Specialty retailer of papers, gifts, and creative supplies with 1,000+ employees
Paper Source operates a multi-channel retail business centered on paper products, stationery, and craft supplies across physical stores and e-commerce. The company's tech stack reveals a traditional retail operations footprint—ServiceChannel for facilities management, SQL and Power BI for analytics—rather than software product development. Hiring is almost entirely sales-driven (98 of 121 open roles), with junior-heavy staffing, reflecting seasonal retail staffing needs rather than engineering-led scaling.
Notable leadership hires: Sales Lead
Paper Source is a specialty retailer founded in 1983 and headquartered in Chicago. The company sells handcrafted papers, personalized stationery, gifts, and craft supplies through physical locations and online channels. With 1,001–5,000 employees, Paper Source operates a traditional retail model focused on visual merchandising, inventory replenishment, and in-store experience. The company was acquired in May 2021 by the owner of Barnes & Noble, unifying the two businesses under single ownership. Active projects span store layout development, membership programs, enterprise orders, and ship-to-home logistics.
Paper Source uses ServiceChannel, Excel, SQL, Power BI, and Tableau for retail operations and analytics. The company also has Python, R, TensorFlow, PyTorch, and scikit-learn in its environment, indicating some data science or ML work.
Paper Source is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded there in 1983 and remains privately held under the Barnes & Noble parent company following a May 2021 acquisition.
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