Voila! No more having to go out to the store, pick out a card, complete a hand-written message, find a stamp, and stick it in the mail. The promotion was that the first three postcards were free.
Sounds great, I thought. So I went to the website. That's where the execution of the plan didn't quite live up to the concept. The website had plenty of glitches even in the registration process, and I didn't feel secure entering my credit card information for what was supposed to be a free trial.
Hey, the Postal Service ought to do something like this, I thought; only make it so that it works.
To my surprise, I discovered that it already does. It is super easy to use, cheap, and loads of fun for both the sender and the recipient.
Hence, the idea for a regular column was born. On a regular basis, Postmarks is going to present and review new ways that people can use Postal products.
Your ideas are always welcome! Please let us know of any sites, business, or products that you come across that support the Postal Service in fun and relatively inexpensive ways.
Entry 1: Cardstore.com
You can get to cardstore.com in a number of ways: you can go through the front page of usps.com (which next week, will become uspseverywhere.com), you can go directly to the cardstore.com website, or you can click here.
After you create an account, you'll have access to an address book that stores your recipients' information and a permanent shopping cart that lets you store your creations until you're ready to order and send them.
The cards are made with 100% recycled paper.
It said on the USPS website that cardstore.com has a birthday reminder tool, but so far, I have been unable to locate it on the site.
There are all kinds of cards and postcards at cardstore.com, and some of the most popular are what got me looking in the first place: the ones where you can use you own pictures. There are photo postcards, regular cards, and thank you cards.
I chose the photo postcards and decided to make two of them to send to some family members who had recently visited.
To sign up for an account, upload my photos, write my messages, and type in the recipients' info took less than 10 minutes.
Immediately after making my order, I received a digital receipt that contained my order details and thumbnail pictures of the postcards I had ordered.
To create and send the two postcards, it cost me only $2.56, which included the postage. It would be hard to find two decent postcards and two stamps for less than that, much less print out two color pictures, too.
I created and purchased the cards late on a Wednesday afternoon. They arrived at their destination across the country the following Monday, which really is less than a three-business-day transaction completion.
The recipients were thrilled to get them. I asked them to take a picture of one front and back and email it back to me and to give me a critique of how they looked.
Here's the front of one of the postcards:
Here are some of the remarks from one of the recipient, who is the wife of the handsome fellow in the picture:
These postcards are so neat! I need to make a couple remarks about what you see, though.
The postcard is not distorted but when I took the picture with my camera it came out a little distorted.
It looks as though the photo got scratched or something before it finished drying. There is a large area up behind him where the blinds are. Also lower, just to the right of his arm resting on the sofa. The third area is scraped worse, and that is through his knee and his grandson's (the dog's) body.
These flaws look as though they were done in developing and not with the pictures you submitted.
The print on the back of the card is distorted, but that isn't from the postcard. Apparently I didn't get the setting on my camera just right before taking the picture.
Thanks again. I love these. Now they go on our fridge.
And thank you, Madame Tester, for your valuable critique.
Here's the back of the postcard:
Overall, I would rate this purchase as a positive one. I didn't like that the pictures looked a bit scratched, but it was so easy to do, was extremely inexpensive, arrived quickly, and the recipients thoroughly enjoyed them. I'll definitely do that again very soon.
COUPON CODE: Cardstore.com emailed a coupon code to use for future orders. It is for 20% off of your entire order, and it's good until 8/3/11. The code is SAVE20EMAIL.
COUPON CODE: Cardstore.com emailed a coupon code to use for future orders. It is for 20% off of your entire order, and it's good until 8/3/11. The code is SAVE20EMAIL.
