I receive emails from Vistaprint regularly and this time I decided to follow the link for the free premium business card offer. I landed on the page, uploaded the graphic for my card I had designed for me and followed through the process provided. The end price was going to be $20.73. I'm not saying this isn't a very good price for 250 business cards, but it isn't free.
Before purchasing your "free" business cards from Vistaprint or any other company, you should review your needs. Next time when you need cards the offer won't be "free". Look at the bigger picture. In this case I had my card professionally designed. The same design can then be extended to be used across my business if required.
If you look at the Ideal Business Card offer for $159 your obtain a professionally designed card plus 1,000 business cards with printing on both sides and gloss on the front. If you purchased four lots of 250 cards over time for $37.49 (totalling a thousand cards) the price ends up around the same, but you only get matt cards, no professionally designed artwork and no opportunity to use the design across the rest of your business.
Next time you're thinking about a free offer, take a little time to think about what is in your interests right now, but also in the future. It might not be "free", but it may save you time and money in the long run.
Kelvin Eldridge
http://www.onlineconnections.com.au/
PS. As a Virtual Profit Sharing member I receive a profit share on any business that results from using the link for the Ideal Business Card. The opportunity to profit share is available for free to anyone who wishes to become a Virtual Profit Sharing member and help businesses to prosper by referring business.
UPDATE: Approximately 5 hours after writing this blog entry I received another offer for the free business cards. This time with my graphic displayed and again for free. When I checked it was now free but the graphic resulted in a price of $8.99. Not too bad I thought. Previously the graphic was discounted to under $2. I decided to proceed.
At the point of purchase you are given delivery options with the standard 14 days being $17.03. When working out your pricing watch out for the delivery charge and make sure you add it if you're making a comparison. Remember you will need to reorder at some stage and you'll pay the full price plus any other charges, such as the image upload and delivery fee. I've seen another company offer free cards only to see people unhappy to be charged for delivery and handling. To me free isn't free unless it costs you nothing, period. So I again decided not to proceed.
My thought is to put the money towards the full gloss cards I actually prefer and to purchase a quantity of a thousand. In addition I'd like to add some text on the reverse side. I can use The Ideal Business Card approach and obtain the cards faster and what I want for around the same price without any of the discounting offered by Vistaprint. It really is good to add in ALL costs including postage when making comparisons.
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