LoreHardison173
Advantages
Business cards for that price of postage; good range of designs; easy registration
Disadvantages In-your-face advertising
When you hand out a business card, you don't want a lot of it to come off in your potential client's hand. Free business card offers abound, however the quality could be variable to say the least. So when a relative demonstrated a company card that she had got FREE from Vistaprint.com, I decided to check it out personally.
Because it ended up, there was also a UK version, however when I looked at the available designs, the one I wanted was only on the US site, so that's where I went.
Registration When you get towards the site, the free business card link is on the top left. Hitting this takes you to some page where you can see the designs. However, before you can start the entire process of getting something for virtually nothing, you need to register.
Registration is straightforward: you provide an email address, surname and first name, and hang a password. You may also fill in a business name and supply your password hint in the event you forget your password later. I selected not to give a hint, then needed to depend on my faulty memory on my second trip to the site.
After this you have to tick a box to say if the card for business or personal use (why does this matter, I'm wondering) after which have to untick a box to opt from the company's special offers and prevent them from passing your company name on to others. Finally, you have to specify whether emails ought to be submitted HTML or plain text, press register and you're off.
You'll then have an automatic registration confirmation (it does not include your password for security reasons) along with a link where you can return and design your company cards.
Design process First, pick a design. These are divided into categories: most popular, new arrivals and business, high-impact and classy. Clicking on a design raises a bigger image and a left hand column with spaces to enter your company name, message, complete name, address, phone, fax along with other. At each stage - or at the conclusion - you are able to click the preview button below the image to determine how it looks. Be warned, though, should you convince you concerning the design at this stage you risk losing your text and having to go in it again, so make certain you're happy with the look before you start entering text. I looked at all the designs there were at least three (of the total around 20) that I liked.
Checkout and other options Once you're happy, enter your initials within the proof approval box and proceed to the checkout screen. You are then given a list of options that you can change, using the default ones pre-selected. They are:
1. Quantity - you can get 250 free, 500 for $9.99 or pay for quantities up to 5000 2. Backside printing - the free business card printing have a Vistaprint advert on the back. You can also decide to have them plain ($9.99) or choose black and white printing (at $19.99) or colour printing (at $24.99) on the back. In this instance you can pick from a variety of calendars, appointment cards and thank you cards. I did not think the designs were particularly inspiring. 3. Paper. Matte is roofed or possess a glossy front at $9.99.
Each one of the card options is definitely an *additional* cost, so be sure you only choose the options you want.
You then have many delivery options, from slow (A 3 week period, $5.51) to plain (14 days, $8.95) to priority (Seven days, $13.95). Prices vary with respect to the options you've chosen. You get another chance to sign up for special offers so when you press proceed to checkout you can also choose to buy 25 matching magnets at $9.99.
You're then come to a safe and secure site where one can enter shipping information, then view a purchase summary, enter charge card details, and may choose to buy 140 self-adhesive address labels at $3.99. Click on accept (with or without labels) and your order is processed, confirmed by email and shipped within the specified time.
Annoyances As a business, I guess Vistaprint need to use their website and emails to advertise products, but I found the advertising obtrusive. Unwary shoppers could well reach the checkout and find they've amassed a huge bill, having ordered magnets and labels as well as the free business cards.
Tha harsh truth My order was shipped 5 days once i placed it using their Netherlands office and is at my hands per week following the order, much faster compared to advertised A 3 week period. Ordering from the US cost me GBP3.14 rather than GBP3.08 in the UK but an extra 6p was a small price to pay to have the look I needed. When I'm ready for any new batch, I'll definitely be using them again. (Update: I have just ordered another batch of economic cards. All of them originate from one site now there are a lot of free offers.)
Summary: Good service, specifically for small home based businesses
