Once a Major Let-Down and Magazine Printing Nightmare; PrintPlace.com Has Come to Surprise Me

My husband and I own a marketing and design business where we print many large orders as resellers with several online printing companies; we also own and publish a local magazine in the city where we live. When seeking out a print vendor with good magazine printing prices for resellers, we chose Print Place to print our monthly magazine. We found that the price was pretty much unbeatable for the options we needed in press run.

To start, our first run of several thousand booklets looked great. The colors were sharp, the trim was darn-near perfect and overall we were very happy with the appearance of our magazine. We printed on a 3-day turn-around which meant our cost was a bit higher than had we been able to choose a 5-day turn-around option. We used their ground shipping which at the time was Fed-Ex and for the first 3 runs we got our magazine in 7-8 business days, like clockwork - their stated time frames were dead on.

Then came the problems...

Upon printing our fourth issue, Print Place notified us that they had opened a print plant in California - Oh Joy! - this was great news for us because we could hopefully use a less expensive 5 day turn-around and get the magazine in the same amount of time. I even called Print Place to confirm that they had a plant in California and was told that my order would automatically print at the closest plant, which was just a few miles from us. When looking at their turn-around time map I found that it said my area of California was in the 1-day transit time boundaries too! I happily placed my order on the 5-day in-house turn around with ground shipping and waited....and waited....and waited....

On the 5th business day the order finally shipped -- from Texas!! I immediately called and asked to speak with a supervisor in order to clear up the matter. I got nothing but bad attitude from this woman and when I asked for her supervisor I was placed on "hold" and hung up on! I asked several times via phone and email if there was anyone in charge that I could speak with to voice my concerns with regards to their confusing "transit times" map and a lack of time-frames on their site - several times, I was ignored or told "someone would call me back" with no response.

By the time I got my order, 13 days after I placed it online at PrintPlace.com I was livid and hastily found another printing company to do business with.

Months went by and no one from Print Place bothered to check up or even wonder why suddenly a couple thousand dollars less in revenue was coming in via my credit card each month.

The grass wasn't so much greener on the other side...

And without writing a full blown review here on the "other" print company (I will do that via a seperate post) I will just say that 6 months later I ended up back at Print Place out of last minute desperation and was pleasantly suprised!

I found that the CSR's seemed far more pleasant than in the past and the different departments seemed to be in sync with one another. When needing to speak with the design department regarding custom trim settings it was duely noted in my account and the next CSR I spoke with was able to easily update me and give me helpful information!

When I placed my order this last time, I found that the order was printed and actually shipped locally and I got it MUCH faster than I had anticipated. The magazine print quality was fantastic, however I never had any issue with their print quality; it always seemed to be top-notch.

This time when I contacted Print Place's customer service department it was to tell them that I was happy with my order and to ask if they would be able to somehow have my orders print locally by default. I was told that at this time it was not possible, but that my request would be forwarded on to those "in charge". (Hey I am glad I wasn't lied to this time and was actually told that it wasn't possible) I only hope that they can sometime soon guarantee which plant your order would ship from in order to plan better as a print reseller - I would probably use them for far more of my print jobs if they could do that.

Update - A Year After Writing this...

I wrote this review over a year ago and am happy to report that we are still using Print Place for our magazine and have also used them for several flyer printing jobs as well. They have been consistently spot on with the quality of the magazine and turn-around times - which is VERY important when you print a monthly magazine, as we do. For the past year, we have gotten our order exactly 4 days after placing the order on a 3 day turn around. We live near the Los Angeles plant, so that helps, but I can happily say that the orders have been consistently on time and shipped from the nearest plant - FINALLY -- hooray!

In addition, their customer service has VASTLY improved from our first experience with them. In fact, last month, we had a small issue with the trim on about 20% of our press run and they credited the entire print order back to my account without hesitation. Okay - now THAT is GREAT customer service. I am happy they learned from their past mistakes and am happy we chose to give them another shot.

As a result, I am updating my initial rating from a 4/5 to a 5/5. After over 2 years of monthly printing, we are now very satisfied with Print Place!

PrintPlace.com Quick Review:

Purchased: On a monthly basis, over a period of 1 year over 2 years. Also used Print Place to print client orders several times within that time frame.

Print Place Benefits:

• Consistently great print quality including color matching and bleeds / trim
• High volume reseller discounts
• Short runs with alot of options
• Many order options and stops in between print quantities
• Quick answers from customer service
• Easy to track orders
• Proofing issues / hold-ups are emailed to you immediately
• Ability to submit art to go straight to press without art-checking
• Easy online ordering process with instant pricing

Print Place Drawbacks:

• Not many paper weight options outside of 16pt 14pt 100lb cover/book and 80lb cover/book (This mainly is something I would like to see them offer for magazine printers, such as a 60lb paper stock option)

The Mrs. gives PrintPlace.com 5/5
I have updated this rating from a 4/5 to a 5/5 due to a consistently good experience with Print Place. I am so glad that I no longer have the headache of worrying about print quality and turn around times for myself or my clients. I  intend to continue to use Print Place for my future booklet printing orders because you can't beat their price for the print quality/turn-around. Great job Print Place!

Face it, proofing sucks. Proof-it-Online attempts to make the proofing process suck.... less. After 2 years of using this proof system, here is my review:

Just to give you some history here, my husband and I publish our own magazine and are also independent graphic artists. With these two lines of work comes the very real need to tame the proofing process. One of the biggest challenges, especially as a magazine publisher has been to keep track of hundreds of proofs under tight deadlines.

