Case Study · Curio Press

Curio Press Gave Their Stationery Customers Real-Time Design. Here Is How.

Curio Press was doing the design work their customers should have been doing themselves. Every stationery order started with an email, went through rounds of back-and-forth, and finished — if they were lucky — without a mistake. DesignNBuy changed what happened between the order button and the press.

Real-time stationery customisation

100% automated printing process

Self-service design for non-designers

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Curio Press Gave Their Stationery Customers Real-Time Design. Here Is How.

100%

Automated printing process

Every order now moves from customer design to production without manual intervention — the workflow runs itself

Increased

Printing orders and new customers

Offering real-time customisation opened Curio Press to customers who previously went elsewhere for an interactive design experience

Reduced

Operational cost and high ROI

When customers handle their own design, the internal cost per order drops — less time spent on proofs, revisions, and file preparation

Real-Time

Preview before ordering

Customers see exactly what they are getting before they place an order — reducing errors, reducing returns, and removing the approval cycle

Client Overview

Before DesignNBuy, Every Order Started With an Email. Now It Starts With the Customer.

Client

Curio Press LLC

Industry

Custom Stationery

Region

St. Louis, Missouri, United States

Business Type

B2C — women-owned, handcrafted personalised stationery for individuals and businesses. Founded 2013

Scope of Work

DesignNBuy stationery design software, real-time product personalisation, automated order-to-print workflow on Shopify

Engagement

Web-to-print implementation

The Challenge

A Manual Process That Could Not Keep Up With What Customers Expected

Curio Press LLC is a small business specialising in custom stationery — wedding invitations, business cards, event stationery, and personalised print products for customers who want something made for them specifically.

The challenge was structural. When a customer wanted a custom stationery order, the process started with the customer describing what they wanted — typeface choices, wording, layout preferences — and the Curio Press team designing it based on those instructions. If the customer had not been precise enough, or if something was lost in the description, the first draft would need revisions. Those revisions went back and forth by email until the customer approved.

That back-and-forth was the business model — and it was expensive. The Curio Press team was spending significant time designing, revising, and communicating before a single order went to production. And every hour of that time was absorbed by the business, not billed to the customer.

There was also a competitive gap. Larger stationery companies were already offering real-time online customisation — customers could design their stationery directly on the platform, see an accurate preview, and order without any back-and-forth at all. Curio Press, operating as a small business, could not match that experience. Customers who wanted to see their design before ordering had to go elsewhere.

The requirement was clear: Curio Press needed a way for customers to design their own stationery — in real time, on the storefront — without any design expertise, and without any back-and-forth with the team.

The Solution

A Self-Service Design Experience That Runs the Order Flow.

Real-Time Design on the Storefront

DesignNBuy integrated a stationery design studio directly into the Curio Press storefront. Customers can now select a product, choose a template, personalise the wording and layout, upload a logo or image, and see an accurate live preview — all without leaving the store, and without contacting the Curio Press team.

The difference this made to the customer experience was immediate. A customer who previously had to describe their vision in an email could now see it rendered on screen in real time. They could experiment, make changes, and arrive at exactly what they wanted before placing the order. No waiting for a proof. No guessing whether the team had understood the brief correctly.

Products now available for real-time online personalisation:

Personalised Note Cards & Flat Cards

Flat note cards, folded cards, and thank you cards — personalised with custom name, monogram, or logo, previewed in real time before ordering.

Notepads & Planner Pads

Personalised notepads in multiple sizes — configured with name, initial, or custom text and ordered without any back-and-forth with the team.

Business & Professional Stationery

Branded notecards, business cards, and logo-printed stationery — designed online with company name and artwork, produced to print specifications without a manual proof cycle.

From Preview to Order Without Friction

The design tool is connected to the checkout. When a customer completes their stationery design, they move directly into the order flow — no separate file submission, no approval email, no wait for a proof to come back.

The customer has already seen and approved what they are ordering. The design they confirmed in the preview is the file that goes to production. There is no gap between the customer's decision and the start of printing.

This is where the majority of the operational saving came from. The approval cycle — the emails, the revisions, the follow-ups — was not just slower for the customer. It was the primary cost on the Curio Press side. Removing it from the workflow changed how the team spent their time.

