Shutterfly.com Review

In my household, picture taking is a regular part of our everyday life and most of the pictures we take are immediately sent directly to the pc for storage and/or immediate printing on our photo printer. We have also been known to download photos to web services that specialize in photo organization, sharing, and accessories. One such site we have used but haven't been very impressed with is Shutterfly.com, a photographic web site.
 
Web Site Commentary:

Shutterfly.com is a very simple site to use and it steps you through the process of selecting exactly what you want. The site is intuitive and we have used it for creating calendars, building photo albums, and sending photo collections to grandparents and others. It is fairly easy to define what you want, but there are some problems with Shutterfly.com that make it more frustrating than it's worth. I don't have any issues with the quality of the pictures at Shutterfly.com, and that is good since photo quality is a must when using a web site such as this. But I do have some serious problems with the amount of time it takes to upload the pictures. It can take more than a minute per picture and this, alone, will cause many potential users/buyers to give up early in the process. Also, downloading is only the first step in this time- consuming process because once the pictures are downloaded, it can take equally long to transfer them to a specific project. For example, say you have a large set of photos downloaded to Shutterfly.com and now you want to create a calendar. The downloading to the calendar can easily take an hour or more, and this is why I often get frustrated and exit the site.  

On the positive side, Shutterfly.com does have lots of different items of merchandise from which to select. Photo albums are only part of the fun. You can have your favorite photos added to a notebook, to a magnet, to address labels, to stickers, etc. Some of these make great, personal gifts for those who want to remember a specific person or event and a gift like this will often be cherished for years and years. Some can also be used for fun gag gifts by attaching a humorous or embarrassing photo to a coffee mug, puzzle, or something else. Provided your recipient is a good sport, these gift items can be lots of fun.

Prices at Shutterfly.com are not too bad, even though they are slightly higher than other photo web sites. Setting up an account and sharing photos costs nothing. The only time cost comes into play is if you decide to make a purchase of a photo album or some other item of merchandise. It is nice that Shutterfly.com offers so many different payment and shipping options, but that doesn't mean you can expect your shipment in a short period of time. If you select next day or second day shipping, the shipment carries a guarantee. If you select anything else, the shipment is not guaranteed and it can take more than two weeks to receive your product in the mail.

Bottom Line Viewpoint:

Overall, Shutterfly.com is a useful site for downloading and sharing photos and a decent site for buying items of merchandise provided they require only one or two photos. But if you're like me and you want to create items of merchandise with dozens of photos, be prepared to walk away from your pc for possibly an hour or more while the downloading takes place. I often lose patience, stop the process, and shop someplace else. This is exactly what has happened to us several times when we have used Shutterfly.com. This slowness factor makes Shutterfly.com a slightly below average site overall and other than its use as a place to organize and share photos, Shutterfly.com is a web service to avoid.