Top 40 distributor Cimpress (asi/162149), the parent company of Vistaprint and National Pen, reported data on Wednesday, June 17 that suggests sales are starting to recover somewhat from lows experienced during the societal lockdown measures related to the coronavirus pandemic.

In a trading update, the Dundalk, IE-headquartered global distributorship said its consolidated bookings – essentially orders placed – were down about 25% in May 2020 compared to May 2019. Still, that represented a significant improvement over April 2020, when consolidated bookings were down 51% companywide year over year. For the first two weeks of June 2020, consolidated bookings improved slightly more than what was seen in May, being down 24% compared to the same period the prior year, Cimpress reported.

“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 believe these trends are the result of our shift in focus to products and product content templates that our customers need in the current environment, as well as the gradual relaxing of government restrictions to restart economic activity in some markets.”

The progress at Cimpress comes a day after 4imprint (asi/197045), the largest distributor by revenue in the North American promotional products industry, reported that its sales are starting to partially rebound from the economic devastation caused by shutdown measures tied to COVID-19.

So @4imprint is reporting a sharp recent rise in sales over #COVID lockdown lows. As the largest distributor in #promoproducts, 4imprint's performance can bellwether larger trends in the market. https://t.co/ZlRGsTjsq5 @asicentral @ASI_MBell @Tim_Andrews_ASI

— Chris Ruvo (@ChrisR_ASI) June 16, 2020

Despite the burgeoning positive momentum, Cimpress noted that its partial recovery has varied across business segments. Vistaprint’s consolidated bookings were down 51% year over year in April, then improved to being down 18% year over year in May. National Pen, a former Top 40 distributor before being acquired by Cimpress, experienced a 65% drop in consolidated bookings in April. Such bookings remained down 43% in May 2020 compared to May 2019.

Cimpress operates on its own fiscal year and is currently in its fourth quarter. For the quarter to date through the end of May, consolidated bookings across all business segments are down 40%.

The company expects to report financial results for the quarter and full fiscal year on July 29. In May, Cimpress reported that total global revenue across all its business segments declined 10% year over year to $598 million in its fiscal third quarter. Relatedly, Cimpress experienced a nearly $85 million loss, which translated to a loss per share of $3.26. 

With estimated 2018 North American promotional product revenue of $450 million, Cimpress ranks fourth on Counselor’s most recent list of the industry’s 40 largest distributors.