100% Automated Printing Process

With customers designing their own products and ordering in a single connected flow, the Curio Press printing process became fully automated. An order arrives with a production-ready file attached. The team does not need to prepare the file, create a proof, or communicate with the customer before production can begin.

This is what the 100% automated printing process means in practice: from the customer's confirmation at checkout to the start of production, no manual step is required.

For a small business operating without a large internal team, this changes the economics of every order. Volume can grow without a proportional increase in the labour required to process it.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

If Every Stationery Order Starts With an Email, Your Design Tool Is Not Finished.

The back-and-forth is not a process. It is a cost on every order — time your team spends on work the customer could do themselves if the platform gave them the right tools.

Your customers can design their own products. The platform needs to let them.

When customers cannot see their design in real time, someone on your team has to show it to them. That proof-and-revision cycle is not a service differentiator — it is an operational overhead. A self-service design tool moves that work to the customer, where it belongs, and removes it from your team's queue entirely.

Small businesses can now offer what large platforms offer

Real-time customisation and live product preview are no longer features reserved for enterprise print companies. A web-to-print design tool levels the playing field — a small stationery business can offer the same interactive design experience as Minted or Zazzle, without the headcount or the infrastructure.

Automation means volume without added cost

When the order flow is automated end to end, taking on more orders does not mean taking on more internal work. The design tool, the file generation, and the handoff to production run without manual intervention. Growth in orders does not require proportional growth in the team.

Why It Matters

Web-to-Print Makes the Business Model Scalable. Manual Proofing Does Not.

Self-service design removes a cost that was on every single order

Every manual proof Curio Press created before DesignNBuy was a cost with no direct revenue attached to it. When that work moves to the customer — via a design tool they can use without help — the cost disappears from the P&L and the team's time shifts toward production.

Real-time preview reduces errors before they reach production

When a customer can see exactly what they are ordering, mistakes happen before the order is placed — not after. A returned order that looked different to what the customer expected is a cost on both sides. A live preview eliminates most of those surprises at the point of design.

Competing with larger platforms is a positioning choice, not just a technology one

Customers who want real-time stationery design have options. The question is whether Curio Press is one of them. Adding a self-service design tool is not just an efficiency improvement — it is a change in who considers Curio Press as a viable option in the first place.

100% automation means the workflow is independent of team capacity

A printing process that requires manual steps at every order is bounded by the team's capacity. When the process runs automatically — design to file to production — the ceiling on order volume rises significantly without a corresponding increase in operational load.

"The software is great - it offers literally everything we need to offer customized products to our clients that they can modify and proof on their own. Their customer support is out of the world amazing!!! I had reached out to several companies that offered this product with a shopify integration and Design'N'Buy was by far the most responsive and when we went through the functionality on the demo, I was sold! It had features I wasn't expecting to be able to offer."

Alexis A., Owner & Founder

Curio Press

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Curio Press was managing every stationery order through a manual process — customers described what they wanted, the team designed it, and the resulting proofs went back and forth by email until the customer approved. This took significant time on every order and prevented Curio Press from offering the real-time customisation experience that larger competitors already provided.

Customers can now design their own stationery products directly on the Curio Press storefront — selecting templates, personalising wording and layout, uploading artwork, and previewing the finished design before placing an order. No design expertise is required, and no back-and-forth with the Curio Press team is needed for standard products.

It means that from the point a customer confirms their design and places an order, no manual step is required before production begins. The design tool produces a print-ready file, which travels with the order through the system. The Curio Press team does not need to prepare files, create proofs, or communicate with the customer before the order goes to press.

Larger stationery platforms like Minted offer real-time customisation and self-service ordering as standard. Before DesignNBuy, Curio Press could not match that experience as a small business. The stationery design software gives them the same customer-facing capability — without requiring an enterprise-scale team to operate it.

The full range of Curio Press's customisable stationery — wedding invitations, save-the-dates, business cards, branded stationery, greeting cards, announcements, and more. Customers can personalise wording, choose layouts and fonts, upload images, and preview before ordering.

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If Your Customers Are Still Waiting for a Proof, the Design Tool Is Doing Half a Job.

DesignNBuy gives stationery businesses a self-service design experience their customers can use without help — and a fully automated order-to-print workflow that scales without adding headcount.

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