Shutterfly

I have ordered 2 photo books and prints from Shutterfly. I have been very happy with my orders, The tools are easy to use and they do not charge you more for the decorative touches. I usually use a coupon which makes it a great deal. I would suggest finding a coupon before you order to save money.

Shutterfly did not mail out my order, at all. I sat around waiting past the outside arrival date and nothing came. The tracking number they gave me is invalid. And to make matters worse, they’re invitations. Invitations which would have gone out last week, had they arrived on time. Customer service is giving me the run around, saying its going to be next week before I can get the invitations. That would be TWO weeks late. It’s your mistake, Shutterfly, fix it.
Do NOT order from Shutterfly if you are under a time constraint. In fact, don’t order from them at all.

Today I made my sister cry… intentionally.
I know, I know, that sounds really bad… but allow me to explain.
THE SCENE
I was delighted when my oldest sister asked me to be the official photographer at her wedding. I am NOT a professional, but she has seen my photobooks and vacation pics for years and entrusted me with the honor of one of the most important jobs on her special day. I can’t tell you how much pressure it is to get something right when you don’t know what you are doing, but it’s my sister, so I gave it everything.
The day went perfectly and none of my fears of ruining her wedding by making a blithering mistake ever happened. I got every shot I wanted and to my surprise most of them came out perfect. Once the wedding was over and my sister was off to her honeymoon, I sequestered myself away from my entire family to begin feverishly working on editing and cropping each of the 1,147 pics I had taken. I worked all through the night. It was 4am when a thought gave birth in my head as I downloaded the edited and raw pics to a compact flash drive for my sister. She has always LOVED my family photo albums, so why not create a special album of her special day?
After that light bulb went off in my head I couldn’t contain my excitement over this unique opportunity to surprise her with a gift she would not be expecting… but one I knew for sure she would treasure. I was tired, but my personality is driven to complete tasks, especially when they are fresh in my head. So, for the next 42 hours I survived on minimal sleep as I began creating her wedding album.
— — — -
Shutterfly has everything you need to create amazing photo books for any occasion and I was very grateful for their many idea pages to spark my creative drive. I was on a time clock and I needed to get this photo book done and ordered before she made it back from her honeymoon (so that the timing of it’s delivery would be perfect). I knew she would want to see her pics immediately and would probably head to a printer soon after making her selections. She returned, received the compact flash I left her of the wedding photos, and sent me a sweet message:
«I absolutely love, love, love our wedding pictures. Moments I don’t think a trained professional would have captured. Outstanding!!! I am happy. You did an excellent job brother, thank you from the bottom of my heart!»
I was both pleased and relieved, but still full of excitement as the anticipated delivery date of her photobook would be exactly 10 days from the day of her wedding. Then it happened, she got the book via express delivery and my phone began to ring. I was so anxious to hear what she had to say. I worked so hard on that book and couldn’t wait to see if it had been worth while. I answer, and to my delight she was crying so hard that she created a new language as she tried to speak. When she finally got it together enough to use English, she said «This is the most precious gift I’ve ever received in my entire life. I can’t tell you what this means to me.»
THE VERDICT
I am thrilled, because that was exactly what I wanted her to feel. Thank you Shutterfly, from me, my sisters and actually my entire family. She is the type of women that appreciates a phone call more than a text, a hand written letter instead of an email, and breakfast in bed over monetary gifts… so I knew this would be just the kind of gift that would bring her to tears. It was a HUGE success. I wish I could share the entire album and just how wonderful it turned out, but my siblings are not as public as I am :-)

SPECIAL THANKS
I couldn’t write this review without also making special mention of San Francisco Unilocaler Earl G, a good Unilocal friend who took time to advised me of the lens to use for best indoor quality. It prove to be extremely important. Thanks again buddy!
Unilocal100 [53] and also [29] see previous review

My first time getting prints on-​line and they are bad! Heads are cut off and so on. I will not use them again. Such a waste of time!
They did respond fast via email but their offer was as ridiculous as their prints!
A number of free prints but they told me I have to crop my photos!
I complained again that my photos are the right size and that whoever did the prints zoomed in and heads were cut off. THEN they admitted that Shutterfly automatically re-​sizes pictures! They zoomed in on my pictures and head were cut off the picture. That is a bad print job.
Good bye Shutterfly

I am VERY impressed with Shutterfly. I initially received a «free» offer for an 8X8 photo book from Best Buy. It ended up costing $ 11.75 with shipping but was very well done. Their customer service was one of the best I have ever experienced anywhere. They really BELIEVE and are proud of their company and that is important.
ADVICE: Wait for coupons and offers and the wonderful photo books run $ 10-​$ 13 each. (shipping incl) It is a great value. Print processing is a great deal here too.

