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~ Ranpak ~

YOURSURPRISE:

“UNDERSTANDING THE

CULTURES AND NEEDS

OF YOUR CUSTOMER

IS THE KEY TO

CROSS-BORDER WINNER

CATEGORY

SUCCESS” PACKAGING
2021

POWERED BY

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. The company helps its customers to create and give personal gifts to surprise
their family, friends or colleagues. We spoke with Gerbrand Verton, owner and co-founder of
YourSurprise, to present the Cross-Border Magazine Award within the category Packaging

and to talk about interesting cross-border e-commerce topics.

It is a great honour to be selected as one of the with our personalised gifts. Every moment and each recipient
winners. We always wanted to make people hap- is unique. All of our gifts can be personalised so each gift-
“py all over the world, so we were always focused giver can find the perfect gift. This is reflected in our wide
on expanding to other countries.” range of gifts for every occasion and budget. A user-friendly
website and personalisation software, high-quality production
“We help our customers make other people happy in 28 and fast delivery are also important to us.”
countries with a localised YourSurprise webshop. Customers
can make a personalised gift on our website by using their Can you tell us something about the importance of
own photo, name or text. These gifts are produced in our Gift selling cross-border within your company? And how
factory with a team of almost 400 enthusiastic gift creators, has selling cross-border helped your company grow?
and we ship them all over the world,” says Gerbrand. Gerbrand continues: “Giving a gift is a universal way of
showing your love and appreciation, so selling cross-border
What distinguishes your brand or concept from grew very naturally. Nowadays, more than 70% of our
others? turnover is coming from outside our domestic market, so this
“We love to help our customers make other people happy has been a big part of our growth.”

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