Wix announced on its Q2 earnings call today that it will become the website builder for Vistaprint. At first glance, it appears to be the mother of all reseller deals.
Wix says this about the partnership on its earnings slides. Wix expects the Vistaprint deal to “deliver hundreds of thousands of new subscriptions to Wix within five years. Additionally, existing sites built using Vistaprint’s solutions will migrate to Wix.”
Vistaprint is a giant in on-demand printing, with 17 million customers. It has increasingly been moving into providing a full suite of services for businesses looking to create a brand presence in everything from brochures and business cards to websites.
Users will have the option of creating a professional online presence themselves using all of the Wix creation products. This includes the Wix Editor, Wix ADI, or Editor X. It also includes those hiring a designer through 99designs by Vistaprint.
Vistaprint acquired the freelance designer marketplace last October. 99designs was a privately help company, launched in Australia in 2008. There are roughly 150,000 designers on the platform.
Wix Boosts Omnichannel Commerce with New POS, Modalyst Acquisition
Wix will be replacing Vistaprint’s in-house site-builder solution. And it looks like the deal is also a two-way street. This is from the deal’s press release.
“The parties also agreed to negotiate follow-on deals that will make Vistaprint a primary print partner of Wix for physical marketing solutions and that will enable customers of the joint Vistaprint and Wix offering to connect seamlessly with professional designers through 99designs by Vistaprint. The Vistaprint x Wix integration experience will be rolled out throughout 2022.”
Big Ambitions
On today’s Q2 earnings call, Wix President and COO Nir Zohar said the deal will help Vistaprint reach its goal of becoming the world’s largest agency helping small businesses with digital presence and marketing.
“And in order to do that they needed a layer of products and technology like no other,” Zohar said. “And their choice for that is to partner with us to deliver that value to the customer.”
Zohar also talked about the deal’s commercial implications for Wix. Vistaprint will represent a big step toward Wix achieving its ambitious goal of powering 50% of everything new on the Internet within the next five to seven years.
“If you just think about what has been announced, Vistaprint is going to move their entire website business, hundreds of thousands of websites, entirely to Wix. They’re gonna transition all of their new websites being built…
“They’re transitioning from offering a site builder experience, which is one thing, to having the full-blown Wix operating system for their business offering. So it’s going to be about the different applications and verticals…It is going to be about a much deeper eCommerce integration…So essentially I think the potential is massive over the next few years.”
About Wix’s Q2
For the second quarter, Wix generated revenues of $364.4 million, a 34% growth over the same quarter in 2020. While that seems like a good result, Wix took a hit on Wall Street Wednesday after releasing its earnings report.
It’s all about expectations. The company’s Q2 earnings came in at the “lower-end” of the company’s guidance for the quarter. CEO Avishai Abrahami said sales expected in Q2 were being pushed into later in the year. He blamed the “uncertainty” caused by the lingering pandemic for the slide. He also acknowledged that “we should be more cautious” in giving guidance.
The Wix executive team, however, insisted the fundamental of the business remain strong. They cited output per user, as well as eCommerce and payments growth as indicators that are either stable or improving. Wix also reported a 113% increase in net revenue retention for the quarter. The one, albeit significant, negative for the quarter was user growth, Abrahami said.
A quick final note. Wix’s VP of Global Strategic Sales Matt Matergia will be speaking at the upcoming Localogy 2021 event, September 20-21 in Hollywood, CA.
