I read ehomeupgrade’s post about qoop-flickr and it reminded that I wanted to post some brief feedback on qoop+flickr.
The ordering experience was OK, nothing stellar, but by far the biggest downer was the print quality of the photos in the book that I ordered. Pixely, dithered — how else can I describe them?
While Derek Powazek does point out the inferior print quality, I think he understates it.
Anyways, I’m surprised that flickr did a deal with qoop with the quality being what it is. You’d think print quality would be criteria numero uno for them!
UPDATE: Phil, President of QOOP, found my posting and has just responded in the comments. His attention is commendable and I look forward to seeing them improve the quality of the QOOP-Flickr service.
UPDATE 2: Phil just called me and after chatting with him, I have a high level of confidence that they’ll address these issues fairly soon. When I see the new results, I’ll definitely be posting my feedback then.
I am dissapointed as well. I read so many blog entries of people saying how much they love the print quality. I guess, being a graphic designer, I am a total snob when it comes to photo print quality.
I expressed my QOOP frustration on my blog and very much to my surprise, a Qoop employee, wrote a comment, defending their services.
tina/swissmiss
swissmiss.typepad.com
Wow. We started this service a month ago with flickr in beta form so we could refine our products and services with user feedback. We’re in the process of changing the internal paper after user feedback so the prints are more like the cover images. We’re adding individual selection and mixed page types with optional color backgrounds. We’re adding postcards, calendars, and prints.
All we ask is that you share your feedback with us and help us make our products and services better. You can bet we’ll always defend our business and our products because we care about what we do. To me, the amazing thing is that you don’t think we would defend our business and ask for your help. It’s a little easier for us when people send us feedback directly rather than posting on a blog.
As we mentioned to Tina, We’ll gladly refund your money and thanks for your helpful feedback!
Phil Wessells
President
QOOP, Inc.
415-381-2008
ps…I think Derek will tell you we print on the same type of digital printers he uses so our product is exactly the same as the one he ships.
Hi Phil,
I respect that you are responding to my posting here.
I actually did submit some feedback via a form on your site on my first attempt to purchase a book from Qoop-flickr. You might do a search and see if you can find that message (it was about centering photo captions underneath photographs, rather than the default left justiication) — and FYI it took a bit of effort to submit that feedback, the first form I tried didn’t work.
That’s why you didn’t see e-mail feedback from me on my reaction to the print quality.
Anyhow, good luck with the service. I’d love to hear about an improved quality service when it’s available because as I’ve said, I love the concept and even the interface you guys have developed for building books.
Sincerely,
Rakesh
(feel free to e-mail me at rakesh at agrawal org)