PRSS 2017 Annual Report

11 • Online providers of customized products such as Custom Ink LLC, RedBubble, Inc., Spreadshirt, Inc., Teespring, or Zazzle Inc. and online providers of distinctive goods like Etsy, Inc. or Uncommon Goods LLC; • Online providers allowing users to customize goods in specific vertical markets, such as Cimpress N.V. for small businesses and Shutterfly, Inc., for photographic products; • Physical and catalog retailers of personalized merchandise such as Red Envelope and Things Remembered; and • Small, but numerous, online providers who address niche customization service and product offerings, enabled by advances in digital printing. We also indirectly compete with Internet portals and shopping search engines that are involved in e-commerce or sell products or services either directly or in collaboration with other retailers. If more companies move into the customized products space, we will face further direct competition. Our reliance on Internet search engines and other sources of Internet and referral traffic to our e-commerce sites, such as Google, Bing and Facebook, impacts both the way we do business and our performance against competitors. Changes to their practices could drive traffic to our competitors and away from our e-commerce sites in ways we may not anticipate or that will cause us to expend further resources to successfully compete. The shift to mobile site access for e-commerce sites also presents challenges for us as we cope with shifting traffic patterns. Some of our current and potential competitors have significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources than us, including significant brand recognition, sales volume and customer bases. In addition, other online retailers may be acquired by, receive investment from or enter into strategic relationships with well-established and well-financed companies or investors which would strengthen their competitive positions. Some of our competitors may be able to secure licensing deals, goods and raw materials from suppliers on more favorable terms, devote greater resources to marketing activities and promotional campaigns, adopt more aggressive pricing policies and devote substantially more resources to website and system development than us. Increased competition may reduce our operating margins, market share and brand recognition, or force us to incur losses. We may not be able to compete successfully against current and future competitors. Competitive pressures may harm our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations. Our business depends heavily on the market recognition and reputation of our services, and any harm to our brand or failure tomaintain and enhance our brand recognitionmaymaterially harmour business, financial condition and results of operations. We believe that maintaining and enhancing the recognition and reputation of the level of services associated with our brand is critical to our success and ability to compete. Many factors, some of which are beyond our control, are important to maintaining and enhancing our services and may negatively impact our reputation if not properly managed, such as: • Our ability to maintain a convenient and reliable user experience as consumer preferences evolve for varying multi-channel experiences; • Our ability to increase brand awareness among existing and potential strategic distribution channels, corporate partners and consumers through various means of marketing and promotional activities; • Our ability to retain and expand our network of buyers and sellers through developing Internet communication methods, such as mobile platforms and social media channels; • The efficiency, reliability and quality of our products, services and retail website experiences; and • Our ability to protect personally identifiable information and credit card data and perceived weaknesses in data privacy or security practices or product quality problems of our service or other e-commerce websites. If we are unable to maintain our reputation, further enhance our brand recognition and increase positive awareness of our websites, our results of operations and business may suffer.