MAURICEMUELLER

In 2018, I took over Print Matters! — Zurich's only physical store for independent magazines — through a successful crowdfunding campaign, and ran it as owner and sole employee for nearly three years.

What started as a pop-up concept became a permanent fixture in Zurich's Langstrasse neighbourhood: a curated space for independent print culture, with an expanded range of magazines, books, prints, and postcards, as well as a fully redesigned e-commerce website with international shipping.

Running the store meant doing everything myself — from product curation and supplier management to brand identity, content creation, and marketing. Over two years, I grew the Instagram following from 3,000 to 7,800 through consistent, editorial-style content, and built a biweekly newsletter with 2,000 subscribers that went well beyond product promotion — offering genuine value to a community of print enthusiasts. The store also became a venue for concerts, book launches, and readings, adding a cultural layer to what could have been just a retail space.

As the only store of its kind in Zurich, Print Matters! attracted regular media attention — covered by Tagesanzeiger, NZZ Bellevue, Hochparterre, and others.

THE STORE

The physical space was designed with a clear intention: to feel less like a store and more like a place worth staying in.

All furniture was custom-built from white-glazed sea pine plywood — crafted to fit the specific dimensions of the space at Hohlstrasse 9, and designed to be multifunctional, transforming seamlessly from retail space into a venue for concerts, readings, and book launches.

The layout reflected the same editorial sensibility as the product range: a spacious main area for browsing and discovery, and a cozy back room with chairs and books that invited visitors to slow down. Plants, carpets, and warm lighting gave it an apartment-like feel — deliberately far from the clinical aesthetic of typical retail.

The result was a space that people came back to not just to buy, but to spend time in. Which, for a store built around the idea that print is worth your attention, felt exactly right.

EVENTS

From the beginning, the store was conceived as more than a retail space — it was a platform for the community that independent print culture attracts.

In its first year alone, the store hosted concerts, book and magazine launches, and readings, turning a small shop in Langstrasse into a genuine cultural meeting point. Events were programmed with the same curatorial instinct as the product range: intimate, considered, and always worth showing up for.

Before the pandemic brought things to a halt, the event programme had become one of the store's most distinctive features — and one of its most effective marketing tools, consistently drawing new audiences into the space.

MARKETING

Marketing for Print Matters! meant building an audience from scratch — with no budget, no agency, and no playbook for a store that had never existed in this form before.

The biweekly newsletter grew to 2,000 subscribers and was deliberately designed to go beyond product promotion. Each issue offered editorial content tailored to the interests of a print-loving audience — recommendations, stories, and context that made it worth reading whether or not you were planning to buy something. Find an example of a full Newsletter here.

On Instagram, the focus was on informational, editorial-style content rather than straight product shots — giving people a reason to follow beyond just seeing what was in stock. That approach grew the account from 3,000 to 7,800 followers within two years. Paid promotions were used selectively during key sales periods like Christmas and Valentine's Day to amplify reach without relying on them as the primary growth driver.

The result was a loyal community that kept coming back — and a brand that felt like more than just a shop.

PRESS

Zurich's only physical store for independent magazines turned out to be a story people wanted to tell. Over five years, Print Matters! was featured across a range of Swiss media, from national newspapers to podcasts, without ever running a PR campaign. The coverage came organically, driven by the store's distinct identity and the broader conversation around print culture and independent retail.

Featured in: Tagesanzeiger, NZZ Bellevue, Hochparterre, Wingo, Tsüri, 45RPM, Persoenlich.com, Lumos, Zett, and others.

Tagesanzeiger, 12.07.2024 Diese Läden wünschen wir uns in der City zurück

Tagesanzeiger, 10.11.2021, Claudia Schmid Liebhabergeschäft im Langstrassenquartier macht dicht

Wingo, 12.07.2021 #unfiltered: Der Wingo Podcast – Folge 12 mit Maurice Müller (Inhaber Print Matters!)

NZZ Bellevue, 27.04.2020, Jocelyne Iten Maurice Müller von Print Matters!: «Erotik- und Reise-Magazine boomen – dies fehlt uns gerade ja am meisten»

Tagesanzeiger, 13.12.2019, Annik Hosmann «Es gibt nicht viele gute Magazine aus Zürich»

NZZ Bellevue, 27.02.2019, Linda Horber Zürcher Startup «Print Matters!» geht in die nächste Runde

Tsüri, 18.05.2019, Lea Keller Print-Matters-Eröffnung: «Print wird nie verschwinden»

Hochparterre, 05.06.2019, Frederic Poppenhäger Print Matters!

45RPM, 05.06.2019, Lea Keller «Print wird nie verschwinden»

Lumos, Elena Oberholzer Print is not dead – Der kleine Hype der unabhängigen Magazine

Persoenlich.com, 24.03.2019 Was Print den Leuten wirklich bedeutet

Zett, 24.07.2019, Andrea Zeller Slowing down in a world of print