I’ve ordered prints of digital photos from Shutterfly a few times, and the problem I’ve had is that the edges of the photos were not cut cleanly. That is, it seems whatever blades they used to cut the photos were dulled and not sharp, resulting in photo edges that were often rough looking and that sometimes even had layers that were delaminated from each other because the cut was so rough. At the time, I contacted their customer service about the problem, and they re-​made my order. However, the 2^nd order had the exact same problem. That leads me to conclude that they are using old blades that are far past the point of needing to be replaced or sharpened. If they paid more attention to this, they would have a much better product.

I am shocked at all the bad reviews. I love Shutterfly. I have ordered at least 10 photo books over the years and they have all been awesome. I make one for each year, plus I have made some for family as gifts. I have also ordered mugs, mouse pads, etc. I have never had to call customer service for any reason so maybe I would feel different if I had any problems. My only reason for not rating this 5 star is I am not too keen on the new photo book option. I think it is way harder to figure out even though it gives lots of options that are cool. I wish they still had to old version available also… would make it a lot easier for me.

IF you actually get your photobooks (after «lab delays», no return calls from customer service and constantly shifting and changing of promised shipping dates) they are quite lovely.
The photos remain unsmudged by the tears streaming from my cheeks since they didn’t arrive in time for the event they were purchased for. Thankfully, they’re light and sturdy enough that I can bulk mail them to the 20+ people who were supposed to pick them up in person. Oh, and the discount on shipping they gave me for the three-​week delay makes a nice dent in my own USPS tab.
What’s the url for Blurb, again?

I am very impressed. I ordered a discounted 8×8 photobook; it came out to be about $ 14 for shipping with a minimum of 20 pages. I have in the past didn’t like the site or how the pictures didn’t come out as vibrant.
I am very, very impressed this time, it actually came out nicer than an album I created with Picaboo. Shutterfly has updated their website and I also used a new storybook template from the site and it came out so great! I, of course, photo-​shopped and what-​not to my pictures before checking out. Also, using a pre-​template storyline is an extra $ 4.99, I thought it was worth it especially since I was getting a discount.
Also, the bar code issue, it comes out nice if you make sure to adjust with a white background from the spine so it blends right in; don’t do a full wrap around with an image at the spine cause I did that before (the bar code background will always be white)… hopefully this makes sense… there is no way to remove the bar code but I have learned to work around it. Not sure if you would use as a wedding album, but it’s up to you cause of the bar code on the back by the spine… this review is for a classic photo book.
I can’t say much about customer service as I did not need help with anything or the website. After checking out, you do have 30 minutes to cancel if you made a mistake. I believe after the 30 minutes, it will be very hard to cancel cause the process is automated as stated in their FAQs.

I don’t care how much free stuff you give away, I hate your site and I was an unwilling transfer from Kodak Gallery. Kodak Gallery was simple and had great quality prints. Kodak Gallery had my photos at their original resolution.
Shutterfly is clunky to arrange photos
Shutterfly is slow for uploads
Shutterfly’s print quality is significantly inferior to Kodak
Shutterfly compressed all of my photographs from their original resolution and the newspaper that I need to deliver the photos to cannot use the tiny res photos I now have to offer.
Shutterfly «kindly» provided me with a dvd of my photograph at their original resolution for $ 20 + shipping.
If it has photo editing options, I couldn’t find ‘em
Eff you. Jackasses.

Awesome! Got a free 8×8 photobook… only paid shipping.
The photobook came within a week. The photobook looked amazing!
Also, new customers get 50 free prints. I think you just pay shipping ~4 $ so it is about 8 cents per picture.

One of the worst customer service dept. I have ever dealt with.
Their website had a very misleading box about 50 free prints on orders until the end of september (which is not the case)
I just hope the photos are better than their customer service since I haven’t even received them yet. I would stay away from them.

