last 2 orders had yahoo ads in them

Cindy · November 20, 2005

whats up with that???

My last 2 print orders via my smugmug website were delievered with postcards in every package. The card is an advertisement to go to photos.yahoo.com and order prints for as little as 20 cents each with the option to pick them up at target within 4 hours. HELLO... if EZPrints is printing my orders why are they putting yahoo ads in them and there's no possible way they can deliver to target stores worldwide within 4 hours.

What really bites me is are my customers also recieving these ads when they order from my website... I'd surely hope not!!!!! I certainly don't want them thinking I'm getting my prints made by yahoo &/or target.

I've tried to access ezprints website but keep getting a server error. Anything up with that? Is there something in the works going on that were not being told about or that I havn't yet heard about?

Thanks,
Cindy

Andy · November 20, 2005

Cindy wrote:

whats up with that???

My last 2 print orders via my smugmug website were delievered with postcards in every package. The card is an advertisement to go to photos.yahoo.com and order prints for as little as 20 cents each with the option to pick them up at target within 4 hours. HELLO... if EZPrints is printing my orders why are they putting yahoo ads in them and there's no possible way they can deliver to target stores worldwide within 4 hours.

What really bites me is are my customers also recieving these ads when they order from my website... I'd surely hope not!!!!! I certainly don't want them thinking I'm getting my prints made by yahoo &/or target.

I've tried to access ezprints website but keep getting a server error. Anything up with that? Is there something in the works going on that were not being told about or that I havn't yet heard about?

Thanks,
Cindy

Hi Cindy, ouch - I'm so sorry that this happened. Looks like our print partner Ezprints made a mistake and inserted something they shouldn't have into your order. This is definitely not supposed to happen. I can't explain why you can't' reach EZPrints website, but in any case, the place to bring it up is here or help@smugmug.com.

Thanks for alerting us to this.

Cindy · November 20, 2005

andy wrote:

Hi Cindy, ouch - I'm so sorry that this happened. Looks like our print partner Ezprints made a mistake and inserted something they shouldn't have into your order. This is definitely not supposed to happen. I can't explain why you can't' reach EZPrints website, but in any case, the place to bring it up is here or help@smugmug.com.

Thanks for alerting us to this.

Thanks Andy. This has happened in my last TWO orders. At first I thought well that's really weird... but then the more I thought about it the more I didn't like it. Didn't figure smugmug would either unless of course there's some sort of changes being made that we aren't aware of (I hope not).

I have another order due to arrive here Tuesday so I'll let ya know if the ads are included in it this time around again.

Have a great day,
Cindy

KeithH · November 20, 2005

The order I received last week from EZPrints just had a glossy two-sided card in it thanking me for ordering through SmugMug on one side and promoting SmugMUg on the other. Seemed like that was OK but promoting my own site would be even better. I see they print SmugMUg's URL on the back of each print.

marlinspike · November 20, 2005

Hmmm, I'm going to have to do another test order I think. I don't want anything to be shipped to my cusomters other than the print and some sort of reference to the guarantee.

3rdPlanetPhotography · November 20, 2005

I recieved package last week and I don't recall getting anything other than my photos, however, if this is happening I'd hope that someone puts a stop to it right now. I'd prefer that EZprints send nothing but the photos. kc7dji

Baldy · November 20, 2005

Cindy wrote:

This has happened in my last TWO orders....

Have a great day,
Cindy

Ack, you ruined my day. :yikes:yikes:yikes

cybercrypt13 · November 21, 2005

Baldy wrote:

Ack, you ruined my day. :yikes:yikes:yikes

Honestly, if they are going to print a URL on the back of my photos, I'd much rather it be my URL. The problem I have with all this, is that by smugmug getting in the middle, its possible for customers to see actual prices of pictures they are having printed through us. Its like handing out our cost book to everyone before they order.

Then to make it worse, 2 years later when they can't remember our URL they will go to smugmugs instead.

I would seriously like to see smugmug make some attempt to have at the very least our filename and URL printed on the prints to aid our customer's in finding us again later on.

Just my 2 cents,

Andy · November 21, 2005

cybercrypt13 wrote:

Honestly, if they are going to print a URL on the back of my photos, I'd much rather it be my URL. The problem I have with all this, is that by smugmug getting in the middle, its possible for customers to see actual prices of pictures they are having printed through us. Its like handing out our cost book to everyone before they order.

