Hi Liz, I can't address your shipping speed concerns as I am not GCU rep, just a fellow card artist - however, a customer of mine told me she was very impressed with the speed in which she received her cards (and the quality too). She also did not get free shipping but when I inquired if she had entered the promo code during check-out, she said she had not ('ooops' on her part). Without the code entered (there is a box to enter any promo codes in customer's shopping cart) the calculator would not know to deduct the ship cost tally off sub total. Sorry to hear your customers have had a less than perfect experience with GCU. Hope the cards themself, made it worthwhile. Cheers, Lisa Charlton