When contacting Shutterfly to delete a duplicate account that is inactive, the only way to get through is their «contact us» function. No phone number exist. The response is not prompt and unable to initially adhere to my specific request. A customer service representative repeated the same agonizing question via email: «why to delete your account?» I was forced to describe my reason for DELETING my account TWO times which was written as stated in my initial contact. The compelling reason to DELETE this account is a DUPLICATE account. Spring cleaning my cyberspace accounts fend no valid reason to abode TWO accounts. Why should there be a compelling reason to inhabit two accounts under two email addresses when I only utilize one?
Why should Shutterfly be instructed as requested by the customer TWO times for a simple measly task?

I have been a Shutterfly customer since it first opened in the 90’s. I have seen Shutterfly improve over the years, but it still has long ways to go.
What I like about Shutterfly:
* Print quality is better than most other online photo companies.
* Customer service is reasonable when you call in for problems.
* The company is based in Redwood City, so my orders usually arrive earlier than their estimated times for me.
What I do not like about Shutterfly:
* ½ star off: I get a lot of promotion spam from them, especially regarding photo books. Every time I log in, a pop-​up appears telling me about a photobook promotion. I cannot opt out of certain promotions; it is all-​or-​nothing.
* ½ star off: Useful promotions last a ridiculously short amount of time e.g. 1 day. If I did not check my E-​mail at that instant, upload my photos at that instant, figure out how I want to use the promotion at that instant, I would not be able to use the promotion. It is like they have a gimmick to purposely not want you to use their promotions.
* ½ star off: Cost is still on the high side when you take into account regular pricing plus S&H costs.
* ½ star off: Certain photo book and custom cards designs cost extra. This makes no sense as it would not cost them any more ink to print another design!

Shutterfly is great for scrapbookers and photo lovers.
I myself used to scrapbook the good ol’ fashion way until Shutterfly started offering photo books that you can create to your liking… or you can let them create the book for you at no extra cost. I have been a loyal customer for over 7 years now, I won’t go elsewhere. Also, they always have outstanding promotions, free 8×10 photo books, free prints, free shipping and more.

i’ve ordered several photo books using their website, and have always been happy with the final product. most recently, my fiancé and i created our wedding guest sign-​in book using their photo book creator.
you can take any existing digital photos (provided they are uploaded to shutterfly) and create a photo book, with as few or many pages as you like. there is a choice of soft or hard cover, and book size ranges from 5×7 to 12×12. there are many themes/​designs to choose from, in an array of colours. the online creation tool allows you to crop and arrange photos as you wish, with the option to add comments. quality is generally pretty good, although i’ve seen the occasional blurry photo in the book as a result of a re-​sized photo or poor print quality on an existing photo.
prices start at $ 12.99 for the smallest book, and go up to $ 54.99 for the largest book.
shipping time is roughly 7 – 10 days.

I don’t even know why I gave Shutterfly a second chance.
THIS time here was my issue (s):
I spent three entire days creating a photobook. When I went to order it, it would not add to my cart. So I called customer service. In order to get something added to my cart, (internet explorer is not sufficient enough), I had to download firefox and adobe flashplayer. REALLY, REALLY? You can’t let people order an item from your company using internet explorer as a browser? I’m guessing over 50% of the people on this earth use IE… seriously. WTF.
Not to mention, once again, the customer service was horrific. I can’t understand them and they can’t understand me.
Quite possibly the worst customer service I have ever encountered.
Hey shutterfly, if the majority of your customers speak english/​live in the US, how about bringing your call center back to the US and employ some american citizens who need jobs?
I’m taking my business elsewhere.

Software? FAIL
Customer Service? FAIL
Finished Product? Do-​it-​yourself home-​printer FAIL
For photo books try
— much better, similar $

Photo processing and assorted stuff.
I use Shutterfly from time to time, mostly for the capability to make a hard copy photo album. I’ve also used them to print some photos but that is becoming a rarity for me these days.
All in all a good experience with the album creation– the site lead me through the steps quickly and easily and within a few days the book was delivered and looked exactly as I had planned it out.
I’ve never had an issue so I cannot speak to the customer service aspect of the site, but for straight up photo processing and photo albums, they are very good.

Shutterfly. complete incompetence. Buggy site, no help with credit card issue, trouble finding customer support phone number, can’t transfer calls to right department, wasting time.
IDIOTS!!!