A pig jumped over the moon! (moonpig.com)

Member Name: paulpry118

Product:	moonpig.com
Date:	31/05/09 (153 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Personalise your cards

Disadvantages: A little expensive

So my Dad has now officially become a pensioner and to mark the occasion of his retirement and his 65th birthday I decided to pay the internet card company Moonpig a visit. I have used them once before for my best friends 40th birthday and wanted something special to mark the occasion of my Dad receiving his bus pass.

www.moonpig.com

Moonpig operate in the UK and also have a site in Australia. They launched their website in 2000 and now use many of the leading card publishers as well as many smaller card publishers and designers.

The website has cards for every occasion you can think of rather like a normal high street card company although their cards a slightly dearer but you are given the chance to personalise the cards.

Their home page is very well laid out. Along the left hand side of the screen is a list of 29 occasions all in alphabetical order including the standard occasions of Anniversaries, Birthdays, Christmas, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, New Baby and Weddings along with Valentines Day, Easter, Driving Test, New Home, Job, School, Retirement to the more unusual occasions listed under Other (Chinese New Year, St Andrews, Patrick, David's and Georges Day, Jewish Celebrations, Diwali, Halloween and New Year) and then the more delicate type of cards of Sorry, Get Well, Sympathy and Thinking of You. Some of the occasions have a plus sign next to them, which you can open up and this lists more type of cards, i.e. for birthdays, general and blank, Age 1 - 13, teens, 18 & 21, 30 to 100, Belated and Relations.) Along the top of the home page are 7 tabs, the 1st one is the home page, the second is the next big occasion that is happening, at the moment it is Fathers Day, next to this is Moonpiglet (a card section specifically for children), log in/out, My Account, Help and Info and Basket. Under this, is the process for ordering your card, Choose a Card, Personalise, Address, Basket and Checkout. Under this there are various point and click sections of Birthdays and General (1000's of cards to choose from), Photo Upload, Limelight Cards (your name in the spotlight), Me to You cards (cute Teddy Bear Cards), Spoof Humour which includes magazine and newspapers front pages, Moonpiglit Disney, At the Movies, Humour, Wedding and Invitations and Announcements.

Ordering a Card

Click on the type of card you are looking for i.e. Retirement, then scroll down through the cards, there are 20 cards in this section, When you click on a card it shows you the front page, next to that is an area for what ever words are on this front page, any words in bold can be changed for you to personalise the card, under this, it shows you the inside pages. Any card that shows a picture of a camera above it means that you can upload any photo that you want. When you have chosen a card you quite fancy, choose the size that you want then click on next step and personalise your card, upload a photo, if this is possible on the card you have selected, you can click the spell check if you want just to check you haven't made a mistake. The next step is to put what you want in the centre of the card. It shows you one large box on the left page of the card and three boxes on the right of the card, click on whatever box you wish to write in, the black edging turns red. Type your message, then you can pick one of 5 different kinds of type, 8 different colours of type and 9 different size of type. You can justify your text either left or right or centred, you can also move the text to the top, middle or bottom of the box. You can also upload signatures or pick from 7 picture type signatures of say balloons, lips, heart etc. Once again you can spell check what you have typed. Then click on show me an exact preview of the card, then next step. This then shows you your card you have selected and you can turn the page to see what the centre pages look like. The next step is to select the address you want the card sent to. You can either have your own address and the card will be sent to you in a larger envelope with the card and the envelope for the card to go in or you can pick to have the card sent to the recipient. At this point you need to log into your account or register with Moonpig (this is easy you use your email address and a password and your name). If you choose for a recipient, the address is placed in your address book for future use. When you have picked or added an address it then shows you what the envelope will look like, you can also add another personal message, then select either 1st class post or Special Delivery. You then go to the checkout through their secure payment using all major debit and credit cards.

Cost of Cards,

The standard card measures 185mm x 135mm when folded in half, just under A5 size and this costs £2.99 plus postage of 44p for 1st class and £5.24 for Special Delivery. The large card 290mm x 205mm when folded in half about A4 size and this costs £5.99 plus postage of £1.05 and Special Delivery £5.94 Small cards 144mm x 102mm about A6 size when folded and you need to order 4 cards exactly the same design, these cost £6.00 for the 4 cards plus 44p delivery to you or £5.24 Special Delivery to your home address Postcards 145mm x 103mm and again you need to order 8 postcards of the same design, these cost £6.00 and again 44p delivery £5.24. If you order the small cards or postcards but do not order the correct amount, you will be charged for any unused cards.

