Costco Photo Center Reviewer's Comments

We expected more of Costo, but with some shipping issues and poor customer service we were unable to justify using this service, even if they developed the best pictures we had seen, which they didn’t.

Costco Photo Center Screenshots. Click for more
       


Ease of Use - Ordering Process:  

Like many of the services we reviewed, Costco Photo Center's uploading process is powered by Snapfish (our #2 online photo developer) and is easy to use. We also found this site's ordering process to be simple and well-organized.

You can only upload 12 pictures at a time using the basic upload tool, but you can use the Snapfish upload application to upload you prints in bulk.

 

Quality of Prints:  

To test for quality, we sent the same digital photos to all of the online photo developers we reviewed. Costco’s prints were pretty good. Not the best we’ve seen, but certainly not the worst. 

• Sunset: This photograph was printed a little darker than we would have liked; however, it is far from the worst we’ve seen.
• Black and White: This photo developed darker and with more yellow than we wanted. It almost looked sepia.
• Aerial: This picture came out crisp and clean with only a slight amount of yellow in the buildings.

Note: To check quality, we took each set of prints received from the online photo developer and laid them down, side-by-side for comparison.

Pricing:  

Unlike most of the grocery store and pharmacy services we reviewed, the way you receive your prints doesn’t determine the price. The price of prints is $.17 whether you pick them up at your local store or have them delivered to your home. At .$17, Costco’s prices are comparable to many of the other services we reviewed; unfortunately, since you have to have a paid membership to use their photo services, we felt the price is a little too high.

However, Costco redeems itself by keeping prices consistent across the board and charging nothing for shipping, both to your home or for in-store pickup. Additionally, the price of 5x7 and 8x10 prints is excellent.

Service and Site Features:  

Costco offers specialty gifts such as mugs, mouse pads, T-shirts, calendars, stationary, enlargements, photo CDs and more. As is typical with the big retail store chains with photo centers, Costco's variety of prints sizes is limited, but adequate.

We really liked that through their teamed efforts with Snapfish, you could upload and print your camera phone pictures.

Shipping Costs/ Turn Around Time:  

To ship us four 4 x 6 inch prints, Costco Photo Center charged us absolutely nothing, which was the cheapest shipping we found. Currently Costco's shipping is free for all 4 x 6 inch prints delivered either to your home or the store.

Our prints came in a paper sleeve with a lightweight, cardboard insert and wrapped inside a paper envelope.

Unfortunately, Costco failed where it mattered most. We believe our photos were originally lost in the mail. It happens. Sadly Costco’s poor email and telephone service shined right through.

After contacting the company by email we were assured they would re-print and send the photographs again, but after more than a week our prints never arrived. When we called, Costco had no record of our email attempt and had promised to send the photos through UPS. While the gesture was nice, the operator was difficult to understand and seemed unsure of procedures. Overall, it was a poor customer service experience.

Summary:  

Costco Photo Center has free shipping for 4 x 6, an easy to follow ordering process and a promising pricing model. However, the prints weren’t good enough to justify our poor experience with customer service.