Personalised postage ready for mailing in Finland
In Finland, a country on the cutting edge of mobile technology, the post office is coaxing customers to older forms of communication such as letters and post cards with personalised stamps.
Finns can order stamps with photos of their sweethearts, pets or other favorites, valid for use on domestic and international parcels and letters.
For Timo Henriksson, the proud owner of Pablo, a West Highland white terrier, it was an open-and-shut case.
“When I learned it was possible to put one’s own pet on stamps, then it was an obvious choice: Pablo is going to be on a stamp,” Henriksson said. “Although I did have doubts it was possible to use stamps with a picture of a dog.”
A sheet of 20 personalized stamps with a single image costs €26.50 (US$32.05). The face value of each stamp is €1.20 (US$1.45), or the minimum required on a first class domestic letter.
But in the home of Nokia, where more than 85 percent of the country’s 5.2 million residents has a mobile phone and some 1.6 billion text messages were sent last year, the post office is up against tough competition.
“What we are offering is something more permanent, something of value,” said Markku Penttinen, director of the Finnish Philately Center. “That’s what makes us different from text messaging and other mobile solutions.”
But customers will have to order the stamps online so that images can be uploaded to a post office Web site for printing.
And not everything will be accepted.
“Adult entertainment pictures of a risque nature are out, as are extreme political statements,” Penttinen told The Associated Press. “We will be particular.”
On Friday the post office had hundreds of inquiries about having stamps made in time for April Fool’s Day, on April 1, and upcoming birthdays, Penttinen said. Inquiries have also come from other European countries and the Far East.
The national post office has some 700 corporate clients that already use personalized stamps, a service that opened to businesses last May.
Last year, Finns bought 160 million postage stamps and sent 80 million postcards.
