Vistaprint

Vistaprint BV
Public
Traded as
Industry Printing
Print on Demand
Founded Paris, France 1995 (1995)
Founder Robert Keane
Headquarters Venlo, Netherlands[3]
Area served
 Over 120+ countries
Key people
 Robert Keane (CEO)
Revenue Increase US$1,270.2 million (2014)
Number of employees
 Increase 5,100 (2014)
Website vistaprint.com

Cimpress (previously Vistaprint) is a company that produces marketing materials and promotional items through mass customization and web-to-print systems. Founded in 1995 as Vistaprint, the company eventually acquired a number of other customization and printing companies in various countries. It adopted its current name, Cimpress, in 2014 when the company reorganized with the intention of unifying their systems across their subsidiary brands; Vistaprint remained the Cimpress brand in North America.[4]

Business

The company is based in Venlo, Netherlands and employs over 5,100 employees globally in its offices and printing facilities.[3] The company’s U.S. offices are in Waltham, Massachusetts, while its European offices are in Barcelona, Spain. Its three printing facilities, which total almost 74,000 square metres (800,000 sq ft) of production space, are in Deer Park, Victoria, Australia; Windsor, Ontario, Canada; and Venlo, Netherlands.

In 2007 the company was listed in the annual Graphic Arts Monthly 101 listing, as the 40th largest (by revenue) and the 4th fastest growing printing company in North America.[5]

Through the use of its own patented technology, Cimpress is able to aggregate large numbers of customized orders from each of its brands and print them in automated production facilities in North America and Europe.[6] The company maintains a customer service call center, Vistaprint Jamaica Ltd., in Montego Bay, Jamaica. It has been staffed by company employees since it was opened in November 2003.[7]

History

The company was founded as Vistaprint in Paris, France in 1995 by current President and CEO Robert Keane, immediately following his graduation from INSEAD Business School. Originally starting with business cards as its only product, the company expanded to postcards, letterhead, stamps, and return address labels.[1]

In September 2005, the company went ahead with an initial public offering and began trading on the NASDAQ. It opened a European office in Barcelona, Spain in September 2006 and in 2009 relocated to Venlo. The offices of the company president and CEO, Robert Keane, moved to a newly opened Paris, France office along with the corporate strategy division.[8]

In a public quarterly earnings announcement July 30, 2009, it was revealed the board of directors concluded it was in the best interest of the company and its shareholders to move the corporate domicile from Bermuda to the Netherlands, and to establish a two-tier board structure that is typical in Dutch corporate governance. The company also established a headquarters office in Paris. The company cited internationalism in market objectives, operations, corporate culture and corporate structure as reasons for the re-incorporation.[9]

In 2011, the company purchased Amsterdam-based Albumprinter, which operated throughout Europe under the brand names Albelli, Bonusprint or Önskefoto.[10]

As the company expanded, it retained its subsidiary brands in different locales. In November 2014, Vistaprint announced it would reorganize with the intention of unifying and improving their software and systems across the various brands. The parent company took the new name Cimpress, while Vistaprint remained the brand serving North America.[4] As a result of the change, company's ticker symbol was change from VPRT to CMPR.[11]

Printing process

Orders are processed online and jobs gang printed using a formula based on type of job, paper stock type, print run quantity, finishing (if any) and ship-by dates, among other factors.[12][13] User-selectable options are minimized, printing standard types of printed materials, such as business cards or postcards. Within each category, only specific sizes, paper stocks and ink colors are supported. This results in higher numbers of similar jobs which can be ganged together. Changeover time is reduced because there's less need to change paper or inks between jobs.[14]

Self-service design, proofing and ordering are handled at the front-end through the web, with controlled printing, cutting, packing and dispatching handled at the back-end through printing plants.[15] Cimpress' proprietary process involves multiple software components, and the management of multiple production components, in an end-to-end production workflow from "click to ship".[16] Vistaprint is vertically integrated with production facilities for North America in Windsor, Ontario[17] and for Europe in Venlo, Netherlands.[18][19] The company uses presses such as the manroland 700 as part of its printing assembly line.[20][21]

Computer-integrated manufacturing techniques help minimize human intervention and labor costs.[22] Using browser-based desktop publishing environment, customers design and proofread the job. Jobs are routed for printing without intervention. The printing is done in a single pass on automated, high-volume, large format professional quality presses. Once printed, the products are cut down to size using a computerized robotic cutter, assembled, packaged and addressed using proprietary software driven processes, and shipped to the customer.[23]

