A friend of mine wrote a Mother's Day poem. I told him I could turn it into a Mother's Day card that he could send to his wife. I did and he ordered one last Friday. He got verification that it was sent out on Monday. As of his Saturday mail it hadn't arrived. He's very disappointed. I doubt if he'll ever buy from GCU again or recommend GUU ever to anyone. How long should it take for a card to go from where it's printed to Connecticut?
 
Tony

So sorry. None of us like to hear about an unhappy customer. Mother's Day, though, is one of the top card-sending holidays. I would say it's second only to Christmas. If he ordered it last Friday, it was sent out the next business day. Not really sure how GCU could have helped with the situation. GCU cards are printed and sent from Utah.  
 
If my husband wrote me a poem, even if the card was late, he would still be in for a big, gushy hug and many other good things! Maybe all is not lost for your friend. Please consider asking him to order a card for another occasion in a less busy time. The quality of the cards are outstanding and I'd like to think about him having a positive experience. Not sure if you're willing or able, but I, as the artist, might be tempted to offer him a free card out of my earnings. Then his experience turns from: "The card Tony made arrived late" TO "Look at the free card I got from Tony. Yeah, there was a glitch with a Mother's Day card, but all's good now." It's going to bug the heck out of you if you have to worry about Tony bad-talking every time you brag about your on-line card store.
 
Pattiann

So sorry to hear your card did not make it there on time...  Perhaps, the GCU order went out the next day and perhaps not... The truth of the matter is, that in this day and age, we have perhaps become too accustomed to instant gratification, from Fast Food to the Internet.  By comparison, the US Mail seems rather slow.  But when you consider it as compared to other Postal Systems in the world, it is by far the Fastest and the Most Accurate.  While we wait --Days-- for a 1st class letter to be delivered in the US, they wait --Weeks-- in Europe.
As a retired Postmaster, I have to say while I don't claim 100% satisfaction with our Postal System any more than I do in our Government... It IS the best in the world.  I always tell my friends when ordering a card, to give it two weeks front time.  That way you KNOW you will receive it in plenty of time and if you're not satisfied, you still have plenty of time to do something else.  
I think Pattiann has a terrific idea about making the "Free from Tony" card!  Ingenious!
Again, I'm really sorry for the disappointment Tony.  Hope your next experience is much better.
And perhaps this disappointment will help influence you and a lot more of us to order our cards Early.
BTW--I went over and looked at the cards in your shop... Great!  I especially like some of your Christmas cards... The Mr. and Mrs Santa riding a bicycle built for two is adorable.  And the Christmas Ski Boot... What a hoot!
The best to you!

I have also heard complaints about some of my custom cards arriving days later than customers expect.  The cards are printed in Utah, actually, and they seem to be slow getting printed and mailed out of Utah at times.
 
I also recently ordered a custom card FOR a customer as she wanted me to add an inside photo too - something she had trouble doing and that I could not do for her as part of the custom card, sadly.  I added the inside photo and am having the card mailed right to her at my cost.  She will then have to get another envelope as no one, including artists, can send cards to others with a separate envelope provided (that should be changed).  Anyhow, she is sending me a small check to pay for my extra ordering costs.  She lives in Chicago.
 
Well, I placed this order 6am last Thursday, #298207,   and it has not been mailed yet - still QUEUED.    It's embarrassing to have to admit to a customer that the card will be 3 or more days late due to issues with GCU.  If it was postmarked last Friday as advertised it could be in her hands today perhaps, yet, it still has not even been printed.  The promise of "mailed out the next business day" was not fulfilled, and that is very bad.  
 
Prior to this I did a custom 45th Wedding Anniversary card for her to give to her Husband.  Their Anniversary was April 16th.  
 
http://artist.greetingcarduniverse.com/-CW+45+years-greeting+card-591598
 
I did the card for her, she loved it, and I ordered it for her on April 10th as she has given up ordering directly from GCU due to frustrations with the site.  The order history shows it "shipped" on April 12th (a Monday) and GCU sent me an "it was mailed" email that night at 9pm.  It did not arrive until the 17th, a Saturday, and 1 day too late for her Anniversary.  She was outraged, and rightfully so imo.
 
