How to Start a Poster Store

You might be fond of posters and wondering how you can turn it into a business. Having your own poster store can serve both as an entertainment and income-generating machine for you. Here are some tips on how you can start your own poster store.

Posters come in many themes. Among the popular ones are movie and vintage posters, motivational and inspirational posters, and art posters. A key in starting this business is finding the best sources for your products.

If you are creative enough to design your own poster, you can contract the services of a printing company to print them for you. Investing on printing equipment will dramatically increase your startup cost so it would be wiser to have someone else print them for you.

For other posters, find any information in the poster that will identify who it originated from and contact that entity to ask if you can buy them in quantity. You can also visit bookstores and memorabilia stores and find out who supplies their posters.

Older or vintage movie posters have higher demand as collector items. These items are best fitted for online stores since you are not limited by geographical location. You or you can pay someone develop your own website and start selling collectible movie posters online. You must, however, be careful about the authenticity of the vintage poster that you are getting. You may be getting a reproduced version of the poster, which is a photographic copy of the original poster; therefore, giving your poster of little or no value at all as a collectible. Learn more about how you can spot a real vintage poster from a rip-off or imitation. There are also guides available online that list the value of the collectible poster depending on its condition.

You may also want to become an affiliate of established online poster stores like Allposters,com, wherein you get access to thousands of posters that you can sell online.

Besides selling posters, you may also want to give your customers an option to have their purchases framed. Frames give posters a classy look and are perfect for home or office decorations. In the case of movie posters, you can get them for less than $1 each from movie theaters and video stores. However, once you frame them, they become valuable pieces of art that you can resell for nice profits.

If you want to have a physical store on top of your online store, location is critical to your success like any other business. A place that has good foot traffic is the ideal location for you so you can attract people’s attention and they can easily drop by your store to browse what you have to offer.

5 Comments

  • Guillermina Martin said on December 16, 2009
    Hi! Thanks for all your information about how start a movie poster store. I have few questions for you. I am writing from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I want to open a movie poster store and I donĀ“t understand about the copyright posters. Because everybody sell posters over the world and I know they have a copyright...Then there is not problem if I reproduce them???? I am starting my own business and I need to know how to work this. Thanks very much!!! and I wait for your answer. Guillermina
  • Jawid said on March 31, 2013
    I have a question. If you place a quote on your poster how do you get around the copy right laws? Is there copy right laws if you open up a business around quotations that others have said. For example Ghandi "Be the chnage you want to see in the world" if we make a poster like that do we have to get permission to use it? Please advise. Thank you!
  • Christopher Jemison said on August 19, 2014
    how to start a poster store in Keller, TX 76244
  • alex lua said on November 17, 2014
    how to make a good ass poster
  • lehlogonolo goco said on July 31, 2015
    I am from midrand kaalfontein ext 7 my country is south Africa

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