Pros and Cons of Moo Cards

Last week Moo was having a sale and I've long wanted mini cards for my Creekhiker blog and since I had a bead show coming up, I thought it would be fun and eye catching to have lots of my bead images on my booth table.

File Tabs

But, largely due to feeling ripped off on the shipping, I ended up with cards for the blog ONLY.

They've arrived and I thought I would write a pro and con for other consumers.

Pros:

• I'm giddy over the little file tabs making it easy to separate my cards from the cards I collect at a show.
• Moo allows you to put up to 50 different images on one side of your cards. The other side must be the same image. 
• Moo can use photos from your online photo albums! They have links to Picassa (Blogger's album), Flickr and more. Or you can upload from your own computer.
• Easy editing. Moo's software allows you to move the pictures to frame each image and flip the cards from vertical to horizontal.
• They have all kinds of accessories for your Moo Cards:

Key chain card holder

• They are darn cute!!!

Just SOME of the 50 images

Cons:

• The cards are pricey at .20 each. My full size, double sided, UV coated business cards are about a penny each (GotPrint.com).
• Software does not allow you to choose the same photo multiple times. I have a logo photo from my other blog and I would have loved multiple duplicates of that. In the end, I worked around this by uploading the photo several times under different names! But I would have loved it if their software would have allowed me to just say...Print more of this one!
• Their access to the online albums only go back so far. I was frustrated that I couldn't access some older photos.
• I was also frustrated that I couldn't combine resources i.e. pull pics from blogger AND flickr or blogger AND my computer. I realized I don't have all my pics in any ONE spot!
• I found their shipping outrageous! To order 300 mini cards and a holder was going to run me 18 bucks! Not in the age of flat rate shipping! I kept playing with different configurations and the price would drop low or go way high. I wrote to their tech support and they openly admitted "a glitch" in the cart calculation. Glitch aside - their shipping costs are off the chart. 
• This is my package - It weighed 9 ounces (2 sets of mini cards and a holder):

This should have cost them 2.73 to mail (actual postage) and around 3.45 to allow for the packaging material, yet I was charged 6.50

Just to compare, all my items would have fit in a priority mail box (the small one!) which is around 5 bucks and the post office provides the packaging: 

I picked up the orange box without moving the green to be sure I could get THREE boxes of cards in there:

It fit with room to spare! This combination - which could ship for $5 - would have cost me $18 at Moo. 

All in all, it really tortured me purchasing because I always felt that the shipping was a HUGE ripoff. If I worked at Moo, this would be Item #1 on things to improve! 

I will say, IF you are photoshop savvy, MyMiniCards.com is a much more cost effective option. 16.99 / 100 and FREE shipping!  The downside is they don't allow you to upload from your web albums. But if you know anything about graphics...this is a good thing! Some of my Moo cards are pixelated from being too small! If I had it to do over, I would download the templates at MyMiniCards, prepare a file of 50 images in one place on my computer and go that route. It's a little more work but... in this crappy economy, I have more time than money!