Despite sales increases, Top 40 promotional products distributor Cimpress (asi/162149) reported net losses in its fiscal fourth quarter and full financial year, both of which concluded June 30.

The parent company of Vistaprint and former Top 40 firm National Pen, among others, said that total global sales for fiscal 2021 were $2.59 billion, a year-over-year rise of about 4.5%.

Robert Keane, CEO, Cimpress

Fourth-quarter sales, which correspond to the calendar year second quarter, were up a dramatic 49% to about $641 million. That sharp increase is explained in significant part by the fact that demand was much greater in the quarter this year compared to the prior year’s fiscal Q4, which fell during the height of COVID-19 societal shutdowns. Those restrictions tanked the business of Cimpress and promo worldwide.

Compared to 2019’s fiscal fourth quarter, Cimpress’ 2021 Q4 sales declined about 5%. Full-year sales in fiscal 2021 decreased 5.76% relative to pre-pandemic 2019.

For its just-ended fiscal year, Cimpress reported a net loss of nearly $78 million, or $2.99 per share, while Q4 net loss stood at about $60 million, or $2.31 per share. Factors in the disparity between a sales rise and a net loss included a loss on the early extinguishment of debt, non-recurrence of a tax benefit from 2020, increased interest expenses and negative year-over-year currency impacts.

Encouragingly, executives said, both the Vistaprint and National Pen segments of Cimpress engineered sales gains in the fiscal fourth quarter and full year. Vistaprint’s full-year sales were $1.44 billion, down from 2019, but up 8% from 2020. National Pen’s full-year sales were $313.52 million, also down from 2019, but up 4.6% from 2020.

“While FY2021 results were not the type of performance we aspire to achieve in normal circumstances, we successfully navigated the pandemic, demonstrated remarkable agility and the highly variable nature of our cost structure, invested to an extent competitors could not, and drove tangible customer, operational and financial benefits from the strategic and organizational changes we commenced in FY2019,” said Cimpress CEO Robert Keane, a member of Counselor’s Power 50 list of promo’s most influential people. Cimpress is now in a position to succeed in fiscal year 2022 and beyond, he added.

With estimated 2020 North American promotional product revenue of $429.3 million, Cimpress ranked sixth on Counselor’s most recent list of the largest distributors in the industry.