personalized product, allow the customer to hold a particular emotion attached to it. It can look incredible or beautiful and significant in how your customers want to live their lives.
2. PawArts
PawArts is known best for selling personalized shirts with your dog on them.
Their customers send them a photo of their dog, and they add a custom graphic to it to fit the dog’s personality.
What can you learn from this store?
Focus on doing well on one thing
While you can personalize various products like PawArts, it can be best to focus on one personalized development and excel at it better than anyone else.
Being known for one thing will be better than being known as mediocre with many things.
3. Just Buttons
Just as the store name suggests, it's all buttons!
Not just any buttons, though, but many different kinds you can all be personalized to suit the customer's needs. They have also been venturing into banner designs and
What can you learn from this store?
Be more environmentally friendly
While Just Buttons focus solely on buttons, they want to become the most economically friendly for brands and people alike.
The economic means supporting like-minded nonprofits or charities that can help support this is. Another idea is to work together with other businesses that love to share buttons. Examples have been with apparel, collectors of miniature art, and stickers.
Now let's look at the common problems these businesses deal with and how they overcome them.
4. Turned Yellow
Turned Yellow started with artists with the incredible talent of recreating the Simpsons' beloved and familiar style has found a way to create unique art for their customers.
It's quite the gift for all those who enjoy the art style and can see themselves on one of their favorite tv shows.
What can you learn from this store?
Have an interactive ordering system for custom orders
Turned Yellow has an excellent way of displaying its settings for an order. You can easily toggle what you want.
They design in a way that fits their visual brand nicely and something you can keep in mind to create a similar experience for your customers.
5. Photo Moon Lamp
Photo Moon Lamp features a creative and personal way to show something you love dearly and have it bright up the whole room! It's pretty fitting for your favorite memory.
The idea is simple by featuring a photo in lighting products that illuminate a whole room. It's simple and effective that has practically beyond its image.
What can you learn from this store?
Have a variety of different products that all align with the same brand
When you look through Photo Moon Lamp's catalog of products, they all have a similar look and feel. They're different enough to give options to find the one that suits someone's need perfectly.
When you're selling a product, be sure to think of ways to provide a different variation. While one product may not be for everyone, having several variants can.
6. Snap Fish
Snap Fish knows people love photos! They connect with others and tell stories within themselves. That's why they want to put them on so many different products to show off to others and remember it.
With so many different products, the one that stands out as something cool is how they design their face masks with photos. They take pride in offering available products that you can rely on and sharing your personality with them.
What can you learn from this store?
Have a FAQ page or on the product page
A FAQ page (frequently asked questions) is helpful for complicated products such as something like face masks. Many health concerns need to state o their website and how to care for them, so it works every time you use them.
As you're selling your products, you'll probably encounter many questions, and these can be the same every time.
Having a FAQ allows your visitors to answer their questions without asking you quickly. Also, if they still ask you these questions, you can always send them to it!
7. Iron and Grain Leather
A family from Florida created leather products as a hobby and transformed it into a business creating personalized products out of leather material called Iron and Grain Leather.
The story is excellent because this is the beginning of a great product idea anyone with the resources can start.
When you have a fun, personalized product like Leather Valet trays engraved in the leather, it makes it worthwhile to sell.
What can you learn from this store?
Have a to-order note in the product description
Giving instructions on what the customer should do when they order helps complete the purchase. Keep it clear and concise, and maybe add your branding flair to it as well if you like.
8. JoJosReticules
A clever and neat idea JoJoReticules does custom folded book art with words and names created from an old-time book. It's elegant and gives an incredible 'wow factor' because of how detailed the outcome looks!
What can you learn from this store?
Go into detail about the description of the product
She goes into great detail about finding the right book to give an authentic experience. You can even request a specific book as well. Her attention to detail in this handmade custom work feels so much more special.
You can do this by discussing your effort to find suitable materials or products that perfectly capture what your audience would love to hear.
