Hi everyone
For a while now we’ve been contemplating changing the way we calculate shipping costs for orders placed at PhotoBox. Like many online services, we charge different amounts depending on what you order, however we’ve felt that we haven’t been particularly good at communicating how we come to a particular price for shipping an order. This has also come though from feedback from you via our customer services team.
Our original philosophy was that since the Royal Mail basically charges by weight bands, so we would too. Unfortunately, this has always meant that it’s hard for you to understand just how we got to a price, which didn’t always obviously correlate with the number and type of items in your order.
So we’ve changed the whole model, hopefully for the better. After much debate, we’ve moved to a simple, quantity-based calculation, which you can see in detail on our Delivery Information & Prices page. It’s now much easier to understand (we think) just how shipping costs are calculated, and exactly how much adding an additional item to your basket will cost. Very soon, we’ll add a new service feature so that you can get a detailed calculation in the basket, as to exactly how shipping was calculated.
Let me know how this affects you. We’ve tried to impact as few orders as possible, but inevitably there will be some winners & losers as a result of the change. We honestly believe however that the change makes our service easier to understand and use; and I assure you we’re not making any more money in shipping charges overall as a result of these changes.
As always, feedback on this or any other topic is much appreciated.
Mark Chapman
Managing Director, PhotoBox
(7 votes) 
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It surely cannot be correct that adding a SINGLE 7×5 print to an order of 16 8×6 prints DOUBLES the Postage charge!
This change feels like a fiddle to me, plus you didn’t update your Postal Charges page until after you made the change – I know this as I checked the page after noticing what I perceived to be a problem with charging & it was still advertising £1.35.
To say I’m annoyed with this change puts it mildly.
What a surprise – I have lots of mixed order and sell lots of one-off poster prints, so I lose out big time from this change – thanks! You used to be the best.
This is a horrible change for me. I often have one or two enlargements along with my smaller prints, or vice versa, so now I’m paying twice the delivery charge each time, and that can be up to ten orders a day.
I understand the logic where you are having to send separate packaging like most gift items or even tubes, but I would urge you to reconsider what you’ve done with standard and enlargement sizes. If I order 10 8×6 prints, and add just one 6×4 my P&P should not double.
You need some kind of allowance for standard prints to be included with enlargements without the postage doubling. Or, for P&P purposes count prints up to, probably 10×8 or at least 8×6, in the standard category.
Like Mark Fuller, I added two 8×6 prints to an order of ten 7×5 prints and the postage was immediately doubled from £1.49 to £2.98. Needless to say I cancelled the order and sent it elsewhere.
Now all my mixed orders will be going somewhere other than Photobox.
What a stupid system this is.
Hi,
Just wondered if Pro Gallery changes we have all been looking forward too have now come to a stop for the rest of the year. Just wondered.
So, is anything going to change?
I’m faced with either:
a) changing the way my site calculates postage to fall into line with your method which I don’t really want to do as many of my customers buy a couple of ‘Enlargements’ and a couple of ‘Standard Prints’, if they see postage charges shooting up for a reason I can’t understand . . . well, I guess I can expect plenty of complaints . . .
b) just taking a hit as I’m doing at the moment
c) using another lab
Can we have a comment from PhotoBox please??
Yep, what would have cost me P&P 1.35 a little while ago has just cost 2.95! Nice one Photobox. Time to look at the competition.
I’m sorry to hear that some of you are unhappy with the change to our shipping charges. The change was made inline with how Royal Mail charges by weight bands; it’s certainly not something we’re profiting from. Most customers seem satisfied with the change but I understand why adding a couple of different size prints and seeing the postage double would cause frustration. We’ll be contacting all of you who have commented on this to find out more.
Regards
Mark Chapman
Hi Mark,
The feedback’s most appreciated Mark, I look forward to being followed up.
I think the key is that adding normal prints to an enlargement (8×6 through 10×8 specifically) doesn’t cost you any more. The larger packaging is already required, there is no extra postage needed. So the cumulative pricing of those two categories specifically doesn’t seem fair.
For instance, an 8×6 plus two 7×5′s, a very popular order from my clients, has gone up in price by 76% from £2.14 to £3.77. That hurts.
A solution would be to increase your enlargement P&P, but include the smaller prints when you have both. I wouldn’t object to paying a bit more for enlargement postage, as long as it included any small prints without adding an extra £1.50, which seems unfair any way you look at it.
Although I’ve been a Photobox customer for many years, I hadn’t ordered anything since Christmas. Last week I wanted to order 16 postcards and 3 sheets of photo stickers but, to my astonishment, I discovered that the P&P was to be £8.48 (£3.99 + £4.49)! In the end, I reluctantly ordered 9 postcards – P&P £1.99 (10 would have cost £3.99) – and then placed a separate order for 1 sheet of photo stickers for which the P&P was an astronomical £2.99 – the same as for a mug. (3 sheets would have cost £4.49!) While I’m only too aware that postal charges have gone up, the actual cost of sending the stickers would be 61p! As far as the Special Delivery charges are concerned, Photobox charge an additional £5.00 on top of the appropriate postal charges although, unlike Recorded Delivery, Special Delivery is not an additional charge but a set one depending on weight and value. For example, you can send a parcel weighing up to 500g for £5.40 and 2 kgs for only £8.65. While some customers might be quite satisfied at the new postal changes, I most definitely am not and would welcome the opportunity to discuss this!
