The personalisation powerhouse: inside the YourSurprise idea factory

Nico Veenendaal, Director Business & Gifts Development at YourSurprise, on the secret of producing 55,000 unique gifts a day, and how AI is offering the customer even more control and creativity.

A humble white coffee mug – it’s cheap, versatile, useful for hot drinks and for storing pens or spare coins. But it’s boring as a gift: until, of course, it can be personalised.

The mug is the perfect vehicle for personalisation. Printed with your favourite sports team’s crest, your cat’s face or an amusing motto, it expresses your character at a glance and is perfect for carrying around the office or the home advertising your status, your loves, your hates, your loyalties. It is perhaps the archetype of mass customisation for the general public. But it was just the beginning.

“A mug is a blank canvas that gives huge personal meaning,” says Nico Veenendaal, Director Business & Gifts Development at YourSurprise. “And when you add surprises, like putting cookies or sweets in the mug, it becomes even more special.”

“Like a mug, or an umbrella, there’s so much more than the mere functionality of the product. We want to make the gift far more of an experience. It must be good quality. It must be well packed. It must be delivered on time. It must be surprising: much more than you expect.”

Dutch firm YourSurprise began as a branded mug seller in 2005 – the blanks, materials and machines provided by suppliers. Today, 20 years on, it can make and ship as many as 55,000 different gifts in one day – from kimonos to key rings, chocolate to champagne, engraved glassware – for the most part, all made and shipped from under one roof. Ninety per cent of its products go directly to the end-consumer.

“We can combine carton, paper, glass engraving – everything in-house,” says Nico. “For me it feels like working in a chocolate factory. We can do everything here; the challenge is to find the right concept. That’s been my role since I was 18: connect the product and the business – and make it work.”

YourSurprise sells a range of 3,000 individual products it can personalise, hosts websites in 28 countries across Europe and boasts a Net Promoter Score of +70 (indicating exceptional customer loyalty, high satisfaction and lots of positive word-of-mouth referrals).

So, what has changed in those 20 years?…