I have an exhibit at the end of the month and at the last minute, I decided I wanted to make up some CDs with screensavers on them. I thought it would be a nice touch to print up some CD covers for the thin jewel cases and figured with them being 4.75 inches in size I could fit 2 to a page. My goal was to find the cheapest place locally to print them or print them myself. As ink cartridges are so expensive these days, my husband and I did the math and figured it would cost us about dollar a page to print on photo paper with our home printer.

We recently cashed in on the 20 free 4x6 photos Walgreens was offering so I decided to check there first. The last order I placed online was ready to be picked up in half an hour which would be really convenient in this situation. I found their price list in only a few clicks. Each 8x10 would cost $3.99. Meh, not a great idea since I want to sell the CDs for a couple bucks a piece.

So I went to FedEx/Kinko’s site to see if I could find out what their prices were to print up a color 8.5x11. Hmm… Nothing on the front page about print prices. So I hit the old faithful CTRL+F to bring up the Firefox Find tool bar and typed the word “price” hoping it could help in my quest for the hidden price page. I’m interested in sending them the file online and picking up the prints locally, so I start with the “Online Printing” page. Nothing about price there either… nor is there any information in the next 15 pages I look. The FAQ is useless. Searching for the term “print”? Useless. After looking for a price list for over half an hour, I come to the conclusion that FedEx/Kinko’s must not WANT me to buy anything from them because while they seem to find it important to answer questions like “Where do I install Microsoft .NET Framework?” they never answer questions like “How much is a freaking color print?” So I found a phone number for the local FedEx/Kinko’s near me, which was my last resort since I really hate talking to strangers on the phone. I call and they tell me it will be $.89 for each one-sided color print; if I want it on glossy it will cost $1.78.

Grrr @ them. Why do they do it this way? The only answer I can surmise is that they give each individual store the ability to raise or lower the prices as they choose. But why make it so hard for potential customers to find out something about their product or service, something as basic as price? To this, I give an emphatic “Booo!” Get with the program, Kinko’s. There must be 5000 Walgreen stores across America, yet they can still find a way to regulate prices.