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~ Ranpak ~



            YOURSURPRISE:






            SPREADING





            HAPPINESS ALL OVER




            THE WORLD WITH





            PERSONALISED GIFTS







               Text: Sanne Leenders // Photos: YourSurprise
            In 2005, YourSurprise started as an online business creating personalised songs from an
            attic room. Currently, the company is one of the largest personalisable gift businesses, with
            a native online presence in 23 countries. Everything is arranged from their headquarters in
            Zierikzee, the Netherlands. YourSurprise makes moments extra special. The company helps

            its customers to create and give personal gifts to surprise their family, friends or colleagues.
            Gerbrand Verton, owner and co-founder of YourSurprise, gives us an insight into their
            e-commerce success story.


                  ourSurprise has been growing ever since its   times and the costs are a bit higher than delivering in Europe.
                  launch in 2005, with approximately 30-40%   Volume-wise, it is not yet worthwhile to set up a facility in
             Y growth every year. The company mainly focuses   another region,” says Gerbrand.
            on B2C clients, as 90% of their customers are consumers.
            However, personalisation is becoming more and more   “We are planning to start selling in other continents as well
            appealing to B2B clients, such as Coca-Cola, Calvé   because, why not? We have arranged our online platform in
            and Milka. YourSurprise collaborated with Coca-Cola   such a way that we can quickly translate and launch a new
            on a big personalised bottles campaign for Benelux   native website. We optimised those processes years ago. A
            and Scandinavia. Currently, there are only a few   very important tip I would give entrepreneurs who are plan-
            companies in Europe that can deliver this kind of per   ning to sell cross-border is to roll-out one platform so that
            piece personalisation on such a large scale. The thing   adjustments can be made easily everywhere. Make sure it is
            that makes YourSurprise extra special is the fact that   the same and accept that it sometimes might feel a little less
            the company does everything from their headquarters   local than you would prefer. Exceptions can make further
            in Zierikzee, the Netherlands, from IT, product design,   growth more complex. Make sure that the IT foundation is
            customer service to printing/producing and distribution.  solid,” Gerbrand explains.

            Expanding to other countries                      “We have the same assortment in every country, but the
            “We not only deliver our gifts to European markets, but we   arrangement of the gifts on the website differs. Each gift in-
            also deliver them to markets such as the United States, India   cludes a development, test and production investment, so we
            and South America. Currently, we accept that the delivery   want to offer it in as many markets as possible. Smart systems







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