In a form of mass customization using as little as 60 seconds of production labor per order versus an hour or more for traditional printers, orders are printed faster and at lower costs than traditional printers.[14] Their strategy is to target small-run orders usually excluded from conventional large printers.[13]

Patents

One of the company's early hires was an in-house patent attorney.[24] and currently holds over 100 patents worldwide. [25] The company has described its objective as a "minefield of patents" and has been active in pursuing companies that it considers to be infringing on those patents.[26]

In 2006, the company filed a patent infringement suit against Print24 GmbH and UnitedPrint.com AG. A German court ruled in favor of Vistaprint in July 2007.[27] However, after appealing, the German Federal Patent Court ruled in favor of Unitedprint.com, rescinding Vistaprint’s controversial software patent in March 2009.[28]

Separately, in May 2007, the company filed a patent infringement suit against two Taylor Corporation subsidiaries 123Print and DrawingBoard.[29]

Partnerships

In 2007, a strategic partnership was announced with OfficeMax to provide an in-store station in up to 900 OfficeMax stores in the US and Mexico.[30][31] OfficeMax ImPress is an OfficeMax-branded web site for small business printing based on Vistaprint technologies. In 2008, Vistaprint announced a strategic partnership with Intuit, a supplier of accounting software, tying their service into Intuit's QuickBooks software using an Intuit-branded web site.[32] In 2009, the company also announced it will supply services for the FedEx Office brand.[33] The company announced in 2012 that it had entered into a strategic partnership with Staples Inc..[34]

Founder & CEO

Robert Keane founded what is today Cimpress in 1995 to provide small businesses with everything they need to market their business. Keane's vision for the company emerged from his experience with the development of a retail kiosk design and printing system and from his in-depth knowledge of the small business desktop publishing software market.

Today he leads Cimpress and its portfolio of business units with a clear purpose: to empower millions of people around the world to make a tangible, personal impression.

Keane previously served as an external consultant to Microsoft with the Microsoft Publisher desktop publishing product team for whom he researched and advised on the graphic design and printing needs of small businesses in Europe. He earned his B.A. in Economics from Harvard College and his MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.[35]

Controversies

Rewards program

Like many ecommerce companies, Vistaprint uses its pages to promote business relationships with third parties, through which the company generates referral, affiliate or advertising revenue. Since this form of co-marketing has almost no associated cost, it is highly profitable. In general, where such co-marketing results in a one-off customer purchase there is little criticism. However, this is significantly more controversial when it results in recurring (membership-related) billing.

In the US, Vistaprint has been accused of enrolling customers into Vertrue's paid-membership reward plan without the customer's agreement. Credit card details are passed on to Vertrue (formerly Memberworks Incorporated) by Vistaprint, and charges are then made on those credit cards by Vertrue without the owner's consent. Numerous complaints have been received by ConsumerAffairs.com[36] and The Better Business Bureau by consumers objecting to these charges. Some consumers complain of still being charged after canceling the reward plan membership, and others that more than a year after cancelling membership, the charges began again.[37]

Vistaprint's partnerships in the United Kingdom have attracted criticism.[38][39] Critics have stated that Vistaprint's customers are enrolled without their knowledge in a reward voucher scheme operated by an associated company, VPrewards.com, at a cost of £9.95 a month, that no information on the reward scheme is provided to customers subsequently and that it is up to the customers to detect the fact that they have been enrolled as members and to cancel unwanted membership. A similar program operates in the USA.[40] For complainants, the company claims publicly to cancel the membership, and refunds the monthly membership fees.

On November 30, 2009, the company announced that it had terminated its contract with an affiliate of Vertrue Inc., effective December 20, 2009, and that, it had ended all membership rewards or similar programs.[41]

In August 2008, four class-action lawsuits were filed against Vistaprint. The four complaints alleged that the defendants were in violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (which protects from unauthorized charges) and the federal Electronic Communications and Privacy Act (which prohibits the unlawful access of financial information) for charging relatively small amounts from customers accounts "hoping that consumers just won't notice."[42]

ASA investigations

In 2011, following complaints from UK customers, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigated pricing irregularities on Vistaprint's UK website and leaflet distributions.[43]

