I'm looking for a new place to park my photos and where I can order, at the least, prints. Ideally I'd also be able to get products from time to time, such as albums and cards. After using Smugmug for over a year now, I received bad service, a bad product, and I am done with them. That's the bottom line, so if you don't care about the details, you can stop reading here and reply with a recommendation if you have one. Thanks!
I like their site, and in the past, I have ordered simple prints ranging from 3x5 to 10x15 with no issue. This year we had our first baby, so suddenly I found myself in the market for things I would never have otherwise bought. Like many new parents, we decided to make those Christmas cards with a family photo. Big mistake. I ordered them on December 16th. I know this is late to order a custom product but I knew that I could get them in the nick of time. And if they arrived at our recipients' homes on the 26th or 27th, I was ready to accept the blame.
Smugmug says they ship in 1-2 business days, but that it occasionally it takes an additional day for "some photo gifts and wrapped or mounted prints." Knowing that I would have to hurry to get them to people by Christmas, I paid additional for faster shipping and figured I could at least get timely to them people in the area where mail takes only 1 or 2 days. Around the 22nd I started to check the porch to see if they had arrived. On the 23rd I got an email telling my my order had shipped that day.
A week is not 1-3 days.
I wrote to them to complain and they offered to refund my shipping or the whole order if I sent them back. Their explanation was simply that they were busy. They never issued any warnings before I ordered or after to say that holiday volume could mean delays. This is our first child, and of course I'd rather get them to people late, so I figured I'd accept the shipping rather than return them.
Today they arrived. Excitedly, I opened the box. The cards feature a family photo, a photo of baby's face, and a photo of something with his name on it. The latter two shots were cropped in half. I had very carefully zoomed and positioned those photos. There was obviously no QC at all. In an instant, I was done with them. As soon as I have a new hosting site selected and set up, I will cancel my account with them. And it figures, I just sent $20 to the guy who designed the Smugmug plugin for Lightroom.
So...what site do you all use, and do you have any stories to share, good or bad? Thanks in advance. This is a huge letdown.
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