Cards can be sent all around the World at extra post and packing costs. They do offer to send cards to the British Forces stationed around the world however, if sending a card to Iraq or Afganistan they can not post the card free, however if you get the card sent to your address you can take it into a local post office and send it that way.

Confirmation of Order

When you have placed your order you immediately receive an email confirming your order. This email shows you a picture of the card you have ordered along with a picture of the inside of the card so you can check the card exactly, information on when the card will be posted and the address that the card will be posted to. If you spot a mistake you can log onto your account with the site and as long as the order still says order received you are able to make changes. Once your card has been printed you are unable to make any changes.

Delivery in the UK

If you order by 2pm Monday to Friday your order will be sent out the same day. After 2pm Monday to Thursday your order will be sent the following day. Friday after 2pm and Saturday and Sunday will be sent the following Monday. Orders placed around public holidays will the sent the next working day. They say 90% of cards sent by 1st class post are received the next day. Cards sent abroad obviously need to be ordered earlier as they will take longer to be delivered.

Uploading a Photo

When you click on this button it comes up with the image upload box, click on the browse box, choose the photo that you want and click on upload file, this then puts the photo you want into the card you have picked. You can then move the photo around, up, down, left right or diagonal. It is fairly quick to upload the photo.

Your Account.

You can check your account history through this section you can also update your address book in case anybody moves, you can also set up emails for reminders of occasions, you can set up the reminder to email you between 1 day and 31 days (I have never used this facility so I'm not sure if this works). If you have an address book you can import/export through Excel Spreadsheets. You can check on your last 15 orders and it will tell you the order number, recipients details and if the card has been sent.

Prepay Account.

You can make a pre-payment of £20.00 into your account and Moonpig will add extra 25% - £5.00 onto your account. (Again I have not used this as I don't send that many cards through the site)

Moonpig Flowers.

You are also able to order flowers through the Moonpig site. These start at £15.00 including 1st Class posting for a bouquet of 15 Carnations. All other types including Freesias and Tulips through to mixed bouquets cost £20.00 including 1st class posting. Rose plants cost £17.00 and an Orchid plant costs £20.00. Once you have placed your order, it gives you the opportunity to order a card to go with the flowers. I personally would rather use my local florist or Interflora, so I have never used this facility. This services takes between 3 and 4 days delivery.

ipoints.

Moonpig are are a partner of ipoints. You can collect 200 ipoints on your first order and then a further 10 points for every pound spent. The ipoints are added to your account on the day the cards are dispatched.

My Experience.

I found the website very easy to use and downloading photos was a very quick operation. On this latest occasion I placed an order for two cards, one to be sent direct to my Dad and the other to be sent to my home address. I ordered at about 10.30 at night on a Thursday night, within 3 minutes I had received the email confirmation. I checked my ipoints account on the Friday and my 60 ipoints had been added to my account. On Saturday morning, I received the card being sent to me through my letterbox. I spoke to my Dad on the Saturday, after he had finished work and he had also received his card. My card came with a franked postmark, my Dads card came with a stamp on it. Both cards had been sent from Guernsey where Moonpig have their printing facility. The cards were printed on good quality card and you could tell they were not the same as buying a cheap 45p card from a cheap card shop. I was really pleased with the cards I ordered and my dad was chuffed to bits with both his retirement card and birthday card being personalised. They are a little more expensive than buying a card in a card shop but a more personal touch for that special occasion is well worth the extra pennies. I would most definitely use them again, most probably for Holly's 4th birthday as they did have a very good selection of Children's cards. Whilst writing this review I thought I would check through the Sympathy section, as this obviously needs to be a more sedate and tasteful collection of cards and found that their cards were definitely suitable for this occasion.

Moonpig can be contacted on 0845 4500 100, lines are open from 8.30 am until 6.30 pm Monday to Friday. Their customer services address is

Moonpig Cards
Unit 107 - 108
Great Guildford Business Park
30 Great Guildford Street
London
SE1 0HS.

I can not comment on how good or how bad customer services are as I have had no reasons to contact them.



Thank you very much for reading. Anna

This review can be found on other websites written by me.

Summary: A great way to personalise your cards for special occasions