Then to make it worse, 2 years later when they can't remember our URL they will go to smugmugs instead.

I would seriously like to see smugmug make some attempt to have at the very least our filename and URL printed on the prints to aid our customer's in finding us again later on.

Just my 2 cents,

Hello Glenn, Thanks for posting.

Backprinting is something we'd like to be able to offer - and we're having active discussions about it now. No promises on if/when, but if you would subscribe to the release notes blog you'll know about it as soon as it happens.

Regarding "smugmug getting in the middle" - that's a good thing for you, let us handle your customer service issues, that's one of the benefits of a pro account. We handle loads of questions every day, most within 15-30 minutes, and rarely longer than an hour. One of the most common questions? "when will my order arrive?" They'll usually write this to us a couple days after ordering - and btw they've selected Economy shipping, inexpensive yes, but which is US Postal service, and non-trackable

Most of our pros love the fact that we handle this sort of stuff for them, so that they can be free to shoot, and go get more clients. Sometimes, not that often thankfully, an order could be damaged by the Postal Service - we handle those as well - quickly and efficiently. If the customer emailed the pro first, then the pro had to reach us, well you can see that that might add time to the equation.

Regarding the pricing - give your customers some credit - they know what prints cost, they've been to Costco, Walmart, Kodak, etc - they're buying from you and they know that it's different when buying a print from a pro versus taking their disposable to the local drug store for developing. And this is the print list in our help section.

I hope this helps further define the services we provide.

All the best,

cybercrypt13 · November 21, 2005

Good morning Andy, I agree with your comments. Unfortunately they call me as well. In fact, most of my customers are going to assume they are ordering prints from me when they go to see their prints. Its all good either way, but having my url on the prints would be awesome. I'll make sure I follow that one...

Thanks,

flyingpylon · November 21, 2005

Smugmug "getting in the middle" can be good for you, if that's what you're expecting. But it's obvious that a lot of people don't truly understand the business relationship between Smugmug and the photographer when they sign up.

Smugmug owns the store. As a photographer, you are assigned shelf space, and you are free to stock those shelves with products approved by Smugmug. You can even customize the look of the shelves to an extent. Customers can buy products from many different shelves and many different photographers at the same time, and they pay through Smugmug's cash registers. So in the end, they are Smugmug's customers.

Reading through the forum, it's clear that Smugmug doesn't really explain this arrangement as well as they could. I agree that they provide a lot of valuable services the way things are setup now, but I think there's still a communication gap of sorts there that affects people's expectations and causes misunderstandings.

Andy · November 21, 2005

Cindy wrote:

whats up with that???

My last 2 print orders via my smugmug website were delievered with postcards in every package. The card is an advertisement to go to photos.yahoo.com and order prints for as little as 20 cents each with the option to pick them up at target within 4 hours. HELLO... if EZPrints is printing my orders why are they putting yahoo ads in them and there's no possible way they can deliver to target stores worldwide within 4 hours.

What really bites me is are my customers also recieving these ads when they order from my website... I'd surely hope not!!!!! I certainly don't want them thinking I'm getting my prints made by yahoo &/or target.

I've tried to access ezprints website but keep getting a server error. Anything up with that? Is there something in the works going on that were not being told about or that I havn't yet heard about?

Thanks,
Cindy

Cindy - any chance you still have the "inspected by" stamp? It's a little circle and number stamp on the package or packaging somewhere.

Andy · November 21, 2005

flyingpylon wrote:

Reading through the forum, it's clear that Smugmug doesn't really explain this arrangement as well as they could. I agree that they provide a lot of valuable services the way things are setup now, but I think there's still a communication gap of sorts there that affects people's expectations and causes misunderstandings.

Hi flyingpylon, thanks for posting. Have you got any suggestions as to how this could be made more clear?

Techman1 · November 21, 2005

I've brought up the back printing issue several times now. I'm still hoping that some day Smugmug will get with EZPrints and work out a solution for this. I too believe that Smugmug should have it where our own URL is printed on the back of each print. At the very least put something to the effect that this is a Professional Print and protected by copyright. There isn't even a © symbol on the back to discourage copies being made. Just Smugmug.com!

As it stands currently, Smugmug is handling all the print issues and dealing with each client as if they were their own clients. I'm concerned that if a client violates the copyright law that Smugmug could be pulled into this issue also. There really isn't sufficient copyright notice on any print to even discourage someone from making copies.

