Moonpig

Moonpig is an internet-based business whose head offices are situated in London and Guernsey. The company's business model is mainly selling personalised greeting cards, flowers and gifts.

Moonpig
Private
IndustryGreeting cards
FoundedJune 3, 2000 (2000-06-03)
FounderNick Jenkins
Headquarters
London, England, United Kingdom
ParentPhotobox Group
Websitemoonpig.com

The website was launched in July 2000, and in 2007 the company was responsible for 90 percent of the online greeting card market in the United Kingdom, with nearly six million cards shipped.[1][2]

Company profile

According to founder Nick Jenkins, "Moonpig" was his nickname at school in Newport, Shropshire, hence the name of the brand.[3]

Visitors to the website can choose from a large selection of card designs and enter their own text and photos to personalise them. Visitors can also personalise a number of gifts.

The original launch of Moonpig in 2000 coincided with the collapse of the dot-com bubble, which made progress difficult at first, but Jenkins raised further investment from private investors and venture capital, and the advent of broadband and digital cameras together with news spreading by word-of-mouth meant sales steadily increased, with the first profits being made in 2005.[4] A television advertising campaign began in the United Kingdom in November 2006. 2 years and 4 months later, Moonpig received more internet traffic than other flower and gift companies in the UK.[5] By summer 2009, the company had sold cards to 2.57 million customers and its profit record was seen by The Times as "a typical curve for a successful start-up — a big, £1 million loss establishing it in its first year, negligible losses edging into negligible earnings over the next six years, and thereafter a seven-figure profit".[6]

The company was initially based in Chelsea, but is now based in Farringdon,[7] with their cards being printed in Guernsey. The business expanded into the Australian market in 2004 and, in late 2009, the business expanded its offering to include a range of flowers and custom mug designs. In spring 2010, Moonpig launched in the United States.

In July 2011, Moonpig was bought by Photobox Group, which also owns Photobox, for £120m in a cash and shares transaction.[8] Photobox has subsequently been sold to a private equity firm.

Security

In August 2013, a private developer discovered a vulnerability in the Moonpig API that made it possible for outsiders to retrieve the personal information of all three million of its users (names, birthdays, postal addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, the last four digits of credit card numbers, and credit card expiry dates), and informed Moonpig. Moonpig did nothing about it until the developer publicly announced the problem in January 2015,[9] whereupon Moonpig disabled the API and its mobile apps pending an investigation.[10] Moonpig issued a statement saying that "all password and payment information is and has always been safe".[11]

gollark: Or interfaced it to Discord, actually.
gollark: Consider: this server has two (2) multi-user dungeons. What if we had a feature where you could accursedly play on another MUD from within your current MUD?
gollark: Also, what if accursed inter-MUD proxying?
gollark: A fullscreen TUI application, that is.
gollark: It seems like it's actually quite hard to have a basic text input prompt which deals with interruptions without just consuming the apioform and making a fullscreen application.

References
  1. "University of Birmingham alumni: Birmingham alumnus pushes the envelope". Alumni.bham.ac.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
  2. Growing Business: Business growth stories: Moonpig: Nick Jenkins
  3. Marketing (5 October 2005). "One to watch: Moonpig". Marketingmagazine.co.uk. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
  4. "Real Business: Nick Jenkins". Clairemurphy.co.uk. 1 November 2005. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
  5. "Hitwise - United Kingdom Newsletter". Hitwise.com. February 2008. Retrieved 25 February 2010.
  6. "Business". The Times.
  7. "MOONPIG.COM LIMITED". Company Check. Retrieved 25 November 2014.
  8. "Photobox announces merger with Moonpig.com". BBC News. 25 July 2011.
  9. Darren Pauli (6 January 2015). "Three Million Moonpig accounts exposed by flaw". The Register.
  10. James Cook (6 January 2015). "Security Problem At Moonpig". Business Insider.
  11. Alex Hern (6 January 2015). "Personal details of all MoonPig customers exposed by security bug". the Guardian.
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