As team photographer for my boys' wrestling team, it was my responsibility to come up with a gift for each team member using the photos from the season. Last year, we made a photo CD for each child, and we will still make one to show at the banquet, but photos on a CD just aren't as accessible. I wanted something the kids would pick up and really look at.
My boys LOVE the
Shutterfly books I've made in the past, but they were too pricey for a whole team of 61 kiddos. We started hunting around for a small version that was affordable and stumbled upon a company named
Mixbook that had 4x6 soft cover mini-albums for $6.99. Now this is doable!
I made each book with the same photos at the beginning and end and changed out 3 or 4 photos of each wrestler in the center. It was pretty cool how I could arrange photos into collage or scrapbook pages. I used these features sparingly since I wanted the photos to be as large as possible. Also, I could have a 20 page album for each kid! Bonus!
So, let's see...we've got price, page arrangement features, and lots of pages under the "Good" column.
The pictures came out crisp and clear, and it's a cute little size. Also "Good".
My order of 60+ books came 10 days before they were scheduled! Good, good, good! Thank goodness I didn't buck up the extra $35 they were asking for to rush delivery!
The "Bad and the Ugly" falls all on the shoulders of shipping prices. Here is the 5 lb. box that measures, 9x5x6 inches that arrived today. What would you imagine a box this size would cost to ship? Well, I ship my 12 lb. frame boxes that measure 22x22x4 inches every week for around $15.00
Mixbook charged me $92.90 to ship this tiny box from California to Pennsylvania! I contacted the customer service department to question the shipping price and they referred me to the
shipping charges explanation page of their website. I checked it and sure enough, it was calculated properly according to their policy. Too bad I didn't think to check that page BEFORE making the albums. It wasn't until I'd added everything to my cart and did a double take at the shipping charge that I investigated. It never would have occurred to me that one small box of albums shipped all together would run almost $100 to ship. So, shame on me?
Since I had already spent weeks arranging photos in 60+ photo books, I worked it out to pay their exorbitant shipping charges...very grudgingly.
So, yes, I got ripped off on shipping charges and Mixbook is dancing their way to the bank with $92.90 from our non-profit wrestling team of kids aged K-6 but I have tiny memory books to help the boys (and one girl!) remember wrestling season 2012-13. Thank goodness I was able to find a coupon online to help absorb some of the shipping costs!
**Obviously I wasn't paid or compensated in any way to write this review for Mixbook.**