Maybe someday.........

Regarding the flyers going out in the EZPrint packages, that really makes me upset. I'm not sure what the relationship is between EZPrints and Yahoo, but that really has no place in our print order packages. Did we sign up for this somewhere? This really doesn't sound like a Pro Account option to me. I guess I'll have to order some prints from my account just to see if this is occuring in all cases.

Anyway, I'm done venting for the evening.

Take care all!

Fred

Andy · November 21, 2005

Techman1 wrote:

I've brought up the back printing issue several times now. I'm still hoping that some day Smugmug will get with EZPrints and work out a solution for this. I too believe that Smugmug should have it where our own URL is printed on the back of each print. At the very least put something to the effect that this is a Professional Print and protected by copyright. There isn't even a © symbol on the back to discourage copies being made. Just Smugmug.com!

As it stands currently, Smugmug is handling all the print issues and dealing with each client as if they were their own clients. I'm concerned that if a client violates the copyright law that Smugmug could be pulled into this issue also. There really isn't sufficient copyright notice on any print to even discourage someone from making copies.

Maybe someday.........

Regarding the flyers going out in the EZPrint packages, that really makes me upset. I'm not sure what the relationship is between EZPrints and Yahoo, but that really has no place in our print order packages. Did we sign up for this somewhere? This really doesn't sound like a Pro Account option to me. I guess I'll have to order some prints from my account just to see if this is occuring in all cases.

Anyway, I'm done venting for the evening.

Take care all!

Fred

Hi Fred, thanks for posting. As to the Yahoo insert in a SmugMug customer's order - well EZPrints assures us that that was a mistake and they are taking measures to prevent that from happening in the future. Of course, you're right, this should NOT happen and we regret it happening.

As to the backprinting - yep - it's something that we'd love to offer our pros the option to do - and we're in active discussions as team now as to how best to implement it. No promises on if/when but please keep an eye on onethumb's release notes blog for updates! BTW - you can subscribe to the the RSS feed and you'll know as soon as we post the news.

Thanks again for taking the time to post - your input is incredibly valuable.

All the best,

Techman1 · November 22, 2005

Andy wrote:

Hi Fred, thanks for posting. As to the Yahoo insert in a SmugMug customer's order - well EZPrints assures us that that was a mistake and they are taking measures to prevent that from happening in the future. Of course, you're right, this should NOT happen and we regret it happening.

As to the backprinting - yep - it's something that we'd love to offer our pros the option to do - and we're in active discussions as team now as to how best to implement it. No promises on if/when but please keep an eye on onethumb's release notes blog for updates! BTW - you can subscribe to the the RSS feed and you'll know as soon as we post the news.

Thanks again for taking the time to post - your input is incredibly valuable.

All the best,

Andy,

Thank you for your reply. I'm glad that EZPrints isn't going to do this further and that is was a mistake. That makes me feel a lot better.

I do keep up with OneThumb's BLOG and will continue to monitor. I really appreciate the Smugmug team taking this one into consideration (the back printing issue). It's been on the table a long time (way before I ever joined here). I realize that everything takes time and that there are a large number of technical issues to work out before something can be implented. I'm just glad that this is being reviewed actively and I'm hopeful that it will be put into place sometime soon.

Thanks again for monitoring this forum and helping to address issues as they arise. I appreciate your quick responses.

Take care and have a great Thanksgiving holiday this week.

Fred

Bodley · November 23, 2005

flyingpylon wrote:

Smugmug "getting in the middle" can be good for you, if that's what you're expecting. But it's obvious that a lot of people don't truly understand the business relationship between Smugmug and the photographer when they sign up.

Smugmug owns the store. As a photographer, you are assigned shelf space, and you are free to stock those shelves with products approved by Smugmug. You can even customize the look of the shelves to an extent. Customers can buy products from many different shelves and many different photographers at the same time, and they pay through Smugmug's cash registers. So in the end, they are Smugmug's customers.

Reading through the forum, it's clear that Smugmug doesn't really explain this arrangement as well as they could. I agree that they provide a lot of valuable services the way things are setup now, but I think there's still a communication gap of sorts there that affects people's expectations and causes misunderstandings.

