Online Photo Printing in India

What is it with online photo printing services in India? I tried it twice with two different vendors and both of them messed things up.

I tried it first with G. K. Vale. I asked them to print a greeting card for me:

For one full week the order was not delivered. I chased their customer services guys (who were pretty hard to reach) and they had no clue as to what exactly was happening to my order (“we had power failure so they was a delay”, “we will ship this evening”, “we have already shipped it; you will be receiving it any moment today” etc).  Finally my wife had to walk into their store in Jayanagar and lodge a complaint (they knew her by sight since she was a frequent customer).

Finally it emerged that some wise guy in  their print shop decided this was a bad photo  - all black – and decided not print the order! The GM of their web sales division had to get involved to finally print it and send it to me! I barely had time to get the card out before New Year.

The day before, I tried ordering a calendar (composed from my photographs) from Canvera. Now, the Canvera office is barely 5 KM from my home. They tell me they have shipped the order yesterday. This morning the courier guy calls me for directions to my house. Now it is 7 PM and no delivery yet. Tomorrow is a public holiday so the earliest I can hope to get delivery is the day after. That is almost three days to cover a 5 KM distance! And of course I have no idea how the calendar will turn out!

In both cases, the order booking web site worked like a charm (well, almost like a charm. The Canvera web site truncates the shipping address). It is the fulfillment process that leaves a lot to be desired. Trouble is, on a web order they make you pay the full money in advance. I suspect this is one of the reasons why the fulfillment is lax – they have my money in their pocket already!

The idea of ordering photo products looks good on paper but in reality these chaps have just not got their act together. And probably never will (unless a biggie like Reliance gets into the act).

PS:

Canvera responded well to my email complaints and got the calendar delivered today (though it is a public holiday today). Canvera’s production quality is top class.