9. PrintedTP
As you may have guessed from their home page, PrintedTP prints images on toilet paper. It's quite a simple idea with endless potential for what you can use it for. Politicians? Your neighbor? Your boss? PrintedTP has the option for you.
What can you learn from this store?
Invoke an emotion in the products such as humor
Their subtle use of humor is fascinating. It's not typical in your face or throwing out tons of jokes. It's the idea that sells itself. There's not a whole introduction because the product's humor is self-explanatory.
When creating emotion for your product, look at what the graphics and imagery can help bring to life so you don't have to introduce yourself every time.
10. Cheap Bobbleheads
An old classic that is fun to have on a bookshelf, car dashboard, or right in the office.
Bobbleheads make many people's moods better, seeing a familiar face moving about.
To add a personalized experience makes it alive and makes anyone into a more humorous and lively version of themselves!
What can you learn from this store?
Show customer satisfaction and product accuracy through images on your product page
It builds reassurance to let the customer know what exactly their getting and heat quality.
Once they see just how good your product is, they can imagine how good their image will be as well. Once the customer does, they know ordering from you will be a positive experience.
11. Fresh Retro Gallery
Fresh Retro Gallery creates family trees products you can fill out with your info to visualize your family. There are many ways you can go about it too, and it doesn't even have to be your own family!
What can you learn from this store?
Incentivize sharing using the product with others
Not only is this a great product to share with your family, but it's also a fun activity you can do with them!
The ability to actively complete with others will create a unique experience and learn more about themselves and their family. Once it's finished, it's not a great remembrance to hang up and appreciate for years to come.
12. Define Design 11
It started with a small family wanting to share their love of creating great prints with loved ones. Simple labels for candles, cards, images, and other gifts made their success obtainable by personalizing them for every order.
It fulfills peaceful home gifts that allow their audience to identify if their products are for them. It's no wonder this brand features in so many home goods blogs!
What can you learn from this store?
Have an effective refund and exchange policy
Define Design 11 has an effective refund and exchange policy that every store should learn from.
Not only do they handle returns for their customer's benefit, but they have a strategy to make sure the customer is happy as much as possible.
13. Dayspring Pens
Dayspring Pens is all about personalizing pens for various uses, as the name suggests. They also have pens of all kinds, from professional high-end to affordable and casual everyday use.
Their success is in branding, messages, and names you can have on their pens. The ideas are endless with engravings, foils, imprints, and emblems and can be used based on creativity.
What can you learn from this store?
Think of ways for your customers to purchase in bulk
They have an option for corporate gifts. Since pens can be luxurious and have a lot of branding opportunities, it makes sense for gift pens to use. People rarely buy just one pen, so having a bulk deal gives a lot of value to the customer.
So if you have a lot of little products, think of ways to create package deals that can be more affordable while increasing sales to your customers.
14. Just Artin Around
Just Artin Around does well is the personalized star & constellation maps. Not only is it practical to show what the stars looked like during a particular date, but they look fantastic as a decoration. It combines aspects of a personalized art print so well.
The ideas can range from birthdays, weddings, accomplishments, special events. This art print can use it for any celebration or anything that needs reminding.
What can you learn from this store?
Think of the personalized process on the product
It's easy and laid out to make it prominent. We can learn that what we want from the product are front and center.
There's no mystery what the print is about and why people love to show it off. Once you identify how to personalize your product, make it known to be proud of.
15. CaitlynMinimalist
Jewelry is one of the most prized possessions people have, and personalizing it makes sense. Personalizing names and dates on jewelry add an emotional value combined with material value.
CaitlynMinimalist is a perfect example of what personalization looks like on jewelry. By using names and dates to create an unforgettable memory, you can wear it at all times. It's a sight to behold.
What can you learn from this store?
Consider the length of time your products will be used
Think of ways to make your product have more value. Jewelry can age great because it can be a generational gift like weddings, funerals, and birthdays.