Nice analogy for the general photographer however for the event photographer I don't agree. Smugmug is the contract vendor hired to host online viewing, sales and hassles. These customers hold me ultimately responsible. Fortunately, Smugmug doesn't let either me or my customers down.

Concerning Smugmug getting in the middle all I can say is Thank Goodness. Smugmug has always responded to my customers (and my-own) concerns in a very timely fashion (much faster than should be possible). Furthermore Smugmug has always achieved a satisfactory result when, the rare case, problems have arisen. Customer support is a major reason for my using Smugmug.

I used to worry about customers seeing how much I pay verses what I charge. But if the customer can't see the value in what I add, their probably not a customer anyway.

Andy · November 23, 2005

Bodley wrote:

I used to worry about customers seeing how much I pay verses what I charge. But if the customer can't see the value in what I add, their probably not a customer anyway.

Hi Bodley, Wow - thanks for making our collective day! I know I can speak for all the folks on the team in saying it's really nice to be recognized for the work we do to keep your customers happy.

Your comment at the very end of your post is bang-on in my opinion, too.

Thanks for posting, and thanks for being our customer!

All the best,

flyingpylon · November 24, 2005

Bodley wrote:

Smugmug is the contract vendor hired to host online viewing, sales and hassles.

That's a good analogy too, and it's similar to the one I made in that "smugmug owns the store". I think a lot of photographers come to smugmug assuming that they as the photographer own the store and smugmug is simply a transparent technology vendor. That's not the case.

I'm in no way trying to bash smugmug here, it's just that they operate under a certain business model and I think a lot of people assume it's a slightly different model than it is.

Cindy · November 25, 2005

Update: No ads in this weeks order :-)

Andy wrote:

Cindy - any chance you still have the "inspected by" stamp? It's a little circle and number stamp on the package or packaging somewhere.

Hi Andy. Sorry Andy. I do have a few packages here but I normally re-use most of them for deliverying customer orders & those I don't I throw together in one larger box for re-use later so there all mixed up.

I am VERY happy to report that my order that came this Tuesday did not have any ad's in it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

Matthew Saville · November 25, 2005

Cindy wrote:

Hi Andy. Sorry Andy. I do have a few packages here but I normally re-use most of them for deliverying customer orders & those I don't I throw together in one larger box for re-use later so there all mixed up.

I am VERY happy to report that my order that came this Tuesday did not have any ad's in it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!

For the record, I was quite sure that the little inspection square of paper only came in tubed prints. I don't ever remember one falling out of an enveloped order, but I might be wrong.

Andy, and all, you really deserve a pat on the back and a bigger salary. If I didn't know better, I'd guess that smugmug was the size of IDEO or Apple or something, a huge highrise with floors and floors of email-answering tech support and whatnot. I dunno how you guys do it; you must get 2 hours of sleep each night. In fact when I write a letter to help@smugmug at 11:30 PM "knowing" it won't get answered until the next day, and then get a reply in 5 minutes, I almost feel like writing back and saying "GO TO BED!!! For crying out loud, you're not supposed to care THIS much about me!" It's almost creepy lol. I don't know how you get by on my $99 per year...

-Matt-

DawnyaLynn · April 20, 2013

Bodley wrote: »

Nice analogy for the general photographer however for the event photographer I don't agree. Smugmug is the contract vendor hired to host online viewing, sales and hassles. These customers hold me ultimately responsible. Fortunately, Smugmug doesn't let either me or my customers down.

Concerning Smugmug getting in the middle all I can say is Thank Goodness. Smugmug has always responded to my customers (and my-own) concerns in a very timely fashion (much faster than should be possible). Furthermore Smugmug has always achieved a satisfactory result when, the rare case, problems have arisen. Customer support is a major reason for my using Smugmug.

I used to worry about customers seeing how much I pay verses what I charge. But if the customer can't see the value in what I add, their probably not a customer anyway.

I tell my clients that their prints will be more than if they had them printed at the local print retailer. I also tell them the local retailer will not be professional quality prints. And most of my clients understand the need for mark-ups. With that said, I do not mark them up huge if I have been paid for the session to begin with.

On my landscape, nature, etc....photos, something I was not paid for I do mark-up more than client photos. And I think in general people understand they are not paying for the paper the photo is printed on, they are paying for the photographer's time, style and knowledge.
(I hope this makes sense, because what I wanted to say has abruptly left my head :andy

last 2 orders had yahoo ads in them

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