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Free Business Cards
Vistaprint, a well established e-commerce printer, offers 250 business cards for free if you meet the following conditions:
- Use a standard template design.
- Agree to have Vistaprint advertising on the back of the card.
- Pay a minimum of $5.67 for S&H. The production of the business cards are free but shipping is not.
- Navigate the many other options and suggested offers without impulse buying.
How could this be profitable?
Profitability Routes (all four models were described in this post)
Route 1: Freemium
During the course of ordering the free business cards, you are prompted with various upgrade options and additional items. Extra fees are incurred for premium paper, electronic PDF proofs, foil stamp, premium design, custom design, advanced form editing. Need your business cards delivered quickly? The standard shipping rate of $5.67 is for 21 day delivery, but the 3 day delivery carries an significantly higher fee of $26.20 – not all of which is given to the USPS.
| Premium Design Templates |
$3.99 |
| Custom Design Uploads |
from $ 3.74 |
| Advanced Template Editing |
$9.99 |
| Premium Paper |
$7.74 |
| PDF Proof |
$1.49 |
I would suggest that routes 1 & 2 alone are the core genius and the profitability centers for Vistaprint’s business model.
Route 2: Cross-Subsidy
After the free business card design is settled upon, you are offered several complimentary products for purchase. For business cards, this could be as simple as a metal card holder. In true Vistaprint style, if you have uploaded a custom logo or image, then these complimentary products are branded with the custom logo. Personalized coffee mugs, baseball caps, thank you cards, car magnets, stamps, mouse pads, are among the products presented. The chances of you purchasing a customized product are now far greater than if the products were not offered or offered without personalization. A single purchase under the “matching” or “accessories” headers subsidizes the production costs of the originally free business cards.
Route 3: Two-sided Market
At the first screen for entering in your business card details such as name, address, e-mail, there are two seemingly innocuous links. The first link “800# FREE Trial” is above the phone field and the second link “FREE website” is above the web field. The first is an affiliate link to a third party company called Ring Central who probably pays an advertising fee per X number of clicks and maybe an additional commission on any new sign-ups. In effect, the agreement between the two companies subsidizes a portion of the cost of the free business cards. The second link redirects to Vistaprint’s own website service (cross subsidy route).
Vistaprint’s user information from various data mining methods including account information, promotional entries, cookies, etc., is also valuable to affiliate companies. Although Vistaprint does have a user privacy policy that allows for opt outs of direct and third party marketing, the company still reserves the right to share information with third party companies who maintain separate privacy policies. (In affect, making impossible to know how, when, or by whom your data could be used.) The Vistaprint privacy policy states, “In addition, we may share the Personal Information we collect with other companies with whom we have joint marketing arrangements.” In other words, companies who Vistaprint cooperates with through business agreements might pay considerably for this information.
Route 4: Non-monetary Route
For those who do stick with the free business cards without any upgrades or alterations, the back is emblazoned with a Vistaprint logo. The free business cards become free marketing for potential customers. So the card might cost the company initially, but the free will eventually be paid by other customers.
This business model works. It works for both the customer and company. The customers get a convenient service and product(s) that they want and the company gets to maintain profitability. This type of creative, interwoven, multi-tiered approach to revenue generation, I believe, is the necessary business model for print media companies. As print continually is thought of and priced as a commodity item, especially for mass produced print items, the profits have to be sought elsewhere.
Disclaimer: The following is speculation as to how 250 free business cards could be profitable and has not been corroborated by Vistaprint. Similarly, this is not a paid posting, product placement, or product endorsement.
