Staples Copy Center offers business card printing for all its customers. Now, there is an in-house variety, as well as orders they sound out to their other printing company (known as IRG, or Integrated Resource Group).
Normally I would cover both in the same article, however I have already created an exhaustive article about their in-house business cards (known as their BCIM program). So this time we will exclusively look at their out sourced printing.
For a long time, Staples had physical forms that the associate had to fill out to order your cards. They were a real pain, and led to a lot of misspellings on business cards. However, after a few years, they decided to install a computer that would automatically do the entire order, and you could easily type the info on your card.
This improved both order accuracy, and it allowed you to see the card before it was ordered. Before, you would have to guess at how good it would look, while now you get a good digital representation of your business card.
After ordering, the cards take about 7-10 business days, so around two weeks, to be printed and shipped to the store. You could pick from a variety of options and ink colors, as well as paper types.
The paper types, for most, are around 12pt. For those that do not know the point system, let me briefly explain it. Points refer to how thick the paper is. 12pt is a rather standard thickness, so it’s alright here. 14pt and 16pt are better, but Staples (at this time) does not offer it.
They also offer 1 or 2 color printing (where they use standard ink colors) or full color (for photo cards). Now, the 1 or 2 color cards are good for businesses, and allow you to print with what is known as raised thermography (the ink is actually raised, you have probably felt this before) for no extra charge. However, the full color is flat printed, and on a glossy paper. The paper unfortunately is actually rather thin, and feels closer to 10pt, which isn’t very good for a business card. Not to mention that their full color cards are incredibly expensive.
What about cost with the 1 or 2 color? They are rather good actually, going for around $20 or $30 per 1,000 cards.
Quality is usually good, since most cards are not graphic intensive but just words and one or two graphics. They also offer bleeds for 1 or 2 color. That means that they cut the card so the ink is at the edge of the card, instead of there being a white border, but it is an extra $10 a side. So if you want all four sides of the card to have bleeds it’s $40, not very good. However, most cards in this variety won’t call for, nor would they look great with, full bleeds.
So while the full color cards aren’t great, the 1 or 2 color is cheap, sturdy, and good for most business people.
