Vistaprint to open first UK office in Kings Cross, London

Vistaprint will open its first permanent UK office this summer after reaching agreement on a premises in Kings Cross, London.

The office will house an expanded UK country team, covering a mix of functions including analytics, marketing strategy and human resources, with the full initial staff intake expected to be in place by early July.

Vistaprint opened a smaller, temporary office opposite Regent's Park last month to lay the ground work for the main site, which will be staffed with a mix of new hires and transfers from other Vistaprint offices.

The UK is Vistaprint's second largest market by revenue and the web-to-print business said that its intention was to gain a "stronger focus and understanding of these customers' needs, whilst allowing Vistaprint to talk to UK businesses as a UK company".

Emily Shirley, marketing director at Vistaprint, said: "We are very excited to be opening a fantastic new location in the UK, which is our largest EU market. Vistaprint has already achieved great success here, but we believe that having a bricks and mortar presence will truly allow us to take our value proposition to a new level, by better understanding the needs of both existing and potential new customers.

“Vistaprint is a global company, but one that remains highly sensitive towards the different nuances and attitudes in all of our individual markets. As part of an overall strategy to have offices in key locales, our new London office demonstrates our commitment to creating better value for our UK customers and supporting UK small business by giving them access to affordable and professional marketing materials.”

However, the decision to open a London office is not a forerunner to opening or acquiring a manufacturing facility in the UK, particularly in light of the recent expansion of Vistaprint's European production capability.

"Over the very long term, anything could be possible, but this type of capacity expansion is not necessary in the foreseeable future," said Shirley. "At this time, we have enough production capacity in existing facilities to serve our growing UK customer needs."

She added: "The circumstances under which we create a production footprint in a geographic market can vary. Customer need, unique local market dynamics and ability to drive long-term returns on our investment would be at the top of the list of criteria we use to judge whether to start any major project like this."

Vistaprint, which employs more than 4,600 people and ships to more than 130 countries around the world, recently acquired Italian web-to-print business Pixartprinting and the Netherlands-based People & Print Group.