Berlin, 2nd March 2010 - DirectSmile today announced the launch of its new DirectSmile Card & Gift Shop package, providing printers with a turnkey e-commerce solution for online sales of image personalised print products to private customers. 

As an integrated package, DirectSmile Card & Gift Shop includes not only an online storefront, but also incorporates award-winning DirectSmile image personalisation and variable data printing capabilities. Because of this, shop-owners are able to prepare documents, create personalised images, generate previews, process orders - including payment - and print the ordered items.

Designed for applications including photo-products, cards, calendars, mugs, t-shirts, mouse mats and other personalised gift items, DirectSmile Card & Gift Shop provides business-owners with a very quick start-up - often within the same day - thanks to easy installation and a pre-stocked shop. Using the new DirectSmile solution, printers can capitalise on a growing and profitable new revenue stream, selling directly to private customers.

To maximise all sales opportunities for their personalisation business, printers can rely on highly efficient workflows from the new DirectSmile system. To achieve this, particular attention has been paid to easy administration of all articles within the shop, and the necessary resources, such as documents and images, for personalisation. Shop-owners are able to create new products simply by combining any document with any personalised image. In addition, the automated generation of product images ensures fast and easy set up of the shop.

With photo gifts becoming increasingly popular in the business-to-consumer market, DirectSmile Card & Gift Shop ensures that shop owners can capitalise on this lucrative market. To create highly individual gifts, customers can upload their own photos and edit them online, utilising tools including effect filters, image cropping and picture frames. Even the combination of customer photos and image personalisation is possible within the DirectSmile solution.

A key principle of DirectSmile's Card & Gift Shop, is to provide customers with complete product assurance.  When a shopper processes their order, the DirectSmile system generates an online preview using the same layout that's used to print the final job. This not only means less maintenance for the host business, but that customers also get exactly what they order.

From one single order to using large databases, DirectSmile Card & Gift Shop provides the capability to service both the business-to-consumer and business-to-business (B2B) markets. For B2B customers, the order and production of personalised applications including business cards, or brochures, are both streamlined and hassle-free.

Fully customisable, DirectSmile allows shop owners to brand their Card & Gift Shop in their own livery. Thanks to a built-in editor function, they can quickly refresh colours and styles and change product groups within minutes. In addition, DirectSmile Card &Gift Shop offers the capability to host multiple languages.

For businesses that wish to extend or further target their Card & Gift Shop offering, DirectSmile enables users to create additional sub-shops, with the ability for each sub-shop to feature different branding, messaging and products. The sub-shop capability ensures that DirectSmile users can plan for the future and successfully manage positive business growth.

Axel Marciniak, Managing Director of DirectSmile comments, "We have developed our Card & Gift Shop solution to enable printers to access this lucrative market, quickly and easily - utilising an image personalisation technology that they know and trust. We believe that the opportunity this market presents is significant, and that our solution is ideally suited to exploit its potential."