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My previous article,
The Story of Smilers Photostamps, put into
context the development of photostamps world-wide.
It gave a broad overview of this relatively
new postal product that has been made possible
by the advancement of computer and printing
technologies. This follow-up article
reveals the background to the vending of
Instant Smilers during the period 29 October
2001 to 31 January 2002.
Background
Royal Mail, in conjunction with
Snap Digital Imaging adapted the software
in photo booths within six Post Offices
across the nation to produce photostamps
instantly.
Royal Mail
chose Snap Digital Imaging as their partner
in these trials because they are the world’s
second biggest photo booth operators, with
a proven record of accomplishment for innovation.
They also already have their equipment sited
in all main UK Post Offices, many shopping
centres, universities and multiple retailers,
so the basic infrastructure for such a project
was in place.
Trial
Locations
The locations for the trial were
the Post Offices sited at Castle Gallery
Bristol, St. Andrews Street
Cambridge, High Street Canterbury, St. James’s Centre, Edinburgh, William IV Street
(Trafalgar Square) London and Spring Gardens Manchester.
Each photo
booth bore a poster and three adhesive labels
publicising the additional stamp service,
using phrases such as ‘your photo on a sheet
of stamps’, ‘ready in under a minute’ and
‘send them a smile’. The first two utilised
the Christmas design and the third one of
the Smiles stamp designs.
The
Process
To take part in the trial, a customer
entered one of the adapted photo booths,
pulling the curtain across to maintain their
privacy and to exclude extraneous light
that might have spoilt the image. They then
adjusted the corkscrew seat to the correct
level ensuring that, regardless of their
height, they had an acceptable, well balanced
image.
Next came
choosing the Smilers option on the colour
touch-screen, paying by cash or credit card
and selecting the design of stamp sheet
required from two options (first class Smiles
Greetings stamps or the Smilers? For Christmas
(first class Father Christmas) stamps. The
Christmas design was, not surprisingly,
withdrawn as an option on 24 December 2001.
Customers
then posed for four digital photo images,
selecting their favourite one for the stamps,
and finally took a printed receipt to the
counter to collect their instantly generated
sheets.
Receipts
The receipts were a collectible
in their own right because they included
a photograph of the customer, as used on
the photostamps to verify that they were
the correct person to hand the printed sheet
to. I am unsure as to whether the
receipt was then handed back to the customer
following verification, but can only assume
that it was. The receipt bore a unique
reference number that also appeared on the
printed Instant Smilers? sheet.
Sight of
one of these receipts would enable it to
be illustrated in a future update, if any
visitor can assist. (I would also
welcome ownership of one of the receipts
and vended stamp sheets if any visitor is
willing to sell me one, please!)
Product
Pricing and Sales
The
price of taking part in this trial came
to £7.50 for ten stamps. This
is around the same cost as the non-vended
photostamps ordered from Royal Mail Tallents
House, Edinburgh. Take-up of the vended
sheets from each location was apparently
‘negligible’.
Free
Sheets
At the ATEI 2002 trade show at
Earl’s Court, London in late January, Snap
Digital had a stand from where they demonstrated
to visitors the potential of the photostamps
product using the Father Christmas first
class stamp design. These were given to
customers in exchange for their company
contact details.
Roll-out
Plans
The cost of printers behind Post
Office counters proved too expensive during
the trial (several thousand pounds
each). It had, therefore, been intended
to use a Wireless Local Area Network (phone
line!) to relay the digitally taken image
to Snap Digital’s production facility in
Buckinghamshire. From there, the sheets
would have been printed and despatched to
the customer by mail.
The ability
to do this would have involved the use of
a touch-screen in the photo booth from where
customers could touch a virtual keyboard
and type in their requirements, address
details and make payment by debit or credit
card. A major advantage of this change
of process meant that sales were no longer
restricted to Post Offices, enabling Snap
Digital’s network of other outlets to be
fully utilised.
The proposed
remote printing process had a further benefit,
namely the control of blank stamp stocks,
which would rest with Snap Digital and Royal
Mail. This would help ensure that
‘inappropriate’ images were never produced
and affixed to items of mail. Incidentally,
most countries that have adopted photostamps
include terms and conditions about what
may or may not be sent in as a photograph.
The local police force is invariably
mentioned should ‘suspect' images be submitted!
Plug-Pulled
The project had reached an advanced
stage when Royal Mail, for whatever reason,
made a business decision not to proceed.
So, unfortunately, for now at least,
the Instant Smilers project has been shelved.
Let’s hope that with the apparent
commitment to the Smilers Generic Sheets
and the advertising campaigns underway in
magazines such as TV Times for non-vended photo stamps, that
we shall see the eventual resurrection of
this interesting project.
Imagery
 The
photobooth machine (large file)
Poster 1 affixed
to machine (large file)
Poster 2 affixed
to machine (large file)
Poster 3 affixed
to machine (large file)
Update
- June 2003
The current range of Smilers sheets
were available through the Snap Digital
machines from Monday 2 June, 2003 - look
out for the machines in post offices, shops,etc.
Price £15. I asked for a list of the
machine locations and was told there were
'hundreds', including Safeway's supermarkets.
(Unpublished.
Written 2003)
Page
Version: 1.1, 2012. All material Copyright ©
2000-Date Glenn H Morgan FRPSL.
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