Nancy Laboz | Founder, Owner + Operator at Parcel

When was the last time you received something memorable?

A handwritten letter?  Signed, sealed, delivered and waiting for you to break open the envelope and eagerly read and smile, laugh, cry or scowl over what was scribed on the pages?  Or a personally wrapped gift festooned with ribbon and adorned with touches that made you sad to even think about unwrapping it?

I’m talkin’ Little Women-level details, people.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

I won’t go down the path of what technology has done to those of us who sorely miss the delayed gratification, anticipation and sometimes, romance, of the analog life -- instead, I’d like to share with you a treasure in Montclair, New Jersey -- Parcel.

Found, owned and operated by Nancy Laboz, Parcel has been in business since 2003.  I discovered it many years ago as I was passing by while exploring Montclair. It’s virtually impossible to not want to venture inside.  It’s the Willy Wonka of packaging paradise. As Parcel’s website says, “Our products are a modern take on vintage hand-crafted paper goods and paper decor.”

Since my first visit, Parcel has relocated across the street to a much grander sized shop -- all the better to showcase an even larger selection of beautiful, unique and one-of-a-kind finds that Nancy picks up along, what I call, her “happy accidents”.

When you step inside Parcel, time seems to slow down.  You’re first awed by the wonder of all these beautiful treasures waiting for you to peruse and then you lose track of time while moving through every inch of the store, excited about the possible ideas unfolding before you.  You’re encouraged to open drawers, to slowly rifle through collections, to take your time and be curious. 

Often times, I find that if I’m in need of a spark, a visit to Parcel is guaranteed to provide instant inspiration -- whether it’s decorating my home for a holiday, a unique card, writing paper, vintage gift wrap and ribbon, gold foil initials or angel wings -- I take a ride to Parcel and lose myself (for just a little while) to gather up pieces of specialness for my project.

My description doesn’t do it justice.  Read on to learn about Nancy’s adventures in imagining, building and growing (in her singular way) the magic of what is Parcel.

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Tell me how Parcel got started.

I was working in the magazine industry -- specifically, Real Simple -- I was pregnant with my daughter and had recently moved to Montclair.  I was an accessories and fashion editor at the time. I wore multiple hats but one of the things I loved doing was putting together the gift guides and working with all the stationery products, beautiful papers and anything packaging related.  I’ve always had a passion for these things since childhood -- collecting boxes, putting things into boxes, stacking the boxes, files of old office supplies and receipts. I used to play store and office with all these things.  

Right before it was nearly time to go back to work from maternity leave I had a conversation with my husband, who is a record collector, about opening up a shop.  Interestingly, he told me about an ad -- it was a stationery and record store going out of business -- it was around since the 1930s. We went to the location and it opened up the floodgates for me -- while my husband was getting his records I was immersed in this world of old labels, ledgers -- really old boxes of greeting cards, tons of paper products.  I was overwhelmed and loved every minute of it. We just filled a couple of boxes and went home. I thought about it on the way home and said to myself, I need to go back and I think about this in a different way. It was sort of a crossroads for me. I was grappling with questions like: How do I go back to the magazine and balance work with a baby? How do I manage the commute and getting on the train every day?   I’d love to be closer to home.  

So, I started to go up and down the streets of Montclair -- this was in 2003 and I said to my husband, if we find a location that works, and everything falls into place then I’m going to open up a store.  It was the dead of winter and we were pacing up and down the streets -- it was grim, nothing really fit what I was looking for. My husband, meanwhile said, let’s go see if the record store (that he likes to frequent) is opened while we’re here.  It wasn’t open and there was a sign in the door so we went to the store next door who explained that the owner had a stroke and he’s not going to be reopening. My husband was really upset because the record store would no longer be available to him but we just looked at each other and thought, “Could this be it?”  

The store was really ugly but we saw through it -- there were high ceilings and the coolest thing about it was that it was a books and records store and someone had painstakingly built in all these cubbies.  I thought, this is my stationery store. We gave it a facelift and I told work three weeks before I was supposed to return from maternity leave that I wouldn’t be returning. I left my 401k! I decided to not go back and said to myself, I’m doing this.  I’m gonna figure this out and make it work. I think of it now and ask myself if I’d do the same thing and there are so many reasons to not do something like that but I didn’t allow myself to think of anything else -- I said, this is going to be it for me -- I’m going to be close to home and I’m going to do something I’m passionate about.  The fashion industry felt like it was closing in.  

