Saturday, April 04, 2009

Is This A Rip Off Or What?



Henry's school usually do the annual pictures in the fall when school first starts (guess that's when the teacher still likes the kids and vice-versa). A few weeks ago Henry's teacher sent us an email announcing a Spring Portrait session. Well ok, they are going to do it, we like it or not. We would have the option not to order anything. One day couple of weeks ago, they took some time during regular school hours and had the kids pose for the portraits. Henry commented some of the poses were a bit silly. Then Henry came home with the order package. The pictures are cute, especially the one of the far right. Then again, my kid is cute, all kids are cute, it's hard not to find a cute picture if you take a lot of them, like they did during the portrait session. 

And then I looked at the price:

Package C: $35, CD with image file
Package D: $25, 2 5x7

Each picture must be ordered in its own package, so for $35 you get ONE CD with ONE picture on it. New business idea: bribe all school district superintendents and school principals and offer them deals on monthly school portraits.

8 comments:

YawnOver said...

I'm glad it's not just me. I HATE spring portraits. They are always silly, tree-hugging poses that I don't want to buy anyway, but on top of that the packages include annoying things - like a strip of 5 photo stickers for $20! Grrr...

Have to agree with you, though - the kid is cute.

Sonya said...

They do spring pics here too and the poses have been really ridiculous. It's like they are try to do high school senior type pictures. The prices are very high too.
For my three it would cost about $70.

Z said...

They are cute. And what better use of school time?

I guess the thinking is that you can run off a million photos of that one shot and use it in your new ad campaign.

Lesley said...

It is a rip-off.. and your school probably gets a get a kick-back. (I read that in the fine print of my kids spring pix.)

In the future, I'm sticking to the over-priced cruise pictures. At least that way I get the whole family in on it.

Anonymous said...

Whoa! I can't believe those PRICES! That IS a Rip-off! We have Spring pictures in our town too...where they take the photos and send them all home with the kids and the parents either have to pay for them or send them back (and, of course the poses are a lot fancier than the plainer Fall pictures)...but, at least our photo packages aren't outrageously expensive like yours. Still, it is manipulative to send the finished pictures home with the kids, then tell the parents "either PAY for them or send them back!".

We have three sets of Spring pictures coming home any day now AND Darcy's track pictures AND Darcy's soccer pictures.

Karin said...

That IS a rip-off. geez.

Lynn said...

We do spring portraits here too. If I don't like the fall ones, I will get ONE picture of the spring ones, but they are better priced here than that!!! I got one for $15. Still way expensive but I really liked. and I also shell out $12 for the class picture as well.

Lynn said...

BTW, that one with him in the slide with the cute grin is ADORABLE!!!