Vistaprint parent Cimpress revises fourth-quarter projections

Cimpress plc provided an extraordinary update on its financial results about mid-way between Cimpress’ earnings announcements for the quarters ending March and June 2020. As noted in Cimpress’ third fiscal quarter earnings document on May 5, 2020, for the month of April Cimpress’ consolidated bookings declined by half year over year, and all segments’ bookings performance improved in the second half of April relative to the first half. (“Bookings” is an internal metric Cimpress uses to understand customer demand.)  While there is continued week-to-week volatility, that improvement continued for all segments through the month of May with the year-over-year decline in consolidated bookings lessening to approximately 25%, the company said.

For the two weeks ended Saturday, June 13, consolidated bookings also declined an average of approximately 24% year-over-year.

“Although we expect a lengthy and possibly non-linear recovery from the effects of the pandemic, Cimpress’ recent revenue and profit trends have been more favorable than we expected,” said Robert Keane, founder, chairman and CEO of Cimpress. “We are supporting small businesses as they begin to get back to business and augmenting our traditional product lines with offerings that address the needs of customers during the pandemic. Many of our businesses have produced and/or donated face shields and masks to hospitals and frontline workers, and our largest business, Vistaprint, is donating 10% of replaceable filter mask revenues to aid small businesses and communities which are impacted by the pandemic. Vistaprint has already donated $1,000,000 to the Save Small Business Fund it co-founded with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and $500,000 to the NAACP to support Black-owned small businesses.”

Cimpress also noted bookings in all segments started to show signs of improvement from the second half of April compared to the first half, which continued throughout May 2020. Segment bookings performance for April and May 2020 compared to April and May 2019 was approximate as follows:

Cimpress continues to manage its variable costs approximately in line with demand; for example, advertising as a percentage of revenue was 9% quarter-to-date through May 2020 compared to 12% in the same period last year.