June 24, 2007

A correction about digmypics

Loyal readers, I need to make a correction. I got this email last week:

Hi Sally,

I found your blog. It’s great, but it makes a comment that my company sends our customer’s photos overseas. While its true that some companies do that, we aren’t one of them. We do all of the work right here in mesa, AZ. Would you mind making the correction?

Thanks,
Scott Crossen
www.digmypics.com


I said I would be happy to print a correction, and asked Scott my Big Question: How do you keep prices under 50 cents per scan?

Here is Scott's reply: We've invented and developed a lot of software processes to maximize our productivity on things like CD burning and tracking and managing orders but the fact remains we do a lot of work for the 30 to 50 cents we collect on each image. We don't believe that asking a customer to allow us to send their photos overseas is an option and our customers agree with us on that. The risk just doesn't justify any reward. I understand that having a service scan all of your photos can get pricey, but having them sent to China or India? It might make good business sense but lacks good common sense. If you like, you can put a link to our video that shows the process and a link to our home page.

Done and done, Scott.

The video took a really long time to download, but I waited it out because I'm not going to publish a link to something I haven't watched. YouTube would have been much less annoying.

Update: Scott provided me with a link to the streaming version of the video. That way, you don't have to download the whole thing to your computer. Watch the streaming version here.

I was impressed by their system for preventing photo orders from getting swapped accidentally, but not as impressed as I was by the white gloves. Yay! I also vowed to get myself a lab coat if I ever make my own videos.
Personally, I'm too squeamish to send original items through the mail -- even if it's only going as far as Arizona. If you're cool with it (and most people are, including my own dad) then digmypics seems like a fine choice.

Have you hired someone to scan your photographs? Would you recommend them to a friend? Leave a comment and share your experiences, good or bad.

2 comments:

Charley "Apple" Grabowski said...

I haven't hired anyone yet. I recently received an email about the Kodak Scan Van. They are nowhere near me right now but if they ever head this way I'd certainly try it. I don't even want to think about how long it takes to scan 200 prints with my old scanner.

Sally J. said...

Oooh. I love the idea of a "scan van" -- I'll look into it and post about it more fully. Thanks for the tip, Apple!