Just had a rather frustrating experience w/the new "request a custom card" from the artist. A customer contacted me via the custom card icon on sunday am. E-mail is sent to me via GCU and I review the request. It looks like the customer wants to add message, but it looks like the type of message you'd add inside the card. So I e-mail customer to confirm that I've received her order and ask her to clarify - "does she want her copy on the front of the card (there is no type on the frint of my card) OR does she want it inside, in which case she may do this herself...etc. It is also obviously for 1 card only - despite my 25 card custom order minimum -which is another matter and irrelevant here.  
 
Anyhow she never replied to clarify. The thought did occur to me that maybe my e-mail got lost in her spam filter (it didn't bounce back on my end) as she maybe expecting to hear back from GCU not me personally. And Yes - I did call the number she provided but the call "could not be connected as dialed..." Yes I double checked to make sure I hadn't misdialed. So Now I have no idea if she is pissed off at GCU because she thinks GCU has just ignored her custom request or if she simply changed her mind about the   card. All I know is that this specific card has not been purchased today in any shape or form.
 
Is there anyway for GCU to set-up the e-mail correspondence w/customers so we can contact them thru GCU?( The reverse of their contacting us thru GCU) -so the customer doesn't get spooked by e-mails from "strangers".

I think that we will just have to understand that, for whatever reason, customers do change their minds between asking for a custom card and actually purchasing it. Well over a year ago, someone actually took the trouble to directly contact GCU to ask me to design wedding invitations based on an existing card I have in my store. Even allowing for the time zone difference, I designed and uploaded 10 different versions to my private gallery within 48 hours and alerted Shaun. He emailed them and that was the end of it. We followed up again - still nothing, never heard from them again. I chalked that one up to experience.
 
Cheers,
 
 
Rosanne
www.redrosedigitalart.com

They do seem to be ignoring the quantity limits. Many of the requests I get are for single cards.
 
-Whisper-

Quote from Margaret_137714 on Dec 6^th, 2009, 9:28am:

I DON'T think this is a good idea AT ALL.  It indicates that we are a stable of VERY CHEAP designers, available ON CALL, ANY TIME.  The little "palette" is at the top of EVERY store and on EVERY card whether the designer has chosen to customize or not, and a customer doesn't know until they click on one of that artist's cards.  If we started getting into individual charges from individual artists it opens a can worms that leaves itself wide open for ALL sorts of problems!  
 
'e'

Margaret-
 
You missed my point, but after driving home an hour and a half on unplowed snowy back roads, I'm too tired to go into it right now   maybe  tomorrow.
 
**++**+**ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ  'e'
 
. . . . .minutes later - I hadn't read this thread yet:  Artist Chatter: Fulfilling Custom Designed Card Requests (Read 457 times)  This discusses what I'm talking about and others vent the same concerns.