I opened Parcel, unofficially, in May 2003 and officially in August 2003.  The store was really sparse when I first opened. There were all these custom books and record cubbies and I had a limited inventory -- there was a little stack of boxes, a little collection of few things here and there.  I started to realize how much I loved this category while I continued buying, collecting and amassing inventory for the store. It was a stationery store with an emphasis on packaging, presentation and beautiful little things.  That’s how the name Parcel came about because the dictionary definition is: a package, a present and a collection of things. It felt like the name covered all the possibilities of what the store is about.

It morphed very quickly.  It wasn’t realistic to be precious about it and just have beautiful little things that were eye candy.  I continued in the direction of what I wanted to do but was also mindful to listen to what people were asking for.

What was it like coming to that realization?  As a business owner myself, the idea of something versus the reality of bringing it to life can be very eye-opening.  There’s a need to consider practicalities in order for the business to be sustainable.

I come from a very practical family.  My dad is a retired physicist where things are black and white and my mom was a teacher.  I was more of a dreamer, the romantic. But in starting Parcel, it wasn’t a past time. This was me leaving my job and this is my new job and I have to make this work and I have to make money because I have a family.  This is real. I definitely had a vision but I understood the need to be realistic. I was very open to listening to ideas. I’ll definitely change and morph if things make sense. For example, I didn’t offer any custom services when I first opened.  The first thing that was asked of me was, “Oh, you’re a paper store. Can you do my 50th wedding anniversary invitation?” I wanted to say no because I wasn’t particularly interested in going that route. But I thought, here’s an opportunity for me to offer that service but how can I do it in a way that others aren’t doing it?  The entire inspiration of the shop is vintage -- the craftsmanship of an old general store, a merchant who would specialize in one thing and do it very well -- so, it threw me, the custom request, because I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing. I didn’t want to print photos on holiday cards.  

So the strategy was how can we offer custom services in a way that reflects Parcel?  What I started to do was collect old books with beautiful imagery to inspire potential designs for custom stationery. 

So, you started offering custom services?

Yes.  It was tricky.  You really can’t offer custom invitations unless you have the skills, programs and tools to produce the goods.  So, I started working with the printer who did my business cards. He does letterpress. I thought, ok, we’ll do all our custom work this way and quickly learned that that wasn’t realistic for all the custom work that people were asking for.  So, I started designing invitations myself and started to work with a freelance graphic designer until that didn’t make sense anymore and then I hired someone to join the team.  

Individuals were offering their services and little by little I pulled from those resources.

The custom invitations led to a bunch of other services.  The merchandise that I collected lent themselves to the stories we wanted to tell with the invitations. We would do shadow boxes based on an event, we would archive the memorabilia from events – it sort of lent to other services.  We took the custom invitation service to build on the other little things that made sense for Parcel. It was very organic. Some of it I kept pushing to do. One of them is our gift-wrapping service. I always imagined, when we were in the smaller store, that I’d have this beautiful table where I could pull the paper and a row of ribbons to readily choose from. Now we have that set up with the larger space.  Gift-wrapping has become as big of a service as our custom invitations -- it just happens that it’s heavier during certain times of the year versus other times. It gives me an excuse to play with all the things I love -- the paper, the ribbon, the trims -- that’s probably my favorite aspect of the business. It encompasses all the things I love about Parcel -- the tactile little bits and pieces. 

How does the gift wrapping service work?

We have a simple outline of the questions we ask and a pricing structure for what we do.  We always ask what’s the occasion. How elaborate do you want this? Favorite colors. Things we should know about the recipient -- you can get really personal.  People have given us very, very involved assignments -- for example, we’ve built little sets -- one was a farmyard around the present. It isn’t just about creasing, folding and taping paper -- it’s about bringing the package to life with personality and my fashion background was a huge benefit.  It’s styling. We take into account the customer’s tastes and use our knowledge and experience to create wonderful designs.

When you look back at the 17 years since you’ve opened Parcel what has been your biggest moment so far?  What’s been the most pivotal experience? The defining moment for the next step in Parcel’s growth?

