From 1st March we will be selecting a product each week for a one day only special promotion – and although it will be featured on our website it will be largely advertised via Twitter.  Make sure that you don’t miss a great deal and receive all of our special offer information by following us on Twitter – twitter.com/ALocalPrinter.

Beware of Hidden Costs

A potential problem when shopping around is what we call the ‘iceberg effect’ ie, what looks like a good deal on the surface has hidden costs lurking below! The most common hidden cost is delivery which is added to the price either in the shopping cart, or more annoyingly, at the point of checkout.

As an online shopper there is nothing more frustrating than finding your budget being blown on the hidden delivery cost – and in terms of printed matter, 10k flyers on 300gsm board can add a further £25.00 to the order!

So, the rule of thumb I always use is to go directly to the information pages and check the delivery information.

Free Delivery from A Local Printer

Happily, all of the published prices on the A Local Printer website include free delivery to one mainland UK address – so that is one less thing to worry about!

Our friends over at Fuzzydon.com specialise in Funny Cartoon Caricatures, such as this one they have done for me. Of course I am nowhere near as good looking in real life

We are going to be using these caricatures for some of our own marketing campaigns, including a Promotional Postcard Mailer and some Posters.

Meanwhile, Fuzzydon also provide items such as key rings, mugs, fridge magnets and mouse mats incorporating your caricature, so you can complete your promotional campaign in style!

Why not have a look at their website, or give them a call on 01822 615664 and ask for Suzi.

We have also moved the credit card payment option over to PayPal and integrated their interface into our cart, so you dont actually leave our site if you choose to pay this way. (This is done by using a PayPal Pro Merchant Account)

Hopefully our customers will find these new options and interfaces much easier to use. PayPal is a proven, well known and extremely secure payment method.

Certainly cart abandonment has reduced already – an indicator that our customers are finding the ordering process easier than before.

Previously our credit card payment option was handled by HSBC online payments – nice and secure but not the most user friendly interface in the world

We have retained the “Pay Later” option for the time being. This is there as an option for those who dont like paying online, but with the the new easy to use payment methods we are considering removing the “Pay Later” option in the near future (not many customers use it anyway).

The main problem with the “Pay Later” option is that we have to call you for payment over the phone and this invariably delays the whole order process because we cannot commence work on your order until payment has been made.

Finally, we are going to being adding yet another payment method option soon - Google Checkout. It will be interesting to hear if anyone else is offering or using this payment method and any thoughts on it?