Innovations have been the backbone of the Jakarta Philately Office to survive amid a declining interest in philately in this age of advanced internet technology.

The office, a part of state-owned postal company PT Pos Indonesia on Jl. Pos in Central Jakarta, still manages to keep its business afloat by spawning innovations, from producing customized stamps to issuing stamps of popular movies.

The head of the Jakarta Philately Office, Sonang Sarah Purba, said the office still exceeded its annual revenue target even though the use of postal stamps had been declining as email and text messages replaced traditional letter-writing.

“We create innovations to make people stay interested in buying and collecting postage stamps. One of our innovations is providing custom stamps called PRISMA, where customers could order stamps with any picture of their choice,” Sonang told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

A lot of people had ordered custom stamps from the office, she said. They brought pictures of their graduations, family gatherings, weddings, or vacations to be printed as postage stamps. Customers were required to pay from Rp 2,000 (14 US cents) up to Rp 30,000 for each piece and they would receive their stamps in less than an hour.

The Jakarta Philately Office also received custom stamp orders from various embassies in Indonesia. “Last month, the Indian embassy ordered 2,000 Mahatma Gandhi stamps to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his birth,” Sonang said, referring to a two-year-long celebration from 2018 to 2020.

The office also regularly set up custom stamp booths at various events. “We usually set up a booth during House of Representatives inauguration ceremony to attract its members to print custom stamps of their ceremony.”

They also collaborated with the event organizers of one of the most anticipated music festivals in Indonesia, We The Fest, to attract younger customers.

“Usually the event organizers order Rp 50 million worth of custom stamps to be sold in the music festival and they always sold out,” Sonang said.

To further attract millennial customers, the Jakarta Philately Office also issues stamps of popular movies in the country.

“We’ve printed 10,000 stamps of Indonesian superhero Gundala and popular romance movie Dilan 1990. Both issues were very popular among millennials,” she said.

Thanks to this innovation, the office can sell about 5,000 custom stamps per month. “There are a lot of people interested in custom postage stamps, but we should work hard to promote our service through various events.”

However, Sonang said, the most of the office revenue still came from selling regular stamps that were issued eight to 11 times a year, each with a different theme.

Syahlan Pitoyo, the office spokesperson, said the regular stamps still had a lot of customers, especially from collectors and hobbyist. This half of the year alone, he said, the office has recorded revenues of Rp 1.7 billion.

“We don’t have as many customers as in the 1990s because fewer people send traditional letters. However, we still have a special segment of customers who buy stamps for collection and investment instead of for sending letters,” he told the Post on Tuesday.

Some customers even join a subscriber service, which will allow them to receive postage stamps as soon as they are issued. “Currently there are 414 people subscribing to our services. First they were required to deposit money, as much as they want. Their deposit would be reduced according to their stamp orders,” Syahlan said, adding that the office would deliver the stamps directly to the customers’ houses.

To attract more customers, the office promotes its stamps through various social media platforms and sells them via online stores. It also collaborates with agents to sell postage stamps all over the world.

Yulius Subiyarto, one of the agents, said he sold various kinds of postage stamps, from the ones issued recently to ones issued in the 1920s, both domestically and internationally. He also rents a booth inside the Jakarta Philately Office to sell from his stamp collection.

“I used to work in the post office before I retired. I pay about Rp 400,000 a month to sell my stamps here,” he said on Tuesday.

Subiyarto said he had been collecting and selling stamps for more than 20 years and he had many rare stamps in his collection. “My collection in the shop alone could cost more than Rp 2 billion and I still have rarer and more expensive postage stamps at home,” he said.

He said collecting and selling postage stamps is still a good business even though he did not get as many customers as compared to during the 1990s.

“It’s hard to predict how much I could gain in a month because it varies widely, but not long ago I could sell a series of postage stamps for Rp 50 million. I could also meet a lot of famous people like former president Soeharto, former president Megawati Soekarnoputri and President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo thanks to philately,” he said. (nal)

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