I am a small business in the greater Puget Sound area and I always make every attempt to work with and support other local small businesses. I am very trusting by nature and pleasant and enjoy working with like minded individuals and businesses, but I have recently realized that nice doesn't equate to fair or professional. Yes I know that makes me pretty naive. I have been doing business with Seattle Printworks for over 6 years and have sent them business from 5 different companies that I have owned, managed, or have partnership in. Last year one of my partners complained of Printworks' high prices so I reached out to them in an attempt to get an explanation for the price. I also gathered quotes from other print shops both in Seattle and Everett that all quoted me 42-58% less than what Seattle Printworks was charging me for the exact same order. Seattle Printworks charged me $244 before tax. Every single quote I received was more than $100-$130 less than Seattle Printworks. I even forwarded my quote and my proof of what they did after receiving their quotes to ensure I was being fair, did I miss something? None of them could figure out why I was being charged so much.
It really just rubs me the wrong way, that a company is willing to charge such high rates to other small businesses and when you question them, not only does it take them weeks to respond (they only respond when they are following up on payment), but then they just say "well you can go elsewhere" and continue harassing all of your employees of your other companies about a payment due for an unrelated company. They literally continue to email employees and owners of other companies completely unrelated to this account and completely unrelated to this company, now threatening small claims court. All I wanted was a true and fair explanation, maybe a re-quote for the service - did they accidentally charge too much? They could've given an explanation for their higher fees, they could've even said "we believe we provide a superior customer experience and thus we charge for that", or "we charge an extra $100 on average because we don't like doing business cards and want to charge a premium for that service" or "we have a minimum order charge for our business", but instead continue to state their fees are in line with their competitors when clearly they are not - not for this order. All of the quotes I received were from similar companies, no promotions or coupons were used to get the rate. I compared apples to apples here. All I want is to do business with a company that can be honest with me. Don't tell me that your prices are competitive when every single company I called provided a quote much cheaper than yours.
I trusted them, and for that I am wrong, that is my fault. I expected other small businesses to have their customers' best interests at heart - again that is my wrongdoing, not theirs. So the whole point to my review is this: if you work hard for your money and want to be careful how you spend it, do your research. Don't trust that their fees are fair just because they are nice. I will still be using a small family owned business located in Seattle for my orders, but going forward I will feel better about the money I am spending, knowing that I did my homework and that my hard earned money is going into the pockets of other like-minded business owners. It's just sad that I have spent THOUSANDS with this company and they have absolutely no customer retention or dedication to customer satisfaction. With just two of my companies I've spent over $7,000 in three years. read more
