Vistaprint launches updated SME website builder

Vistaprint has launched an updated version of its website builder for small businesses, incorporating changes that it believes make the product unique in the market.

The updated product, its fourth-generation website builder, was launched last week.

The two main improvements on the previous iteration are that customers can now automatically match the brand from their printed materials onto an online template, and its paradigm is now made up of 'blocks', which allow for a much easier building process.

The product costs between £4 and £14 a month, depending on blocks purchased. There is a social media marketing solution bundled in with the £14 package.

For an extra £7 a month, Vistaprint will assist in the designing process of the website and according to research carried out by the company, 15% of its customers would opt for this service.

Vistaprint Digital general manager Scott Bowen said the pricing was “hundreds of pounds less per annum” than some of its competitors.

Bowen said: “This is a crowded market and our competitors have strong offerings in the segment but what is fundamentally different about this product is the automatic matching of the brand from printed materials; this happens automatically as part of the on-boarding process.

“Then there is the paradigm we are launching this week, based on blocks. The effort of building a website is the equivalent of stacking blocks together to create a page, so what we have done here is encapsulated design and functionality into blocks and those are what the user will drag and drop onto the page in order to create the base structure and design elements.”

Options for blocks include 'events', 'commerce', 'calendar' and 'gallery'.

The builder also creates websites that are mobile-responsive, so the user does not have to do anything extra to ensure websites run on phones and tablets.

Bowen cited further Vistaprint research, which found that of the 25 million SMEs in the US, 70% market both online and in print.

“To address this omni-channel requirement is quite a large undertaking,” he added.

One third of the small businesses cited in Vistaprint’s research do not have a website.

Bowen also thinks the builder will sell well in the UK, which is Vistaprint’s second-largest market for digital.

In July, Vistaprint parent company Cimpress began trialling a new tool that allows firms to embed Cimpress products into their websites or mobile apps.