Vistaprint 2011 Annual Report Download - page 33

brought against us relating to these third party membership programs could result in our being
obligated to pay substantial damages or incurring substantial legal fees in defending claims and have
an adverse affect on our results of operations. Even if we are successful in defending against these
claims, such a defense may result in distraction of management and significant costs. In addition,
customer dissatisfaction or damage to our reputation as a result of these claims could have a negative
impact on our brand, revenues and profitability.
We are subject to customer payment-related risks.
We accept payments for our products and services on our websites by a variety of methods,
including credit or debit card, PayPal, check, wire transfer or other methods. In many geographic
regions, we rely on one or two third party companies to provide payment processing services. If these
companies became unwilling or unable to provide these services to us, then we would need to find
and engage replacement providers, which we may not be able to do on terms that are acceptable to
us or at all, or to process the payments ourselves, which could be costly and time consuming. Either
of these scenarios could disrupt our business.
As we offer new payment options to our customers, we may be subject to additional
regulations, compliance requirements and fraud risk. For certain payment methods, including credit
and debit cards, we pay interchange and other fees, which may increase over time and raise our
operating costs and lower our profit margins or require that we charge our customers more for our
products. We are also subject to payment card association and similar operating rules and
requirements, which could change or be reinterpreted to make it difficult or impossible for us to
comply. If we fail to comply with these rules and requirements, we may be subject to fines and higher
transaction fees and lose our ability to accept credit and debit card payments from our customers or
facilitate other types of online payments, and our business and operating results could be materially
adversely affected.
We may be subject to product liability claims if people or property are harmed by the products
we sell.
Some of the products we sell may expose us to product liability claims relating to personal
injury, death, or property damage, and may require product recalls or other actions. Although we
maintain product liability insurance, we cannot be certain that our coverage will be adequate for
liabilities actually incurred or that insurance will continue to be available to us on reasonable terms, or
at all.
If we are unable to retain security authentication certificates, which are supplied by third party
providers over which we exercise little or no control, our business could be harmed.
We are dependent on a limited number of third party providers of website security
authentication certificates that may be necessary for some of our customers’ web browsers to
properly access our websites and upon which many of our customers otherwise rely in deciding
whether to purchase products and services from us. Despite any contractual protections we may
have, these third party providers can disable or revoke, and in the past have disabled or revoked, our
security certificates without our consent, which would render our websites inaccessible to some of our
customers and could discourage other customers from accessing our sites, unless we are able to
procure a replacement certificate from one of a limited number of alternative third party providers. Any
interruption in our customers’ ability or willingness to access our websites if our security certificates
are disabled or otherwise unavailable for an extended period of time could result in a material loss of
revenue and profits and damage to our brand.
30