Online orders of custom printing jobs more than doubled in the fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 31 at Cimpress N.V., driving up total revenue 13% to nearly $500 million, the company says.

The company’s Vistaprint Business Unit, which encompasses the Vistaprint.com custom-printing service operated in markets including the United States, Europe and Australia, increased sales by 3% in the quarter to
$354.8 million despite a 5% drop in revenue in U.S. dollars related to the dollar’s strength against international currencies
.

Helping to drive Vistaprint sales were multiple orders from repeat online buyers. 74% of Vistaprint’s customers placed multiple orders for customizable signs, T-shirts or business cards, the company says. Cimpress declined to say what percent of Vistaprint’s orders were from repeat customers. The Vistaprint unit accounted for nearly three-quarters of Cimpress revenue, or $354.8 million out of $496.3 million in its second quarter.

The lion’s share of Cimpress’s Q2 sales growth, however, came from its Upload and Print Business Units segment, including its Europe-based Pixartprinting and Printdeal brands that let business customers place online orders for printed materials ranging from notepads to brochures and bound books. Although the Upload and Print Business Units segment accounted for only 18.8% of total Cimpress fiscal Q2 revenue, it accounted for more than 80% of its total growth. Q2 revenue at the Upload and Print Business Units surged 112% to $93.3 million. Cimpress attributes most of this revenue growth to its Q2 acquisitions of Austria-based druck.at and France-based Exagroup, which sells online at exaprint.fr.

Cimpress reports the remainder of its revenue through a segment it calls All Other Business Units, including Netherlands-based Albumprinter, which sells photo albums to consumers at Albelli.com. Cimpress changed its corporate name in 2014 from Vistaprint N.V. to Cimpress N.V.

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Cimpress plans to introduce the Pixartprinting brand to the United States this year and expand Vistaprint product lines of customizable signage, apparel and promotional products, CEO Robert Keane told investors during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Jan.28, according to a transcript of the call from Seeking Alpha. He said he expects sales of these business product lines to eventually outpace company-wide sales growth.

Keane also said Cimpress is considering selling through the online marketplaces of a number of merchants, while also continuing to test its presence on Amazon.com. “We think there also can be many, many smaller, either micro or midsized partners we will move towards,” he said, declining to name any. He added that Cimpress expects to eventually terminate its online sales through Staples, but didn’t elaborate on why or when.

Vistaprint is also experimenting with reduced-cost shipping offers. “We have begun to test [reduced] shipping prices within the Vistaprint Business Unit, and we have been very pleased with the early results,” Keane said, declining to specify the reduced shipping fees. “Now those results definitely reduced near-term revenues and near-term profits. But when we look at the change in customer satisfaction and loyalty improvements driven by that, we have a strong hypothesis that reduced shipping costs will pay off financially because of the future cash flows or gross profits returned from those happier customers.”

In 2016, Cimpress is embarking on a project to improve and standardize its e-commerce sites and back-end business software across its business units around the world. While each foreign subsidiary will retain its own brand name, every company under the Cimpress umbrella will eventually use the new software. The company expects the standardization effort to reduce software costs and production delays. Keane declined to specify the technology providers or integrators involved in the project.

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For the fiscal second quarter ended Dec.31, Cimpress also reported:

  • Total revenue of $496.3 million, up 12.8% from $439.9 million during the same period last year;
  • Vistaprint Business Unit revenue of $354.8 million, up 2.7% from $345.5 million;
  • Upload and Print Business Units revenue of $93.28 million, up 112.1% from 43.98 million;
  • All Other Business Units revenue of $48.2 million, down 4.5 % from $50.5 million;
  • Net income of $58.1 million, down 7.6% from $62.9 million.

For the six months ended Dec. 31, it reported:

  • Total revenue of $872.0 million, up 12.7% from $773.8 million;
  • Vistaprint Business Unit revenue of $622.3 million, up 2.6% from $606.7 million;
  • Upload and Print Business Units revenue of $169.8 million, up 105.3% from $82.7 million;
  • All Other Business Units revenue of $79.96 million, down 5.3% from $84.44 million;
  • Net income of $67.3 million, down 22.0% from $86.3 million.

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