My biggest complaints!

aburack

Hello all. I would like to start by saying that I have been with smugmug for over a year now and have had wonderful experiences. The people there are wonderful to deal with and no one can complain about the quality. I do however share the complaints that most people have:Packages, coupons, volume pricing. etc....This complaint has nothing to do with any of those.Background: I generally shoot small parties (1st wedding coming up) and portraits. The biggest part of my business is school photography.Last year we allowed the parents to view and purchase what they wanted online. It didn’t work out nearly as well as we hoped. With a student body of 400, we only got 61 orders. Parents complained that they wanted packages etc… I am not debating packages vs ala carte. Their biggest complaint was credit card information on the internet (not the issue here). The biggest issue was that this (school photos) are used as a PTA fundraiser and we donate a percentage to the PTA. Last year we gave then $200. We should have given them over 1K. Situation: This year the PTA wanted pre-payment from the parent body and this actually worked out financially to our benefit, 360 orders out of a possible 400. (this years donation was $1,200). YAY ME!!! Here comes the kick in the A$$ that brought me way down.1) The ordering process for that many kids was a horror. Without the ability to create packages I had to manually select every print in the “package” I offered. For example I offered a medium package of 1 8x10, 2 5X7, 2 4X6, 8 Wallets. Imagine having to select each and every print size and paper for 360 orders. That meant clicking 2520 time. Not including cropping if needed. Now this was a HUGE pain but not my biggest complain…. I am getting to that. 2) I started the order process by ordering the 1st grade photo and then sending it to ship. Then I figured out that if I purchase each grade by itself the shipping charges would be greater then a single larger purchase. 3) Here it comes!!! I went ahead and ordered 1st thru 8th grade at once and my pics came in 3 days. I nearly died at the 150+ shipping costs but again not the problem. The problem was there was absolutely no rhyme or reason on the way the pics where packaged. The order went in alphabetically 1st thru 8th. But the packaging came all messed up. Now I have to spend hours and hours to sort out and repackage all 2520 photos. You guys must do something about that. Self fulfillment users will shy away from larger orders. The time spent cleaning up this mess will cost me more then I end up profiting from it. ARG!!!!!!!

Pupator

I think this would be more effective if you spent more time clearly articulating the problem that matters most (the order of the prints) and what Smugmug/EZ Prints should be doing to fix it.

As it is you have so many complaints that "aren't what you're complaining about" it gets really confusing.

Having read your post I can certainly understand why you're frustrated, don't get me wrong - I'm just trying to help your main issue get addressed.

Andy

Hi, many, many thanks for telling us like it is. We'll take your complaints to heart, and hopefully be able to improve on things!