Ease of Use - Ordering Process:  

We had no difficulties uploading our images to Sam’s Club photo printing site; however, to do so you must first have a Sam’s Club card with valid membership number. Unlike our other bulk discount store service, Costco, Sam’s Club forces you to prove you are a member right off the bat.

Sam's Club uses the same uploader as CVS. Previously, their upload process was very difficult, but they have since signficantly modified their system.

Quality of Prints:  

To test for quality, we sent the same digital photos to all of the online photo developers we reviewed.

• Sunset: The lighting of the sunset and lighting of our models were excellent. No obvious color distinctions.

• Black and White: This was the truest black and white photo we had printed. There was the perfect balance of blue, red and yellow, without looking sepia or rusted.

• Aerial: Our aerial image was taken on a cloudy day in London. Sam’s Club cleaned up the photo making our buildings look bright and clear without over yellowing the print.

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:  

Sam’s Club offers decent pricing for home delivery, and even their 1-hour in-store option is reasonable. We liked the 2-3 day in-store option, and although the price on that was a little more expensive than the home delivery option, it was still extremely completive.

Service and Site Features:  

Photos selected for home delivery are only available in glossy finish, those selected for 1-hour pickup are only available in matte finish.

Sam’s Club offers all the typical features you’d expect to see on a digital photo printing service. However, they will only store your photos for 60 day, typical storage for competitors is 1 year.

Additionally, we were disappointed that Sam’s Club free photo organizer download would not work. We tried installing the software several times and the application would not open; therefore, we had to use their basic uploader, which we felt was limited. 

Shipping Costs/ Turnaround Time:  

We gave each service 1 to 6 business days to deliver our photographs. Sam’s Club met this time frame, but was one of the later companies to deliver.

Sam’s Club charged $2.00 for shipping. Which was more expensive than most of the services we reviewed. It cost Sam’s Club $.97 to ship our photos. That left $1.03 for handling. The cost of shipping goes up when you order more than 10 photos.

The photos arrived in a standard paper photo folder, packaged in a lightweight cardboard envelope.

Sam’s Club is a good place to print your photographs if you are already a member and like ordering prints frequently. Their prices are competitive, but we would have liked them to be more flexable about memberships and their delivery time could use an improvement. Please see our top 3 products: Snapfish, York Photo and Clark Color.