Discussion

By Henk Gianotten on Jul 10, 2008

Is this unique? "Big pay hike as stock slides".
I did read it several times during the last few years. Progress?

By Grover Daniels on Jul 16, 2008

Recently, an interesting article was written about VistaPrint in the Business section of the Boston Globe, Can it all be in the cards?

Steve Syre reports on the views of some Investment Bankers that the stock price of VistaPrint is either to low or to high, depending on 2 different points of view. Glass half-full view; ( buyers and holders of the stock), rapid print-related revenue growth from printing customers, ( 13 million users), combined with internet user fees from internet partners is on solid footing; glass half-empty view; the current high profit percentage of Vista's earnings is based heavily on internet partner fees and not printing, therefore the stock price does not warrant a higher valuation compared to other printing companies. According to the article in The Globe, half of the stock traders are short sellers, and half are long holders. Therefore, about half of owners of the stock are betting that Vista stock price will go down, talk about pressure....

I currently own no VistaPrint stock, I own stock in Pixxlz.com http://www.pixxlz.com and Copy Cop, both private Boston, Mass. based competitors to VistaPrint.

Here is my 2 Pounds worth.....

Vista is a Lexington Massachusetts Company registered in Bermuda....

How can you bet against the most powerful selling channel ever created since IBM, the Internet?

How can you fault a company who has figured out how to be profitable in digital printing and generate higher margin profits using the Internet partner model?

Where would Google be without advertising revenue? Where would Hedge Fund managers be without fees generated by managing assets, and speculating on oil prices?

Where would Sonny be without Cher?

In other-words, why care if Vista is making more profits printing for 13 million customers ( mostly consumers) vs. generating fees from Internet partners (mostly businesses)? The main thing to care about is..... is VistaPrint an excellent service provider for people in need of print related services, and are they providing a long-term economic benefit to their business partners in return for the high percentage fees they are charging?

I've read some blogs that suggest that Vista's printing and design services are below average, and the constant advertising of "FREE Stuff" is a Trojan horse that will not go away from email accounts easily. I've looked to become an Internet Partner, and see no long-term economic benefit to our own company.

But that's me, not the 13,000,000 users that Vista claims they have on their home page.

I suggest what Vista has figured out is new to printer owners and very real... though nothing new in printing technology, (they have several HP Indigo's and a bunch of work-flow patents), they have clearly mastered the art of selling printing services to the masses via Search Engine Optimization.

In Vista's case, their profits are partly based on a well executed Search Engine Optimization strategy. A well planned, executed, and maintained SEO strategy is far more profitable then an efficient production plant will ever be.

At Daniels Printing, we were the best print planners, pre-press technicians, color experts, pressman, bindery operators, and QC folks in the WORLD. Currently at Copy Cop and Pixxlz.com, we are striving to be the best in the digital world of personalization, On-Demand Printing, and high quality Eco-Friendly printed products.

That may not be good enough in the NEW WORLD ORDER.

Here's a current example of Vista's SEO plan.

On July 11, 2008, Vista released a "FREE" small business marketing service via Market Wire. Because Market Wire is a great Internet PR wire for news releases, Vista loaded it up with in-bound links to specific pages on their website to "BUY" stuff they are selling. A real sign that Vista knows how to sell and direct the in-bound user to anywhere Vista wants shopper to go on their website. It is not "news", it is SEO in the NWO. Sort of like Product placement in movies and TV shows.

My bet is Vista has several Internet ROI dashboards in place, aggregating the leads that coming in from the news release, so that they can email or track IP addresses that click on the links embedded in the release. Or better yet, so that they can measure the increase in web traffic after the news release, and change the next news release to do a better job increasing in-bound users to specific web pages that they are promoting.

Currently, we are planning to use Market Wire for a similar idea, if the shoe fits......

Great SEO is the art of the intuitive and systemic thinking. Where are people searching, how are they searching, what are they searching for, if they find what they are searching for will the buy, how much will they pay, how fast do you need to deliver, does the product have to be very good or will on-line shoppers pay for sub-par products or will they look for another printed products service provider?

I have no idea if Vista is smart, lucky or both. Wall Street has no idea if the current CEO and CMO will continue to push selling printed products harder then generating partner fees. The question of stock valuation is based on SEO success, as much as it is on anything else. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Microsoft searches may affect Wall Street's valuation of VistaPrint more then 6-up or 10-up on a sheet of 12 x 18 paper.

What we do know is that VistaPrint is an Internet/Commercial Printing Company that has revolutionized an Industry that needed a new selling paradigm that is sustainable, and profitable. We at Copy Cop and formerly of Daniels Printing applaud them for making that happen.

