The UK rubber stamp market

Most people are not aware that the UK market for traditional rubber stamps with a separate ink pad is still very big. Every year millions of the old fashion rubber stamps are sold – but this is in the UK. In Europe the traditional rubber stamp has been replaced long time ago with self inking rubber stamps and in the Scandinavian countries only self inking rubber stamps are now being sold. There is a very good reason – quality. In the UK price has always been more important that quality where as in Scandinavia and most other European countries quality comes before price. In the UK we seem to say why pay more for a self inking rubber stamp that is guaranteed for life when we can buy a traditional rubber stamp that costs 40% less and with impressions almost unreadable and only last for a few years?  In Scandinavia and Europe business people say this self inking rubber stamp is 40% more expensive but it gives fantastic impressions and is guaranteed for life. We buy it.

Rubber stamp

In the UK business people spend lots of money on well designed and good looking documents to create a good customer impression. Now they have to stamp this good looking document so what do they do?  They use a rubber stamp where the ink pad has dried out so it is almost impossible to read the impression and it spoils the otherwise good looking document.

Often the separate ink pad is left open on the office desk which easily creates a mess and worse – the ink pad dries out. Nobody seems to notice or care. Bang – the rubber stamp hits the ink pad and bang – it hits the document. Nobody can read it.

Often documents are legally important papers where it is important for legal reasons to be able to read everything including the rubber stamp impression. Nobody think about this since in their mind the impression from a rubber stamp has no importance. History has samples that this way of thinking can be very costly.

This is why in Europe self inking rubber stamps have completely replaced the traditional rubber stamp. When you use a self inking rubber stamp you will always get very good impression and no mess if you remember to replace the ink pad as it dries out. When using a self inking rubber stamp people seem always to remember the ink pad has to be replaced when out of ink but when using a traditional rubber stamp with a separate ink pad no one think about the ink pad has to be replaced when out of ink.