For school work young Owen needed a photo of his family celebrating something, so a suitable photo from a recent birthday party was selected.
I figured I’d upload the photo to BigW photos the night before, to give them a chance to print them out before I arrived the next day. I noticed the disclaimer “Delivery Times: Please allow approximately 10 working days for your order to arrive in the mail or to be ready to be picked up in store” but figured this was just legalese arse-covering, applicable to weird things like coffee mugs etc.
I fully expected to get an email five minutes after submission.
I wondered to myself how it is that they can make any money from a single 10c photo, paid for via PayPal. I figure my order must be costing a buck or two in direct and indirect costs; the PayPal fees alone would be the entirety of the payment.
I didn’t get an email. It’s been four days now, and the order is still “In production” leading me to believe that the order is going to be printed somewhere that isn’t my local BigW, and is then being shipped there. Needless to say, I shan’t be collecting it; the day after the photo upload I went to Bunnings for a hinge and some storage boxes, and popped into Officeworks beforehand anticipating some delay in printing – alas, there was a sixty second delay, so that prudence wasn’t required. Of course, I could have gone to Harvey Norman for the photos but it was an extra 100m walk and another 5c, even if their printing seems to be of a higher quality, a classroom of Prep students isn’t going to appreciate the difference.
Riddle me this: if my photos aren’t printed out at my local BigW, why would I upload them to BigW photos when I could drag myself there in person and collect them within the hour?
Beware of BigW Photos. http://www.danielbowen.com/2008/08/08/leaked-sold-or-hacked/
I just go down to the local chemist and use their machine. Prints the photos in a minute or two. (Yeah the quality prob isn’t as good.)
I use Croydon Camera House for mine. I upload one day, collect the next. They print them in their real shop using a real photographic printer (unless I choose the inferior, non-photographic option).
I got an email: my photos are ready five business days later! I remember film used to get turned around in your choice of same day or 24hrs.
@daniel: of course they got a traceable email address. Everyone does. If a friend or family member gets malware on their computer and their email compromised, burning the old one and handing out a new one isn’t a problem. Oddly, this hasn’t happened to people, only organisations – quite a lot of them.
I was in BigW looking at eyeglasses, and decided to pick up the photo to prevent an annoying phone call. A comparison of the BigW online photo to Officework’s printing shows BigW online’s sucks balls – much darker, poorer contrast and with a blurrier reproduction.