Upsell

I attended an event where I was handicapped by the lack of business cards. Therefore I decided to get myself some. I went to the company website where you request that business cards be printed up. I chose my own title, instead of using my official title. This caused the request to automatically be denied. What the heck? It was going to take a while to sort this out. So I went out on the web looking for a cheap and easy way to get my own business cards.

The first Google search result I found for business cards was Vista Print. They stated that they provided free business cards. Hey that sounds like the right price. So I went through their configuration menu. At every point, I was provided the opportunity to make a choice that would incur some extra charges. They were upsell crazy. This was defeating the purpose. I wanted to get free business cards from them. In the end, there were no truly free business cards. You have to pay a shipping and handling fee.

When I get in the mode to obtain something for free, it has to be totally free. There can be no out of pocket costs. Visa Print violated this fundamental rule. But they got me to use their site. I found how easy it was to design some business cards. After some time, I decided that maybe I did want to spend a little money. Once I got over that hump, I decided to use Vista Print for no reason other than I was familiar with their process.

I still made sure I did not get upsold with anything I truly did not want. So I tried to choose just the minimum that would get me business cards that I would be proud of. There were no blocks to me obtaining whatever I wanted this time. After all, I was paying for these things out of my own pocket. In fact, I decided to penalize my company and leave their name off my business cards. Hey. If I foot the bill, then I decide what goes on my business card.

Vista Print gets a few points for have a nice web design. They have a true WYSIWYG online card designer. You can configure and preview your business cards directly from your browser. I do wonder what they had to do to be number 1 in the Google search results. It must have cost them some money. I wonder where they get the funds to do this. In the end, I paid ten bucks for my set of business cards. There can’t be that much profit in this sale.