New Daresbury firm aims to rival moonpig.com (From This Is Cheshire)

New Daresbury firm aims to rival moonpig.com

12:40pm Friday 30th October 2009

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YOUR friends and family can become the star on their own greeting cards thanks to a new company in Daresbury.

Whamoosh.com is the brainchild of John Bickley and Alan Oliver and gives customers the chance to upload images of their nearest and dearest and be added to the card of your choice.

They hope to give personalised greeting rival Moonpig.com a run for its money in the online card market by using their own face recognition technology.

“About 18 months ago we were approached by Moonpig.com to licence the technology and we almost did,” said John.

“I have a friend who ran a greetings card business and we decided to set up our own business.”

John is a former music and film executive who also launched Facetec Ltd – the company that has the licence for the face recognition technology – while Alan founded Kamrok Greetings in 1991 and supplied chains such as Birthdays and Clinton’s.

“We are looking to take personalised cards to the next level,” said John.

“Moonpig.com has created an awareness that you can personalise greetings cards.

“The UK is the biggest market for greetings cards, we spend the most greetings cards per person – the market is worth more than £1.5billion.

“If you look at the online greetings card market there is only a one per cent share of that. There is massive potential for the greetings card market.”

And the duo, whose operation is based at Daresbury Innovation Centre, are sure they are on to a winner with their card designs, even though they are setting up business during the worst recession since records began.

“People will still send greetings cards to people,” said John, adding that although no industry is recession proof, the greetings card industry is not has heavily hit as others.

The pair hope that in four years they can make £20million turnover with a 25 per cent share of the personalised market.

The website went live last week and despite the current Royal Mail strike giving them some teething problems the company is already working on alternative options to ensure its customers are not not hit by any possible future industrial action.

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