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June 17, 2005 -- Vistaprint appears to be a new edition of an old dot com. I've been reading so many press releases about their technology and volumes of
business. Why hasn't the business press looked deeper into the number of orders Vistaprint is claiming to produce? I'm getting the "smoke and mirrors" feeling to their claims of producing 10,000 orders per day.

If you follow their thinking, they are claiming to be deep into the small or home business supply. Let's say their average order is $100.00 - Perhaps business cards, or letterheads, envelopes or labels. That would be $1 million a day- or $5 million a week assuming a 5 day work week. This is from a couple of conventional Offset/ digital presses with some fancy front end web to print technology. Very hard to beleive. In addition, there should be huge profits, based on the minimal capital "iron" investment compared to the rest of the industry. Why go public now? Why not wait until they are larger to pull in a larger stock offering? The answer may be to cash in now on the PR, and to supply the cash burning machine they have created before they explode like so many similar companies that have tried a similar path- Collabria, Imagex etc. Maybe a little more due diligence by the Industry Press is in order, rather than publishing every press release they receive...

OK, Now we are seeing some dollar figures that relate to the Mod-Pac, Vistaprint companies- but they don't add up- Mod Pac is saying they are generating approximately $18 million in sales from the Vistaprint relationship, Yet Vistaprint is claiming they are producing 10,000 orders per day. That doesn't equate, or the average order at Vistaprint is really small! Something like $7.20 per order if 50,000 orders are shipped each week, and you annualize the weekly revenue to $18 million. The shipping should cost that much! Perhaps the Vistaprint revenue has been overly aggressive in its statements, or perhaps they are desperately looking for a new cash infusion-- We'll see.

Rob Wainer
Sunset Printing & Engraving Corp

Editor's Note: See both Premium Reports recently published by WhatTheyThink.com:

More About VistaPrint: Recent Comments from Robert Keane, CEO

A Review of VistaPrint’s SEC Filing for a $120 Million IPO

For a full explanation of VistaPrint's business, see the full S-1 filing.