My MOO Card Debacle

Now has come the time to write a bit - notwithstanding what you might think once finished reading this post, this is not the long winding real life story - about this past Christmas Holiday cards.

You know, the one thing I have very strong opinions about when it comes to Christmas traditions. And I like to give most of the recipients of cards from me a special and personal treat when possible, hence I like to make an effort, there should be an extra thought behind the cards I send. If all the recipients in question pick up on that, well, that's a whole other story...

Since I've been so pleased with my MOO mini and business cards I thought I'd splurge and give the postcards as well as holiday cards a go too. The holiday cards also had the extra brilliant appeal of the sale benefiting the World Society for the Protection of Animals. A most, most worthy cause. Indeed.

A decision that turned out to be, from the very start, a complicated and far from satisfactory business. Which I now feel most appropriate to vent a bit about, since things in the end - after a lot of grump and bickering on my part, despite what some might think, not my favourite past time... - have been sorted out in a reasonable way;

1. countless times over a period of 2-3 weeks I was, in vain, trying to upload and order holiday cards, postcards and stickers. Very far from the "only a few minutes to upload and complete the process"... Different computers, different times of the day, many hours I was forced - everything is relative but I use the term "forced" since if I gave up the whole thing and much coveted stuff completely that meant I had been putting down a whole lot of time and energy for absolutely nothing... - to wait and wait until either there was a MOO error message of some sorts or the MOO site had a "lock down".

2. The products that I actually had been able to already put in my cart disappeared with the "lock downs" - I do hope there'll be a future change that makes it possible to save things in your cart and return for touch ups/order/payment later.

3. With the risk of losing yet another batch already in my cart I had to place separate orders, hence having to pay twice the shipping. My original intention was to order for the get-free-shipping-sum, but since I really didn't want to lose yet another order in the cart I succumbed to this less than satisfying solution.

Then I waited. Then I received the postcards, of which about 20% were way out of crop, too reddish in tone, or too grey. Grump.

Then I waited. Then I received the holiday cards. Where about 45% were even more way out of the so called 2 mm bleed area as far as cropping was concerned or too dark or in weird colours (some of them to the low left above). Very much gnarl. Hence the very upset complaining began.

Which, after the first neither rhyme nor reason reply, did pay off - if you don't start counting the hours and energy invested... - and, without getting in to details I think the MOO team has been rather reasonable and kind in their efforts to kind of compensate me for all the trouble and all the money I've put in to this. Oh my oh sigh, all just because I'm a discerning Christmas card sender...

The MOO stickers all turned out great by the way, 90 lovely stickers in a sticker book with the colour of your choice (yeah, I'm forever young at heart and a sucker for neat colour matched and personalized packaging). Very neat and fun for both business as well as personal use I think.

Personal conclusion from all of this; even if the system bug that afflicted some holiday cards might be fixed by now I'm *slightly* hesitant in ordering new ones with photos of beings that might be cropped into half headed or legless creatures. I kind of like that what I see (and crop myself) on screen (plus 2 mm bleed area) is what I get. What can I say, I'm finicky that way.

I will also very carefully chose - to hopefully be on the safe non bickering side - which photos I will turn in to MOO postcards in the future. I will however, most definitely, order more of them, because the ones who turned out fine, turned out pretty darn great with the neat personalized reverse.

And if there's such a thing as a love story with business card, well then that's exactly what I'm experience with the MOO eco friendly ones. Because I get all giddy happy over them, love showing them off - in a hopefully somewhat modest way - getting people to tell me their favourite colour, interest, animal, food, season, landscape, mood, whatever and then carefully present them with the perfect personalized business card and conversation starter that shows a little piece of my labour of love. Will. So. Order. Again. And. Again. And...