The ASA also upheld a complaint that Vistaprint was misleading customers in its '£40 worth of printing for a £10 spend' promotion.[44]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Cimpress Company History". Retrieved March 13, 2015.
  2. ↑ "VPRT changes to CMPR". Retrieved March 13, 2015.
  3. 1 2 "Vistaprint N.V. (VPRT)". Yahoo Finance.
  4. 1 2 Adams, Dan (November 17, 2014). "Vistaprint parent to reorganize, expand systems". The Boston Globe. Retrieved May 8, 2015.
  5. ↑ "VistaPrint Named to Graphic Arts Monthly Top 101 North American Printers List". PRWeb.
  6. ↑ "Patent 6,976,798: "Method for processing aggregate print jobs"". Patft.uspto.gov. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  7. ↑ "VistaPrint Opens Call Centre in MoBay". Jamaica Gleaner. November 21, 2003.
  8. ↑ "Looking to Asia, Vistaprint relocates to Europe". Internet Retailer. May 4, 2009.
  9. ↑ "Vistaprint Third Quarter 2009 Earnings Presentation Script". Vistaprint Investor Relations.
  10. ↑ Wauters, Robin (October 24, 2011). "Vistaprint to buy Dutch photobook software company Albumprinter for up to €65 million". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2014-11-02.
  11. ↑ Zacks Equity Research (November 20, 2014). "Vistaprint Changes Name, Ticker to Cimpress (CMPR)". Retrieved March 14, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Vistaprint — Small Orders Mean Big Business". Printing Impressions. November 1, 2008.
  13. 1 2 Gang Run Archived December 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  14. 1 2 "Vistaprint - Web Masters". Piworld.com. 2006-03-01. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  15. ↑ "Vistaprint — Small Orders Mean Big Business". Printing Impressions. November 1, 2008.
  16. ↑ "Vistaprint Grows". Manroland.us. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  17. ↑ At the Forefront of Innovation - Windsor, Canada
  18. ↑ At the Forefront of Innovation - Venlo, the Netherlands
  19. ↑ "Vistaprint Announces Opening of North American Printing Plant". Hcp.com. 2005-06-22. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  20. ↑ "MAN Roland 700". Printweek.com. 2007-10-04. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  21. ↑ "Vistaprint Closes $52 million Equity Financing". Findarticles.com. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  22. ↑ Vistaprint - Manufacturing
  23. ↑ Interview: Paul Tasker Archived May 13, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  24. ↑ The Patented Path To Profits
  25. ↑ "Patents Held by Vistaprint". Retrieved March 14, 2015.
  26. ↑ "An Empire of Portals". Web.archive.org. 2008-05-07. Archived from the original on May 7, 2008. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  27. ↑ "Vistaprint: German Court finds that print24 and unitedprint.com infringed Vistaprint patent". Reuters.com. 2007-07-31. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  28. ↑ "Final judgment in the case of Unitedprint v. Vistaprint". Pr-inside.com. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  29. ↑ "Vistaprint files patent infringement suit against Taylor Subsidiaries 123Print and Drawing Board". Reuters.com. 2007-05-15. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  30. ↑ Tedeschi, Bob (August 20, 2007). "Building a Brand Name, via Business Cards". The New York Times. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
  31. ↑
  32. ↑ "VistaPrint Chases Away the Gloom". Business Week. January 25, 2008.
  33. ↑ VistaPrint FY2009 Q3 Pre-Recorded Earnings Conference Call - Final Fair Disclosure Wire. Waltham: Apr 30, 2009
  34. ↑ "Vistaprint Reports First Quarter Fiscal Year 2012 Financial Results". Bloomberg.com. November 30, 2009.
  35. ↑ http://cimpress.com/about-us/executive-team/robert-keane/
  36. ↑ "974 Complaints and Reviews about Vistaprint". Consumeraffairs.com. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  37. ↑ "15 Complaints and Reviews about Vertrue, ex-MWI". Consumeraffairs.com. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  38. ↑ Dibben, Margaret (2007-09-23). "Ski firm says I booked online - but I was only browsing". London: The Observer.
  39. ↑ "Scamwatch - Small Business". Federation of Small Businesses. Retrieved 2008-05-15.
  40. ↑ "Consumer complaints about Vistaprint.com". consumeraffairs.com. Retrieved 2008-05-23.
  41. ↑ "Vistaprint Terminates All Membership Program Offerings and Reaffirms Financial Guidance". November 30, 2009.
  42. ↑ "VistaPrint Named in Four Federal Class-Action Lawsuits". Advertising Specialty Institute. August 28, 2008.
  43. ↑ "ASA Adjudication on VistaPrint Ltd - Advertising Standards Authority". Asa.org.uk. 2011-02-23. Retrieved 2012-09-20.
  44. ↑ "Ad watchdog raps daily deals sites LivingSocial and kgb". Campaign. November 16, 2011. Retrieved 2015-05-10.

External links

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