There’s probably several but the one that comes to mind is something that’s more recent – we started making lots of decorations that we sell – everything we make is based on a vintage reference.  I’ll stumble upon something and think, we can make this in our own way! We make lots of décor mostly out of paper and our customers were very interested in it and because of the time involved the price of some designs was prohibitive because they were labor-intensive.  A bell went off along the way and I thought, maybe we can figure out a way to have the less complex designs made for us. We can still make the really special and custom ones – but how can we pull the most requested items, streamline it and have them made for us? So, we went down that road and made an investment and took it to the trade shows.  We sold a lot and got a lot of orders. The epiphany for that, for me, was careful of what you wish for when it comes to the growth of your business. I have my store and two part-time employees and my husband was helping me at that time, too. You have to be prepared for what people ask of you. You only get one chance to do it right. We had a lot of large requests we would have been able to satisfy but once you satisfy that there’s this expectation and mentality of what’s next?  What will you show us over the next three shows? It required an intense infusion of funds to get it up and running. I didn’t have the foresight, at the time, to fully realize that it might be great, the first few times, to bring all my ideas to life but if I want to maintain that next level no one cares that I have to go home and make things. They just want it delivered!

I came full circle with that experience and wound up back to making things ourselves in-house.  I got lost in trying to please the corporate mindset and it felt like I was losing what I love about this – I don’t need to be in a spreadsheet world.  Not that we were completely opposed to the idea but you can sort of phase yourself and stay connected with the bigger customers and let them know this is what we’re doing if you’re still interested.  I needed to get off the rollercoaster because it was unaffordable and most importantly it wasn’t what I wanted. I took a step back and I looked at my store and thought, I love my store. It’s my little factory, my incubator, we can test anything here with our loyal following.  It’s my happy place. It made me appreciate what I have here so much more and realized that you don’t have to be everything. You don’t have to be big to be successful. It was a lesson to be learned. It was a tough lesson.

What made it tough?

It wasn’t a failure.  It taught me the true scale of our business.  You start to get in this mindset that you have to spend to make – which can be true – you have to be really levelheaded – you can’t just scale your business because you want to.  You have to consider, are we even capable? You have to have everything in place. Also, it’s important to understand, what are your strengths? Mine are creativity and vision and it’s hard enough to run the store – the daily ins and outs, the customer service and services we offer – keeping the store beautiful and replenished and to think I’m going to be in charge of a wholesale business pleasing all kinds of people all over the world wasn’t the right thing.  

I don’t know how to clone myself very well.  Do I trust others to embrace and share the same vision?  I've seen it happen with other businesses where they’re successful as a single store and when they scale to they lose what was special about their brand, their original store.  I definitely don’t want to grow like that. We will never want to lose the special. I don’t want to start to do things in volume, cut prices, change the packaging and accommodate others and that’s when you start to chip away at the special.  We haven’t walked away from wholesale, just scaled it back. The investment of time, money and resources required can easily take away from what truly makes Parcel special. 

What inspires you?  What sparks your creativity?

I definitely have movie references.  Characters in movies. The romantic notion of the old merchant and their specialties and the care they put into wrapping their utilitarian products.  Packaging inspires me. Food. Traditions. How people spend their holidays. Lots of things. Almost everything is visual and tactile – I don’t spend a lot of time reading – which is probably why I have so many movie references. 

Tell us about how you shop?  What do you look for?

I guess I don’t call it shopping.  I’m always looking, absorbing and conjuring ways to reinterpret something.  I’m very in sync with one of my colleagues and we’re always bantering back and forth about ideas – a lot of it is original reference, usually, it’s old or from another country and usually, they’re ideas from another place and time.  I’m very resourceful. I will hoard a big tin of old beads and think there’s gotta be a time and place for me to use this. Pretty much everything I’ve hoarded we’ve tapped into. We have a basement in the store and we have aisles of material.  There are times where I’ll keep one piece of paper as a reference. Whenever I’m out and see something interesting I’ll buy it because I know I’ll find a purpose for it. I’m always shopping -- not always buying but I’m always on the lookout.  

It seems like a lot of things find you.

A lot of the time it’s really true.  I don’t always know what I’m looking for but I’ll stumble upon something and see it in a certain way.  I see potential in it. My husband and I often shop together and people will ask, do you go to antique shows?  I absolutely do not go to antique shows. Ever. We really find things in very dark places. We are unafraid. I like finding things from the source.  I don’t want something that’s been prepped and packaged pristinely for me. It’s a lot of jumble that makes sense to me. We let it all spill out in the store and let it all be open to interpretation.  We don’t want to tell people what to do with what they find in our store. It can lead to a lot of confusion.

In what way?

Often times we have people say, what would I do with that?  I don’t know what to do with that! I don’t want people to think that this is a place for artists or that you have to have a certain skill set to shop in this store.  I look at it as a place where you can do whatever you want with the materials – it should be liberating!

