KINKOS + Business Cards = HAHAHAHAHAHA

So I have an event to attend tomorrow and I needed some last minute biz cards. I know I didn't have time to order online so I had to look for a quick local solution. A friend suggested Kinkos! So I called them and they said that they're open 24 hours and they could get my job done in just a couple hours!!!

My immediate response was - "Sweet, how much would it cost for 500-1000 cards, Full Color, UV High Gloss, and thick paper stock??" The response was "oh we can not give you a price over the phone."

So I said OK I'll take 500-1000 cards and I will send the files via email. They did not ask for my full name, phone number, or credit card number... Also they said they would call back in 10 minutes when they receive the files to give me a price estimate. To make a long story short, their customer service sucked balzzz because they never once called me. I finally called them at 7pm and asked if the cards were done, they said yes the 500 cards are printed. I said "Ok how much is it going to cost me?" They STILL said they couldnt give me price over the phone so I said OK just print the other 500 also.

So when I get there to pick up my 1000 biz cards they say, ok your total will be $254.xx.

Me and my girlfriend look at each other like we saw a ghost!!! hahahahahahahahhahahah​a

Should have just walked out immediately but I needed some cards badly, the cards SUCKED by the way, I just took 100 cards for $50. I still paid too much for the crappy cards they gave me but oh well.

That sucks they have to eat the cost of labor + materials though, it's their fault for having a sh!tty policy and customer service.

CLIFFNOTES: (for the people that are too lazy to read)


1. Need biz cards - so I called Kinkos
2. Idiots at Kinkos don't quote price over the phone so I ordered 1000 cards
3. Show up at Kinkos to pick up cards - They say cost $250+
4. I say NO WAY, take a hand full drop $50 and leave.

Wow, can't get any more ridiculous than that.

Yeah, very ridiculous, I would have never ordered them without a quote.

I got mine with OvernightPrints.com, very happy.

I made the Kinkos mistake. Never again. I got a box of crap that didn't look anything like what I thought I had ordered. Fortunately I only ordered 100 and had some good coupons for discount. Like yours, still overpriced, but they got me through and served their purpose.

I asked Kinkos for a biz card quote over the phone, they insisted on working up a job order that they could base a quote on. Mine was for 500... the quoted price was around 0.08 each... so $40 for 500... total crap pricing. The quote came by email 2 days after the phone call. I told the guy I ordered them already and they'll be here "tomorrow" (relative to that conversation)... morons.

We used to use Kinkos for big jobs (especially color) when I worked at the church. The local place was twice as expensive as Kinkos and 1/2 the quality. Not to mention that everything came back smelling like cigarette smoke. Not a good thing when a church is passing out the flyers. Kinkos' customer service was a joke and I ran into so many, "I can't find the file you uploaded," from them. Lo and behold, a family moved into town that owned a print company where they came from and were opening a bigger one in our town. They charged us cost + 5% and their quality was FAR better than Kinkos. I would e-mail over the file and it seemed like the e-mail saying they were done came before I got the read receipt. Needless to say, we stuck with them.

I've used VistaPrint.com, and have been very happy. I design my own cards, wait for their offers to pay just shipping, and they come in about a week or so.

I'm 100% happy with the cards and their service...

Adaptive wrote in post #5358964
4. I say NO WAY, take a hand full drop $50 and leave.

wow, glad to hear you were able to walk away not too badly scathed. i've always called a specific location of kinkos directly, and they'd give me a quote. but yea - i saw their print work, and it was nothing i could've done on my own printer.

if you want, there's http://www.printrunner​.com that's pretty good in prices

that does suck ballz...but Your first mistake was ordering something you had NO CLUE what the price is. Their mistake is...hiring whoever it is you were speaking to or the person that set the policy they were enforcing. lol.

I just ordered me some Moo cards. The mini-moo's. Very simple in design, but you can upload 100 images and get 100 different looking cards for 20bucks. A little expensive than most, but very unique cards.

Yeah I have no prob ordering from a big professional place, but the problem with that is it usually takes at least 5 days to a week.

I needed these cards in less than 2 days so I was desperate!

And I didn't have to buy the cards. I could have just walked out and left Kinkos stuck with 1000 cards for the dumpster. But I needed something so I just took a few.

Okay, you guys need to realize that the speedy service of kinkos, and other similar print shops, print on digital presses.. The way they work is with click contracts..

I have a canon imagepress vp7000 (digital press) and it costs ME about 20cents per sheet printed, that we sell for 99 cents (think color copies) - so kinkos is just taking that cost and tuning it into biz cards done in less then 3 hours and bam.. IF you dont want the convenience, then go to some online biz card factory that gangs up your prints with other peoples jobs and doesnt care about the slight color differences you get.

So while it costs me $8.33 for 500 cards - I still have a 8000/mo lease on this beast and need to make some money. so they didnt lose too much money - but you gotta realize there is a cost of convenience.

About the crappy pricing customer service, kinkos competes with people like me that have people call em up all the time to get pricing to contrast/compare for other clients..

If I get a job I gotta print thats a 1000 brochure run, its nice to call up kinkos and see what they'd charge for the same thing (industry standard?) so that I can price mine accordingly based on the customer and my profit/loss to make sure they become my client. I guess they decided to not give pricing over the phone to help with that. Plus they want you in the door.

Yeah well problem with that is if you do a big job for me and I show up and walk into a salesperson handing me poor quality work not only am I doing to be a dissatisfied customer that will trash talk the biz, but you will be out on the time/material/labor cost it took to make the product!

But generally I totally agree, pricing over the phone is no good even with portrait and wedding photography. I never give pricing over the phone, if the client is interested they will come take a look and get pricing in person. But for print company it's not exactly the same thing. Kinda yes but not really.

The last time I needed business cards FAST! I used photoshop to drop 2 of them on a 4x6 image with white spaces and took them to my local Kodak machine at Target. $.29 for 2 isn't bad if you don't need more than 20 or 30.

Then I used overnightprints.com for the full order, but beware unless you pay for overnight delivery they place your print order in line behind others that pay for the faster shipping. So if your UPS ground delivery will take 4 days you will not get you cards in 5 days, it's more like 2 weeks. So I had to go and make some more Kodak temp. cards.

overnight prints is great!!

I had the same experience with them two years ago. Never again.