An Insight into VistaPrint Rubber Stamps

With more than 12 million customers world wide, VistaPrint are a large and successful company offering a wide range of services including the sale of 'off the shelf', customized or customer designed rubber stamps.

In this interview we talk to Josh Berg, Senior Product Marketing Associate and resident stamp expert at VistaPrint about their rubber stamp business, how the stamps are used and about the overall rubber stamp market.

How long have VistaPrint been selling rubber stamps?

We have been selling stamps since we made them available on all of our websites in 2006. Since then we have gotten a great response and have expanded the designs, options, and sizes. Initially the stamps were aimed at small businesses that were looking to stamp letters, contracts, letters, etc, but one of the defining characteristics of VistaPrint has been to give customers the ability to customize their products in any way, shape or form. Given that ability, people have designed and used our stamps for all kinds of applications, including crafts and scrapbooks. And we have done what we can to reach out to this market and include designs and flexibility as a result.

What are the developments and trends that you have seen during this time?

The stamp market really has changed, and I think that’s as a result of the growing options that customers now have. A rubber stamp used to be something that people would only use for putting their return address label on an envelope. But now they are being used for all kinds of applications, both for business and arts and crafts. We’ve had different kinds of stamps come online over the years, including signature stamps, holiday stamps, thank you stamps, and other custom messaging. Truly the customers are limited only by their imagination. But I think that overall the trend has been that more and more customers are willing to design and customize their own stamps, for whatever their needs, and use them more frequently. It’s definitely become a very popular option on a number of levels. The ease of getting stamps has also increased, so people are more apt to use them as an option. What was once a very standard, rigid product has become much more personal.

Who are your rubber stamp customers?

I would say that they are mostly broken up into two different groups. The first group is the small business who needs stamps for everything like bills and return addresses on envelopes to signature and thank you greetings. But we also have a very vast customer base that uses the stamps for crafts, scrap booking, packages and everyday use. We also have a very large holiday season stamp line that our non small business customers love. So we have a very different dynamic when it comes to our customers. They could be anyone from a mom looking to customize a stamp for the holidays to a small business owner looking to add products for its staff to make life easier.

What are your popular stamps?

I would say that the pre designed stamps that we have are probably the most popular, although most of them do require some customization either way. For example with an address stamp, customers have to choose a template that they like (font and size) and then plug in the specific text that they want to have on it. They can also choose from different colors as well. But we do have a number of customers that upload their own designs and take advantage of images and designs they already have. This is becoming a more and more popular trend as people are more Internet and computer savvy. Of course stamps that have simple messages will always be popular as well, but nowadays we find that people want to make their products unique in some way. On our site you can actually upload a logo or design and put it onto a stamp, which is a very unusual option.

In what ways are your stamps used?

Truly they are used for everything from everyday business to gifts to scrap books to photo albums. We have even had customers that used the stamp just to mark people going into a bar. One thing as a company that we have learned is that our customers are constantly finding new and creative ways to use our products, many times in ways that we would never even dream of. We are constantly soliciting feedback from our customers about how they are using our products and what we might offer or change to make it easier and more attractive for them to buy. It’s part of our process for vetting and analyzing new product ideas.

Do customers need any special skills to be able to customize a VistaPrint design?

As a company we really have tried to make it easy for our customers to make their products their own, and that has been the case with stamps. We have gone through several variations and enhancements with our online design studio, and that has given our customers more and more flexibility, but with stamps the process is easy because while there are a lot of options, there aren’t as many as there would be with say a business card. Of course it helps to have some understanding of our site but for stamps the process is pretty simple. Uploading graphics and designs has also been made much easier, so other than your own creativity and some patience, you really don’t need any special skills.

Has technology changed the way that people buy stamps?

There’s no question that technology has changed the way that people buy stamps, as well as a lot of other previously unavailable materials. For stamps specifically, not only do we give our customers the option to design and order them from the comfort of their own home, seeing the finished product before ordering, and choosing from a number of options - but they can also get them in as little as three business days if they so choose. In the past, the process would have been much more cumbersome, including going to visit a local print or stationary store, trying to convey what you wanted to a clerk then waiting for the stamp to come in. Those days, with the advent of the Internet, are long gone. Customers want more options and they want their products quickly, and that’s something we always strive to give them. There has been no exception with stamps.