If it was truly mailed on Monday it would not take until Saturday to arrive in Chicago, I'm sorry.  I suspect the card may not have even left Utah until mid-week.  How sad for her.
 
I would like GCU to investigate a few things.
 
1.  Cards not mailed the following business day as promised.  Do you get a report of this on a daily basis and what is the remedy?  I can see how this can drive customers away when "mailed the next day" is promised and not met.  In some cases, missing 1 day turns into missing 3 or more days.
 
2.  When the Utah printer says the card is mailed, is it really?  What is it the postmarked date?  I suspect the cards claimed to be mailed on a certain day really do not make it into the mail system until one business day later, which could be the following week! They might print them and have them out of their "queue" but that does not necessarily mean that they were postmarked that day as required.  For all we know the day's card print run sometimes does not finish until the post office is closed for the day - but the emails go out to customers that the cards have indeed been mailed. I'd insist they print all the cards so that they get postmarked that same day or they don't get paid.  This means getting the cards to the post office by mid-day each business day, guaranteed.
 
Perhaps card credits should be provided for any missed "postmarked the next business day" mailings, one credit per missed day, and charged to the printer - otherwise these delays will likely continue and the number of disappointed customers will increase.
 
The whole timeline really needs to be tightened up and rigorously controlled.  I'd also like to see some means for cards ordered overnight to still be able to be printed and postmarked that same day.  The card I ordered above technically was ready to be printed last Thursday, yet it has not been printed at all.  That's lousy.  Improving this whole area is one of those "thrilling the customer" opportunities, when right now it could actually be driving many customers away, permanently!
 
My expectation now is that this card ordered on May 6th may not arrive in Chicago until May 15th.  That is truly rediculous.
 
Please follow-up on this.  We'd all appreciate it.
 
Thank you.
 
TOM
 

One thing I see companies do on their websites all the time is say something like If you order by a specific time, it will be shipped the next day.  Maybe adding something like this to the website will at least help with customer expectations and might make it more possible for the printer to have time to get to the post office.
 Kathy

On May 3rd, due to an acquisition impacting our printing partner, the printing facility servicing GCU was changed. We were given very little notice.  There have been delays in printing and shipping due to this change.  We fully acknowledge that timing was far from ideal with one week before Mother's Day, unfortunately we had no say in the matter and are working fast and furious to smooth out the transition.  
    
Needless to say it's been a pretty hectic week.  We'll keep you posted on the progress, but it appears that things will soon be getting back to normal as we synch up communications & processes with the new printing facility.  
 
Delivery time is very important to us.  Rest assured that we will be working with this new partner to put processes in place for "next business day" shipping and accurate shipping notifications / postmarking.  
    
Thanks for everyone's patience during this transition,  
Nasser

Quote from Tom_133317 on May 10^th, 2010, 5:58am:

 
Hi Tom,
There is a way to do this.  When you place the order on the Shipping Information page select Mail with Blank Envelopes.  In the Your Shipping Address field enter the customer's information vs yours.  This will ship it to them with a blank envelope.  The return address will be GCU's vs yours.
 
Hope this helps.

Quote from Tom_133317 on May 11^th, 2010, 2:29pm:

 
It is not a very common request.  The majority of shoppers either send to themselves with blank envelopes are send/address directly to the recipient.  
 
We actually had modified the text a while ago from "Send to Myself with Blank Envelopes" to simply "Send with Blank Envelopes".
 
But I see the heading over the address field says: Your Shipping Address  
 
Since most people using this option are sending to themselves we default the fields with their address.
 
Perhaps we should change the heading to simply:
Shipping Address or Recipient's Address.  
 
Thoughts?