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A quick post today, an unfortunate experience that turned out alright (ish) in the end, but highlights a major problem with the fulfillment process.
So, instead of using a service with templates to create my holiday card, I create an image using Photoshop, and then order the image as photo prints. Not only is this more cost effective, but I’m able to make the exact card I would like. This year’s was full of Instagram images.
I utilized Snapfish for this order because they had a great sale on prints, and I was excited for the discount as I was ordering quite a few prints. I uploaded the file and saw that my preview looked great, as seen below. I love the preview feature, it gives a great sense of confidence on how my item will look when I receive it. The Flickr Wall Art experience also had a preview feature that I appreciated.
Unfortunately, the resulting item looked like this (photo from my Instagram):
As you can see, the left side is completely cut off! A complete miss in quality control on the part of Snapfish. I could not believe that my prints had been shipped this way, and am also very shocked that no one at Snapfish is pulling my prints, comparing them to the preview I was shown, and then shipping them out once they have been identified as acceptable.
Naturally, I took this up with Snapfish. I joked about it on Instagram in a less-than-friendly way (full disclosure!), but I knew that I was at the point where I would have to re-order and that my cards would be late. To their credit, I received a lovely response on Twitter from the Snapfish people, and reached out to them via live chat on their website around the same time. I commend them for being on top of it, because I quickly was awarded a credit to my account to order new prints.
In hindsight, I think I should have received a free shipping upgrade as well, because I ended up not receiving my holiday cards (which were properly cropped) until December 18th. Many in the US arrived without delay, but I send quite a few to other countries, and they ended up being delivered after Christmas.
I am pleased with the responses I received from Snapfish after the fact, but the obvious problem is that there was such a major disconnect between the preview I was shown on their site and the product I received in my first shipment. I would suggest that Snapfish revisit the online tool, or their printing/fulfillment process to rectify this problem for future customers.
