Experiences with Zazzle?

mrsallenby

I find myself drawn to some pricier vendors (photographer, videographer) which means I have to cut down price wise in other areas. I want really nice looking STD's and invites without having to pay top dollar and Zazzle seems to have so many options at just the right price. I'd love to order from them but just have a few questions.

For those that have used Zazzle, were you happy with the [paper, clarity, color, printing] quality of your printed items? Did they look like how you wanted based on what you saw online? Any issues (shipping, quality, etc)?

Thanks!

arrrghmatey

(Psst, there was already a discussion about this posted a few days ago. You should check to boards first to prevent multiple discussions of the same topic!)

XP from the other discussion: I ordered my STDs from Zazzle and other than some white lines along the edge being a little wobbly in some places (I really don't care, as I'm sure no one else will notice or care, either), mine came out great. I actually made a goof when I first ordered them by not deleted the sample photo off of the back of the invite, and they contacted me to fix the problem rather than just processing my order, so their customer service was great. For the price I paid, I'm happy.

If you're looking for some fancier STDs with special designs and whatnot, then look elsewhere. If you're looking for standard STDs that to what you need them to (i.e. state the date, place, wedding website), then these will be fine. No big bells or whistles.

ccohen0819

I am getting my invitations through zazzle. My shower invites came from zazzle as well and are very nice. My STD's were made at home with a clearance kit from the David Tutera collection which I loved. Hopefully I like my invitations otherwise they will be returned and I will be starting over.

misskinababy

@ccohen0819 can you let me know how your invitations turn out when you get them? I found the ones I want on Zazzle and I'm curious about the end result. 

ccohen0819

 @misskinababy So far I'm having a mixed experience.. I have been trying to call them for three days during my breaks on my 16hour shifts at work I've been on hold up to a half hour without getting to talk to someone. I guess it was a bad idea to try to order during the Christmas rush for cards etc., but I didn't want to have any issues with not having my invitations in enough time. The hold times when you call are outrageous, they say to email.. I did.. 3x and still haven't gotten a reply. Then sometimes you call and they say they turned off their phones because of the amount of people calling..

 I know they have a worry free guarantee, but after I placed my order and showed it to a friend I noticed a missing "." period on one of the lines and it will honestly drive myself and my mother crazy if I have to send out invitations like that. I know it's my fault and it will bother other people more than it will bother my husband and myself.

I'm sure by the time I get ahold of them my order will already be in the mail. So I'll have to figure something out by that point. Maybe in person it won't even be noticeable.

SN - I had been working on invitation choice for a while and had contemplated doing them myself to keep my budget low. Had then found decent ones on The American Wedding website, had them customized, except customer service couldn't guarantee something would be printed right with my husband's name - they simply said, pay for the digital proof and if you don't like it see if they can fix it, if not cancel your order but you're still out the 20.00 for the proof...

so then we ended up finding the invitation we liked on zazzle for a decent price and everything was customizable to our liking at a decent price. Their options are great.

My bridal shower invitations came through zazzle and they turned out better than in the picture! So I'm still hopeful these will be worth it.

misskinababy

ccohen0819 I'm so sorry to hear that you're not having the greatest experience with them. But I appreciate your honesty about them. Maybe I'll look into another invitation company. 

JennyColada

I ordered all of my stuff from Zazzle (STDs, invites, announcements, even some custom stamps!).

I wasn't overly picky, and the stuff probably isn't the highest of qualities but I was very happy with my experience and will probably continue to buy the custom stamps (they were just SO CUTE).

DaniBites

I got a Groupon for them and ordered my STDates.  My picky picky FI and I loved them and had a great experience!  I want the stamps too.

blushingbride8888

After reading horror stories I was terrified I'd hate them, but after much tweaking on their website I designed something I really liked and I was really happy with them when they came in! I say go for it, just be careful of the bleeds since it really doesn't tell you where they'll get cut. I would leave over 1/4 of an inch for bleeds since I doubt it's close to as accurate as printing from an Illustrator file - I was just cautious about the photo I used (I didn't want our heads to get cut off )

theartistformerlyknownas

I ordered our Christmas cards from them this past season and was happy with them. I did the whole layout myself in Photoshop and just uploaded it as one image rather than messing with their interface.

I've ordered other things (shirts and whatnot) in the past and been satisfied.

ccohen0819

Invitations were returned, got new ones in the mail. All turned out well! 

Knottie9257232

Brides to be, save yourself from a major headache and order your wedding stationary ANYWHERE else but Zazzle. I ordered my stationary from there (110 invites, save the dates, and RSVPs) in November, 2014. They came with black smudges across the center and bent corners. I was sad, and thought I could still make it work because the design was cute. Unfortunately, you can't hide black smudges across the center of a piece of paper. I mean, who gets that invite? The relative you hate? 

So I initiate their return process, which is ridiculous. I started it in December, 2014. First, you can't just return stuff. You need to ask them for a return merchandise authorization form to return your goods. That takes a few days. Then, you need to photograph the goods you think are bad, Zazzle will look at the photos to determine if they really are bad so they will agree to pay for shipping. They wanted extra photos to see, and now it had already been 2 weeks (now January 2015) trying to return this stationary, so I paid the $19 myself to ship it back to California.

I never got any confirmation from Zazzle that they got my return, even though my USPS tracking said it was delivered in 2 days. So I was waiting for my refund, because they say it will take 7-21 business days to refund money. It is now February 2015, and 18 days into this money refund time span. I email Zazzle. They say they JUST processed my return, and it will take another 7-21 days for my refund from TODAY. Now, that pushes the timeline of getting my money back into mid-March 2015 for a return process I initiated in December 2014.

Oh, and they never responded to my emails. I had to first complain to the BBB about my situation, then BBB notified them, THEN Zazzle would finally think to email me. It is the worst customer service EVER. Look at their BBB page - no idea why they have an A+ rating, they have over 300 cases like mine over the past few years.

Do yourself a favor and go with a company that cares about its customers. There are so many online stationary stores, all offering great coupons, that you can be very frugal and get lovely stationary and not deal with Zazzle.

traditionallyuntraditional

I ordered postage from them. It wasn't my favorite bc of the QR code but the post office choices were ugly and everywhere other than USPS uses QR codes otherwise it was a very good experience. The postage was pretty and small enough to not be a focal point and it arrived on time. We ordered our invites elsewhere so I can't speak to the quality of invites.

ccohen0819

Basically same story with me. My first round of invites were horrible, paper was spotty, print was unreadable, etc. Called them for a return authorization and spent 20.00 mailing them back, in the mean time had to order new invitations out of pocket because I was afraid of printing issues with the second set.

Waited 14 Days after mailing them, called and was told they didn't have it processed yet... they called me later that day and said it was found and processed and it would take another 7-21 days for the return to hit my paypal account..

New invitations arrived and were ok during this time and I decided to just be done with it. Return showed up shortly after the first week of waiting after processing..

Zazzle has good prices, but if I could do it again, I would have chosen somewhere else to avoid the headache because when you call them and they are busy, they either shut their phone lines down, or they put you on a ridiculously long hold and say you can email them if you want a faster response.. the email response isn't faster. It tool them 2 weeks to respond to my first email that I sent the night I placed my first order, by that time the order was already being shipped to me so it didn't do me any good for them to even bother responding..