In the past we've used everything from FTP'ing PDFs to emailing each client individually with a PDF attachment of their ad. Each approach had its benefits and drawbacks. With FTP I was able to quickly batch upload PDFs, but still had to have an assistant email each and every client with a link to the PDF or I would have frustrated clients wading through 100+ PDFs to find theirs on the server. With the PDF proof email method, PDFs would get stuck or never make it to the destination and I had no real way of knowing whether or not the client ever saw a proof or not; and needless to say, this is NOT something you need or want to deal with under the pressure of a print deadline.

Then came Proof-it-Online - There is literally nothing else like it.

I tested out Proof-it-Online and knew right away that it was miles ahead of what I was doing and was sold without even being sold to. The system takes your PDF proofs and converts them to be viewable in their flash-based application. Right away I saw some solutions to the problems I was having:

• Keeping track of changes for each advertiser on a series of proofs and revisions: Proof-it-Online solves this problem by keeping proofs in a series and also allowing several people to "mark up" a proof separately yet still keeping all mark-ups in one place so it's organized.
• Knowing whether or not a proof has been looked at: Proof-it-Online has a dynamic system that gives you a status change indicator showing you whether or not the proof was even opened. You can also send reminder emails to those that haven't opened a proof right in the same screen.
• Proof approval: Clients "virtually signed" their approval by agreeing to a set of pre-defined terms in order to return their proof to us whether changes were needed or not. The system requires a name to login and see a proof.
• Client refunds and credits: Rarely could a client say to me "I never saw a proof" which was an age old excuse and a past way to get a credit. In most cases, I was able to login and see who saw the proof and when they looked at it. I could also print the report and send it to them. Of course no one likes to be told they are wrong, so that always has to be handles with care. (Too bad Proof-it-Online couldn't answer these calls for me - haha)
• Sending proofs as an outsourced graphic artist: Proof-it-Online has a process called team track which allows proofs to go from designer to sales rep to client and back all while recording the proof's movement in the process.
• Blocking proofs from being downloaded for use in competing magazines: The proof system allowed me to block the download function so that our hard work wasn't being plagiarized by other publications. This was a major issue with the FTP and email methods of proofing.
• Support: Ok I admit that I can be a spaz under pressure and the last thing I need is a proof that won't show up right on a client's screen or that's somehow not making it to its destination. Jeff at Proof-it-Online came to the rescue many times for myself and my clients. His instructions are always very detailed and explained in a way that even a total noob could figure out.

After my long term use of the Proof-it-Online system, there are of course some things that I wish were improved upon:

• Testing: There are times I felt like I was beta testing the proof system. It seems like changes were made to the proof system that were not thoroughly tested. Some mornings I would login and everything would appear the same, but proofs would disappear or get locked and become unaccessable.
• Real time tracking of views: If a person logs in and doesn't actually follow through on the whole process and complete a review to close it out, the system will not tell you who logged in to look at it, it will remain in limbo with a status of "in review".
• Handling of PDFs with gradients: Admittedly I hate Quark, but am forced to use it for some of my clients. Any design that includes a gradient in Quark gets fubar'd in the proof view. This is undoubtedly a problem that happens between the Quark PDF conversion and the conversion to flash in Proof-it-Online.
• Billing: They bill quarterly and my dealings with their billing department have been anything but peachy. The woman there seems to be facing a constant bout with PMS. Don't even think about asking for a refund if you decide to cancel for some reason. If you ask me, billing quarterly and in advance is a bad idea and bound to cause problems. Not giving client's a refund for services they won't be using is just unethical. And DO NOT refer me to some schlocky "terms and conditions" agreement that is miles long and tell me that I agreed to it.

All in all - Proof-it-Online is a lifesaver on many levels. I can tell you that after using it for about a year, I was offered a contract with another client and the terms were that I use their old school proofing method. I hesitantly agreed to test it out and because all my other clients were using the Proof-it-Online system I knew right away that I didn't want to go back to using the old FTP/email method again. I ended up turning down that contract because it was at that point very clear that the Proof-it-Online system made my life many times easier and I didn't want the massive headache caused by lost proofs and changes again.

Proof-it-Online Quick Review:

Purchased at Proofitonline.com - Package that cost $450 per quarter - billed in advance. Package included the team-track option.

Proof-it-Online Benefits:

• Far more organized proof process versus PDF emailing/FTP
• Ability to track proof approvals and markups
• Proof versioning stored in a proof series for each proof
• Ability to disallow printing/PDF download
• Digital signatures and time-stamps when proofs are reviewed
• Automated emails to clients to notify them that a proof is available
• Ability to mark-up changes directly on the proof

Proof-it-Online Drawbacks:

• Bugs - I know this is inevitable, however they might want to test a bit more before release
• Gradient handling is a little iffy on vector based objects
• Not much control for third parties in the team track scenario
• No control over tools that users can or cannot use (some are more trouble than they are worth)
• Billing by the quarter in advance - should be self explanatory why this is not a good idea
• Price for team-track may be prohibitive if you are just an independent graphic artist

The Mrs. gives Proof-it-Online a 4/5
Proof-it-Online has made the dreaded process of proofing much easier on many levels. Most notably is the ease of proof organization with their system vs. email and/or FTP. They have a great product with great support. I couldn't give it a 5 because it's not perfect in my eyes, but keep in mind that they are innovators in this area and at some point this product could certainly get pretty darn close to perfect. Also the few times I have dealt with their billing process, whether for myself or others, I was not satisfied with the treatment I received and each time I felt that I (or my client) was wronged.