Eye on Small Business: Write On, Larchmont

You have to hand it to Jackie McVicker:  In 2000, she came up with the name Write On, surely a copywriter’s dream, for her bespoke stationery shop in Larchmont.

The store’s present location on Chatsworth Avenue is its fifth in the village, said the store’s current owner, Susie Yamaguchi, who bought the business five years ago.

“Unfortunately, our previous store had a truck drive through the window, which precipitated our last move to our current location – which we love.”

An architect with no background in her current business, Yamaguchi said she “just always loved stationery and paper products.”

The store is known for high-quality custom invitations and personal stationery, with

customers coming from the Bronx, Brooklyn and even farther afield for their high-end paper and printing requirements.

Wedding invitations make up the better part of the business, with invitations typically taking a month from the initial meeting and choice of design to the final proofs. Printing and shipping can take another month, so “start early” is the message here. Bar and bat mitzvah invitations used to account for a large portion of the business, too, but post-Covid these have largely moved to paperless, said Yamaguchi. Weddings, however, are still viewed as “a life event where people want printed memories.”

All her invitations, she said, are custom:  “They are all fun and hopefully reflect the spirit of the celebration to come.”

Her stationery suppliers are primarily U.S. small printers, and Yamaguchi mentioned she had recently found a company in California that specializes in handmade papers. Write On also tries to support individual designers who have started their own businesses.

Asked about the “old-fashioned” art of letter-writing on beautiful paper, she was upbeat. People love a note on personalized stationery, she said. “Parents buy (it) for their young children to introduce them to the practice of  thank-you notes,” while young adults order during the process of college and job applications. “Who doesn’t appreciate receiving a handwritten note?”

Quizzed on the subject of online invitation suppliers like Paperless Post, Yamaguchi stressed that she thought there would always be a market for high-end paper invitations but acknowledged the interest in sustainability. She said that even with paper invitations, people were choosing to “RSVP” via email. (A recent report by Mintel indicated that around 30% to 40% of consumers in the U.S. had used a digital invitation service.)

The store is open only four days a week, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and, even then, Yamaguchi advised calling before visiting to be sure that she is there. What might seem an inconvenience does lend a sense of exclusivity to the upmarket store. Another idiosyncratic, charming touch – Yamaguchi’s three-year-old Golden Retriever, Willow, who accompanies her to work, and whose not inconsiderable bulk takes up a great deal of the compact store’s floor.

A Write On pair, you might say.

For more, call 914-834-1770.