Now that we and probably others understand that the barrier to entry in the internet/digital printing world has less to do with technology, and more to do with creative thinking, the big question is... can other printers execute on a similar business model and compete with Vista?

Stay tuned all you bloggers, search engines, keywords, website pages, flash designers, HTML developers, Web 2.0 visionaries, internet partners, and yes the millions of users of print related services.

By Michael Josefowicz on Jul 17, 2008

Grover -

Thanks for your "two pounds". The "revenue stream from from internet partners" is new info for me.

Here's my two cents.

Is Vista a printing company or an eyeball aggregation company . . . or some new combination of both? (In this frame, Google is an eyeball aggregation company. . .plus lots more).

Maybe a useful way to think about Vista's business model is that the delivery of stuff - the printed product - is, for them, actually a self financing advertising campaign for clicks to their site. Those clicks can then be monetized by internet partners.

So..instead of using the web to sell print, they are using print to sell the web.

No doubt, print as a media channel creates value. We know that it creates value because it seems that 13,000,000 people will do "something" to get their hands on it.

Our industry's legacy model is that the "something" was to exchange money for stuff. Vista seems to have figured out a way to make money when the "something" is the exchange of attention for stuff. These days, attention is a very valuable commodity.

It's actually the traditional business model for magazines and newspapers - aggregate a definable market and sell access to them.

All that's really changed is the tech.

By Sam I. on Jul 18, 2008

To Grover Daniels:
I found your response to the article, very thought out, and I thank you for it.

Your keyword stuffing and self promotion was kept to a minimum. For someone as knowledgeable about SEO, and SEM, Blackhat and Google Bombing with PR as you, I find your ranting a bit amusing.

You have written with links back to your website, which is Google's #1 no-no about blog spamming. You also didn't check that printceoblog does no-follows, thus your link only gets bad PR from the link juice.

Furthermore, you help VistaP by keep mentioning their name, adding to their “Google score”. If you mention them, use Vista, or VistaP or anything else but their brand if you don't want to help their success in branding.

Now to your website. I liked pix, but why did you go with the slowest image rendering engine "printable" for your card templates? Why did you build and spent time on building the catalog when there are so many other pre-built fast catalogs available? This reminds me of a story by Gail about Kodak http://printceoblog.com/2007/03/kodak-creative-network where they have built an engine, just to take it down.

If you are blogging here, and trying to come off as an expert, at least don’t make armature mistakes and take the readers down the wrong path.

Michael Josefowicz, I agree… most people selling you stuff of the TV, will make their money not on the first shipment, but on you becoming their club member and thus consecutively ordering more.

Final note… VISTA is a competitor to every reader here… to a graphic designer, to a large printer, small printer, copy shop or a broker. They are after your customer and they have competitive advantages of not paying taxes anywhere. Stop being nice to Vista, even if Robert looks like a nice guy… (just check the family history).

By Steve on Jul 21, 2008

An immigrant cabby handed us his card while in Chicago while driving us around so we could call him back after looking at a print shop, since we sell blank tag and label materials out of Seattle and were at a tradeshow at Rosemont IL. His card said on the back Free Business Cards from Vistaprint. Now my company Rippedsheets.com buys most of our print from Vistaprint becasue we can design a mailing piece in the afternoon, or after work. And the quality is OK. Both of Vistaprint's Buyers get our postcards, in the event they needed printing substrates for any of thier 28 Indigos. We own Rippedsheets.com and we blocked Vistaprints emails, because we got them daily, so now we get the 25% discounts from the postcards they send with their orders.

By Michael J on Jul 22, 2008

To Sam I,

You say,

"Final note… VISTA is a competitor to every reader here… to a graphic designer, to a large printer, small printer, copy shop or a broker. They are after your customer and they have competitive advantages of not paying taxes anywhere. Stop being nice to Vista . . .

No doubt Vista is a competitor. But so is FedexKinkos, Staples, plus Lulu.com plus various hedge funds that are selectively purchasing printing companies.

Business is competition. Unfortunately for printers and fortunately for consumers there are alot more choices of where to print than ever before.

Perhaps Vista has found a market that is not profitable for most printers. I don't know many printers that can afford to print a cab driver's business cards.

My take is that instead of worrying about not being nice to Vista, it makes more sense to steal the ideas that work from anyone who seems to be succesful. Stealing ideas has always been a driver of competition. Then modify them to work for your company.

In this case, maybe there is a way for any printer to use the idea that print/web can be a tool to build a brand (which might also be described as building a community of customers) which can then be monetized in lots of innovative ways.