When selling a personalized product, please think of how it will look years from now. Will it be better through age? Need to replace it eventually? Add that note to it when you're marketing it.
What did we learn from these personalized stores?
- Have an emotional connection with the personalized product. Maps use locations, art can be of someone's partner. These hold unique value and gives an extra reason to care about your product.
- It can be best to focus on one personalized development and excel better than anyone else. Being known for one thing will be better than being known as mediocre with many things.
- Go beyond the products by supporting organizations and other social goods. People love supporting those who care for the community or environment. It's often an easy win/win for everyone involved and worth considering.
- Displaying the setting for an order to be simple. People don't like to think and what their one of a kind product now! Make it as easy as possible for them.
- Have a variety of different products that all align with the same brand. You may not be able to appeal to everyone with on product but your chances go up when you have more products that align with it to reach a wider audience.
- Have a FAQ page or on the product page. You'll run into the same questions from customers. To gain back your time have a page for thew commonly asked questions to help them faster while saving your mind!
- Have a to-order note in the product description. Be as straightforward as possible because anything else that can get in the way will give the customer less incentive to finish their order,
- Find the right product for the situation. Not every product has to be the same when it's personalized. This mean with the much needed care finding unique products can go a long way.
- When creating emotion for your product, look at what the graphics and imagery can help bring to life so you don't have to introduce yourself every time. This often can speak for itself so you don't have to push as hard in marketing or gaining peoples attention.
- Show customer satisfaction and product accuracy through images on your product page. A big reason people don't want to make a purchase is the lack of confidence the product will look good. By showing the end result will ease them to completing a purchase.
- Products that can be enjoyed with more people at once will always find a home - literally. This can be like puzzles, board games, activity books, anything that requires attention and can be done with others
- Have an effective refund and exchange policy. This will save a lot of headaches and money so its important to have rules that benefit your business while helping out your customers.
- If you have a lot of little products, think of ways to create package deals that can be more affordable while increasing sales to your customers. Always be thinking about giving value. THis is so you don't have to compete on price which will hurt your business in the long run.
- If you can, make the personalized process is easily seen on the product. The personalized aspect of a product must be recognizable or it's going to look like any other generic version. Putting the care to make it look nice and legible goes a long way.
- When selling a personalized product, think of how it will be used for years from now. This can be important in how you market the product as well as what it'll be used for beyond the original intention.
What are personalized stores?
Personalized stores are the stores that offer unique one of kind products their customers order specifically for them.
There's no set process on how every store creates it for their customers, but most go through a survey or an order system on their website the customers fill out and then pay at the checkout. After a certain amount of time it takes to create the product, it ships to the customer, and then they get to use and enjoy it.
While personalized stores have the advantage of being unique in a crowded competition, they also struggle with returns of products because they can't resale something so personal.
They also struggle with the process of creating the product and shipping times. To do a good job, they have to invest in the process, and it can be slow and not in an easily repeatable process as generic products can.
Personalized stores are for those who want to create an experience, and the product is a gateway to do that.
How do you find successful personalized stores?
It can be challenging to find personalized stores because they aren't as common as stores selling non-personalized products due to the challenging process.
Now you're going to have to do some searching to find them!
Luckily enough, with the power of google and online communities, it's never been easier to find them.
A common problem people search for personalized stores is the stores themselves. It would help if you focused on the products that will lead to the stores. So by searching for personalized lamp lights will be easier to find what you're looking for than searching for lamp light stores.
Another way is through online communities can be found by searching on social media groups like Facebook groups, Reddit, LinkedIn groups, and online forums of your niche.
Conclusion
As you learned from these stories, you know what you're good at and know your audience. You can create a unique selling point compared to the competition by existing amazing products!
The process is quite simple. As you see from the example, stores often started with nothing and grew into sustainable brands with so much room for creativity.
What are you waiting for? Try out the many ways, and you'll be on your way to your success!