For a photography company they don't do photos very well! (Jpics online service) (Jessops)

Member Name: sakura8

Product:	Jessops
Date:	11/04/09 (224 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: free photos

Disadvantages: website not very user friendly, no choice of matt or gloss

I decided to use Jessops' online photo service Jpics, as I had a voucher code which entitled me to 50 free prints.

Let me tell you straight away, it was the first and the last time I will use them!

The website
------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
First of all, I'm not really a big fan of their Jpics website as it's not very intuitive to use and I found myself searching around the menu bar to upload my photos. Eventually I found it under 'Online Album' and I managed to upload my photos using their Jpics software. It was fairly easy to find the pictures on my hard-drive and select them for uploading, but I wouldn't say it was the best online photo service I have used.

Once I'd uploaded my photos and selected them for printing, it only gives you a small thumbnail to look at and I couldn't check whether they would print badly due to some erratic cropping. Better photo printing websites (such as Photobox) allow you to fully preview your photos and adjust the cropping before ordering. So I just had to keep my fingers crossed that my photos would print out OK.

I could choose to have my photos printed in the following sizes: 6x4, 7x5, 9x6 and 10x8 and I picked 6x4 as that is the size eligible for the free prints. However I couldn't pick whether I wanted matt or gloss, which is another disadvantage to the site.

The 'Checking Out' process was quite straightforward after I'd picked the photos I wanted to print and put them in my 'shopping basket'. The pricing was very clear as I was shown the cost per photo and the quantity and then the total amount to pay. It was at this stage that I could enter my voucher code and the amount to pay was adjusted accordingly. I chose to pay the £1.49 for postage and packaging, but there is the option to collect your photos in store and I believe that you can ask them to text you to let you know when they're ready to be collected.


Confirmation of Order & Speed of Delivery
------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
Well I have to say that they are quick and efficient at sending confirmation emails for my order and also informing me about dispatch. I ordered on the 7th April and they dispatched the following day, so I received the photos today (9th April).


The Photos
------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------
They were packed in the usual large cardboard envelope, with the photos inside a smaller paper envelope. When I felt the package I initially thought that it felt a lot bigger and heavier for just 50 photos. The reason why soon became apparent as I quickly flicked through my photos and discovered that over half of them weren't mine! Luckily they had sent me all of my 50 photos, but they had also sent me about 60 of somebody else's! I think this is really terrible because if some of my photos had been sent to someone else then I would have been so disappointed. I know that mistakes are often made due to human error, but I just can't help thinking that someone should have checked my order before it was sent, as it was obvious that there were twice as many photos as there should have been!

I was happy with the majority of my photos, as the paper quality was good (Fuji Chrystal Archive Photo paper) and the colours weren't too bad. The photos were gloss and I would have preferred matt to match the other photos I've already put into my album, but it's not something I'm going to lose sleep over!

Unfortunately some photos had been cropped so badly (people's heads cut off) that they had to go in the bin. I have since read on the website (under the Info Centre section) that:
"Orders placed using the Jpics software with the Aspect ratio set to Original format will be produced with the aspect ratio in which they were taken, with most digital camera this is 3:4, and for this reason your photos may vary in length. Orders placed online or with the Jpics software with the aspect ratio set to Classic picture format (2:3) will be produced as a 6x4 print and automatically cropped to fit this dimension if required".

Well I can't find how to change the aspect ratio setting, so they really don't make things easy for the user!

Anyway, I emailed Jessops Customer Care to see if I could return the photos that weren't mine using the Returns label on my invoice and they haven't replied yet so I will probably just send them back anyway. For a company like Jessops, which is meant to be a specialist photography company, I was very shocked and disappointed in their service and I won't be using them again.

For reference, 50 photos would have cost £6.

http://www.jpics.co.uk

Summary: A very disappointing service