After several years puchasing from photobox for my customers, I am shocked today that a £7 order jumped to £13.72 with delivery purely because I have ordered a couple of 5×7′s, 10×8′s and a 14×11.
After SEVERAL contacts with plus email account, all of which just ended in “we will pass your comments on” they told me about this blog.
I am disgusted that photobox is the only company that seems to take a single order and charge you multiple times for delivery. I know that Amazon have the option to do this, but they also have the option to “send in a single consignment”.
Basically shipping now can cost up to and over 50% of the total order, thats a compete joke. You have just sent me two seperate consignments on the same day to me – WHY not in the same box as you used to?
Yet another professional photographer moving elsewhere now. I am sure photobox dont care much about us pro’s as they are interested only in bulk and not quality anymore (I have had more returned orders from photobox than any other supplier).
I look forward to your answer, and am also disgusted that the “plus” “vip” email account can give no better advice than “post a message on the blog”…how professional!
I have placed this urgent order, as I couldnt wait, so I look forward to my personal contact from Mark Chapman, but wont wait with baited breath.
Now talking to Dunns and Colourworld as finally Photobox seems to have deserted their professional photographers….If I am going to pay a premium, I would rather get the premium service going forward. After paying two lots of postage, this morning, one pack arrived, the other one is obviously lost….what fabulous service now they split the orders.
Hi Craig
Mark Chapman is aware of your comments and others we’ve received about the changes to our shipping charges and he is currently preparing a blog post for tomorrow on this subject which I think will address your concerns.
Regards
Linda
The Editor
I think the current system of charging is very wasteful as I recently ordered 3 large photobooks, one small photobook, some prints & a wall canvas – the postage came to around £17 as all were sent out seperately! All arrived within a few days of each other & I would have far preferred to be sent one large package when the last item was ready to be sent – much better for the environment as well as customers pockets!
I think it’s a terrible system personally, I just started using the website which I love, but how you can charge 7 quid postage for a poster that will come in a light cardboard tube and two fridge magnets which are neither large nor heavy is extortionate and this added around 40% to the total cost which is ludicrous frankly. And agree with comments above too, why send things separately, I made all these orders at the same time and they arrive on the same day in separate packs – stunned anyone is happy with postage?!
Shame as it’s a top site
As with the comments above, I find it wasteful to send out items individually, and would far rather have everything sent in a single delivery. With my latest order of calendars and diaries for Xmas, I felt that a postage charge of £14 was somewhat excessive, especially as the weight of items was not the determining factor.
In this instance there were 6 items ordered, and if they had all been identical your delivery charge for 2-9 items would have been a reasonable £5.99. However, because I chose to personalise some of the Xmas gifts for different recipients, I incurred additional charges under your current system and the postage cost has more than doubled.
You may not be profiting from this postage structure, but it feels like an unnecessary cost to burden your consumers with.
Hi, I’m with everyone else here. I’m new to Photobox having been a regular Snapfish and Truprint customer but preferred the quality Photobox offered. The postage charges have already made me remove items from my basket and send them elsewhere. Personally, I think this is a shame – most other sites just don’t seem to work their rates out like this! Having just spent a small fortune on photobooks and a diary I really really resent the postage costs which I know would have been so so so much lower elsewhere – just wish I had been organised enough to take advantage of the free P&P offer I saw recently! (was waiting for the kids’ end of term photos!). Will be thinking very seriously about future orders which is very disappointing as I love Photobox!
£ 20 postage for a £ 50 order (which I have just done) is just too expensive. You should have the choice to send parcels in a single package to reduce postage costs as it’s not clear that it’s going to cost that much. I ordered this time due to time constraints and needing to load photos on to a different site etc, but will definitely look elsewhere next time.
I have used photobox for years but I will not be order anything more from photobox from now on for the p&p is just a joke. I just ordered 3 calendars 2x A4 and 1x Desk and the p&p comes to £10.99 (6.99 + 3.99). I was going to order 12 prints but that will add to it another £1.50 so decided not to. I only ordered the calendars for it is for my mother-in-law else I would have cancel the order as well !! The postage is just far TOO much since according to the weight/price on royal mail web site, it should only be £0.96 + £1.87 < £3.00 since both is large letter ONLY. I am going to tell all my friends and work colleagues to go elsewhere as well for I think you are trying to make £s out of postage !!
Unfortunately I’d spent an hour or so creating 2 calenders, otherwise I would of cancelled when I saw the p+p.
2 x calenders £3.99 each p+p
5 x prints £1.49 p+p
1 x fridge magnet £2.99 p+p
£12.50 for 4 lightweight items is daylight robbery. I do like photobox quality, but the p+p prices have stopeed me from placing any more orders. Can anyone recomend any where else that does photobox quality but more reasonable p+p?
The fact that the p+p doubles each time when another item is added does not make sense to me. This will only discourage customers from buying. Maybe the company needs to consider another approach so that it doesnt loose its customers. I was going to make a big order but changed my mind when i looked at the delivery cost, i thought i better go to another company. No matter what anyone says on this page, i think the answer given will be the same “The change was made inline with how Royal Mail charges by weight bands”.