 We were recently the subject for a test show – a producer and film editor came to film, very intricately, Parcel and what came out of it was an absolutely wonderful video that perfectly captures what Parcel is about.  I’m really anxious to upload the video to our website – it does a good job of sharing the visual and commentary of what we are about – it’s wonderful because it can be very hard to explain, quickly, what we are. We could be so many things. 

When you think of the Amazons of the world and how we’ve evolved as consumers, how has it impacted your business?  Your customers?

 I remember an interview I did many years ago. There was a news segment on how Walmart was impacting retail and the interviewer asked what I was planning to do to compete for the holidays.  The big thing at the time was free shipping. This was right before 2008. Honestly, I didn’t think of it affecting me much at all. We don’t even sell anything that Walmart sold so we weren’t even in the same competitive zone – I certainly understood the appeal of free shipping.  However, It wasn't an apples-to-apples comparison. It’s not as though a customer will come to me and say I can get this at Walmart and they will ship it for free. Now we have Amazon, and yes, you can get everything and anything. But I still feel we offer something unique – the care and detail we place into everything we do is hard to replicate.  I don’t think we’re an island and I don’t think we’re not susceptible to the Amazons of the world. We’re in a generation of technology and getting everything faster. I’m sure we’re losing some customers as a result. However, every once in a while we get this bump where customers are saying, I want to touch and feel and see things that I buy. What’s interesting is that what people are craving from us are the tactile -- handmade paper, a waxed seal, silk ribbon, letterpress and embossed items.  We go with every wave – whether it’s typewriters, torn paper, it’s different each time – we try not to get caught up in what it is at the time because then we wind up chasing every whim. We try to be sensitive to what customers are seeking. There’s a balance between doing what we want and doing what’s relevant and desired in a way that speaks Parcel. We definitely want to acknowledge what our customers are looking for.

What’s next for you?  How will you continue to stay relevant yet still maintain the charm and core of what is Parcel?

We have recently been improving our online presence – we have an Etsy shop and a website – we want to stay relevant to the way people shop.  My colleague, Emma, focuses on making sure we’re on-brand with our photography. I’m not great with technology but I know it’s undeniable that it’s not something we can ignore – our website, Etsy, Instagram --  these things help a lot to share who we and to drive sales around the world. It’s rewarding to be able to sell to an individual in Japan and keep our specialness. Having a physical place where someone can come visit is instrumental in telling our story and purpose.  I don’t think we’d be able to move everything online – even if we were forced to scale back the size of our store it would be important to maintain even a studio that would be open for people to visit, to touch and feel. Parcel is like a concept store.

I’ve noticed on Instagram that you’ve collaborated with other designers and shops.  Are there further thoughts on doing more of this in the future?

We’re always open to partnering with like-minded businesses.  We had a makers market here at Parcel and brought in like-minded creatives to share their work. 

We’ve also had pop-up opportunities in New York City – unfortunately, many of those stores have closed – those were wonderful experiences where we were able to have a sort of shop-in-shop setup.  We collaborated with one store in Nolita – it was supposed to be for a few weeks and it wound up going for a year and a half. Those opportunities are always a win-win. With that collaboration, I went in every few weeks to replenish and fluff and met so many wonderful people through that experience.  It was a great partnership and our brands complemented each other. We’d love to open another shop but it’s hard to replicate this – the fixtures alone are hard to locate and afford – our materials are unique. There are practical aspects, too – overhead is becoming more expensive. The items are so personally collected – it’s becoming harder and harder to find.  The monster I’ve created has also become my best friend.

What’s the most important thing you want people to know about Parcel?

 It’s that thing of me trying to explain – we aren’t just a stationery store or even that we’re a vintage-inspired stationery store because it’s limiting – it’s more about the sentiments.  We’re very symbolic and sentimental and want to be an outlet for people who are looking to express themselves, who enjoy tokens and gestures. It’s about us using our imagination to keep creating beautiful things to satisfy a very finicky and fickle customer.  We like the thought of slow living and want people to enjoy Parcel – to take their time.

Ways to explore Parcel:

Address 608 Bloomfield Avenue, Montclair, New Jersey 07042 USA

Phone +1 (973) 744 7700

Email info@shopparcel.com

Website   www.shopparcel.com

Etsy www.etsy.com/shop/ShopParcel

Instagram @shopparcel