I’ve also had very good luck with Shutterfly customer service. They always spend a good deal of time with me, making sure I understand what to do and that the product meets my specifications. Sometimes they even throw in a coupon code that makes the final price lower. The telephone number can be a little hard to find, but the call has always been worth it. I’ve asked for help with cards, framed pictures, and photo books.
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I recently (last month) ordered a canvas print and wasn’t happy with it. The mix book rep was helpful on the phone. Ultimately, I kept what was sent and they gave me a 50% refund but they were willing to redo the canvas. I would go back to them and tell them page by page which ones you want corrected. They were very helpful and accommodating with me
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I am a long time shutterfly user. I tried mixbook a while ago based on some of the recommendations. First book I made was a reunion book - turned out fine. I did another reunion book last fall and ordered 7 copies - when the book came, I was horrified to see that the pictures looked very grainy/fuzzy. No warning when I was creating the book. I contacted their customer service, sent them pictures of the books and the original pictures I had used. They “determined” that I had zoomed in a bit too much on the pictures, losing resolution. They suggested that I fix the pages (I had to zoom back out, couldn’t use the picture as a whole page picture), they reviewed and then they reprinted/shipped the books to me for no extra cost. I also got to keep the original books. Customer service was great. The books themselves were ok - I wasn’t happy that I had to redo the layout for those pages.
That being said, I went back to doing my travel books with shutterfly. Have used them for tons and tons of books and honestly have never had this type of problem there. I still have another reunion book at mixbook - I might use them for some projects, but for my key books, I will probably stick with shutterfly. I just got three different books that I compiled yesterday and they turned out great!
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They were very helpful and accommodating with me the first time. This is the second time it’s messed up. And the messed up pages are different from the first go around. The picture layout/quality are fine. Just whoever is printing/cutting the pages must have something skewed in the machine or something.
I just don’t know if this is the best I can hope for. I would have thought since I complained and it was a reprint, that someone would have been more careful with it the second time through.
That’s interesting. I may go back to Shutterfly, but this thread made it sound like they had changed their format and it was much harder to edit and customize the pages. All of my pages are customized. Have you noticed that?
I still use Shutterfly for my Xmas cards and ornaments. I’ve used them forever.
I think I am used to editing on shutterfly. They did change some things that made me unhappy - they seem to be restricting the layouts for the back of the book for instance. Maybe more layouts are available if you opt for the signature books/pages - I haven’t tried those.
By customized, are you talking about the advanced edit options? I use them - but not on all pages. I did use them extensively a few years ago when I made a memory book for a music teacher who was retiring - that took a lot of work, but came out great!
Yeah. It’s been awhile, but every page I use that. My vacation books are like scrapbooks. I write text (what we did, but also funny anecdotes, etc) for each day/activity. And I add captions, stickers, etc. no layout is ever perfect for my pictures, so I’m constantly moving them around and resizing, etc. they take a long time, but they are my souvenirs for my travels. And I hope some day future grandkids will get a kick out of them.
I started this thread many moons ago because dear wife was having so much trouble making a vacation book using Shutterfly (wasn’t always that way, new software perhaps) . She found Mixbook to be a breath of fresh air–so easy to crop and resize photos. We were very happy with the results. Sorry to hear there may be a degradation of quality.
She’s about to embark on making vacation books again—will let you know how it goes.
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I have to use advanced editing on shutterfly because I don’t like the options for making a book automatically. So maybe another service is better if someone wants to have the book made for them. I have to say that they did change some things, such as having to upload all the backgrounds you might want to use, which is super annoying as it takes a while. I called reps a number of times when I was making my books this past Christmas and they were super helpful, except for one person.
Making a good photo book takes a LOT of time. For anyone who isn’t used to doing it, plan on at least 6 hours for a 20+ page book, but maybe I am slow.
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@Lindagaf - I don’t believe you have to use advanced editing to avoid making the books automatically. Shutterfly offers the option of placing your photos themselves and making the book (aka automatically) - and I always say no. I prefer to place the photos myself since I play around with the layout, know which picture I want to have featured etc. Advanced editing comes in when you want to go beyond the layouts they offer (and they offer a ton). I’ve used this primarily when I want to add text to the page and sometimes when the layouts they offer don’t quite work for what I am looking for.
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I make Shutterfly albums for all of the grandparents every year for Christmas and have been doing them since my son was born (15 years ago). I make a master photobook with all of the pictures from all three sides of the family (my inlaws and my divorced parents) and then edit the masterbook for each grandparent. It takes me weeks to put them together since I include all of our pictures from the past year. I used to have them printed right before Christmas and I ran into issues with not getting them in time. Now I just wait for the “free pages” promo in January and get the books for a fraction of the cost. The grandparents were fine waiting for them until after the holidays.
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Got my first Mixbook today and it turned out fine. I found them easy to work with and liked for example that all the backgrounds were included, unlike Shutterfly who has half their stuff costing extra. Maybe Shutterfly has made some improvements since this thread started but at that time they were pretty difficult to work with.
Sorry for your experience @ClassicMom98 I don’t know what I would do in your situation.
I used Paper Culture for my Christmas cards this year. I really liked them. I haven’t done books with the site, but it might be worth looking into.
I made (3) vacation books with Costco, and was delighted with the results. Very inexpensive, larger format, and more pages than typical services, and the quality was excellent. Anyone use both Shutterly and Costco, to be able to compare?
I’m also concerned about how often you must use Shutterfly to keep an account active. It may be years between printing a memory book. Shutterfly states: " Simply make one purchase (no minimums) at least once every 18 months to keep your account active and enjoy the benefits of secure and unlimited photo storage with Shutterfly. And don’t worry, we’ll send you a friendly reminder when the 18-month deadline is approaching. " Same for Costco members that transport to Shutterfly? Or do Costco members have special pricing or perks?
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Costco sent us an email saying their photo service was being transferred to shutterfly, but Costco members would get a 51% discount.
Sorry. I see this was already posted.
Final update. I got my 3rd copy of my Mixbook photo book… and the pages are STILL crooked! I do not understand why they can’t get them straight. And it’s not like if you look at each copy, they are all crooked the same way. In each book, each page is different. Some are OK, some are not. And it’s not the same pages in each book that are crooked, nor are they crooked at the same angle. I would have thought that someone would have been VERY CAREFUL about the way this one came out, since it’s the 3rd printing - the 2nd for free.
But I give up. I suppose at least I can give the other 2 copies to the kids. Next time, I’ll go back to Shutterfly and see if I can still edit the way I want to. It’s a bummer, because I really liked Mixbook for the last few books I did.
Well that stinks!
I would not give up. I’d call and ask to speak to a manager.
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There doesn’t seem to be a phone number. I’ve chatted with a live person twice. The second time (for the 3rd printing) we went back and forth for quite some time, because they didn’t seem to understand the issue. They tried to tell me it was because I zoomed into the pictures too much. The picture quality is fine. It’s like someone loaded the paper into the machine crooked, but I don’t know how they make these things. Because it’s not like the issue is on EVERY page, though it is on a lot of them. But they seemed to get it after awhile and had me move text further from the edge to make sure nothing got cut off. Which it didn’t on the second (or third) book. nothing was really THAT close to the edge. But it’s obviously crooked.
I just don’t have a lot of fight in me for these things.
Edit: I usually get an email “rate your product.” I’ll leave a review there for 1 star and see if they’ll contact me. I think that will be it.
Apparently there is no one reviewing the final products before shipping. Not that you would expect anyone going page by page, but clearly 3x, you’d think it might be noticed!