Yesterday, I learned that Costco is shutting down their photo business and asking their customers to move to Shutterfly. Did you get an email like this?
Consider this!
Don’t panic, I’m here to help. Before you take their advice and scramble to move your photos to Shutterfly, there are a few things you should consider.
- Costco was never in the business of preserving memories. They are in the business to make money. If something isn’t making money, then they will stop selling that item or offering that service. Why is this an important? Since Costco doesn’t actually care about your memories, ask yourself; what makes them an expert to recommend where you should move your photos?
- Costco Photo Center customers must move their photos to Shutterfly (or somewhere else) before January 31, 2024, because Costco is going to DELETE EVERYTHING on February 1, 2024. Yes, giant, mighty Costco is leaving the photo business and DELETING ALL OF THEIR CUSTOMER’s PHOTOS!!! In the words of Stephanie from Full House, “How rude!”. Don’t worry, I can help you.
- Awe, but isn’t it nice that Costco is looking out for you and has arranged for Shutterfly to look after your photos. NO! This is deceiving. They are offering a terrible solution to their abandonment. Shutterfly is not a safe place to store your photos! Shutterfly recently re-affirmed their temporary photo storage policy. If you use Shutterfly, you need to print with them every 18 months, or they will DELETE ALL the photos that you are “storing” on their site. What if you get sick or life happens and you don’t print any photos, or purchase any photo gifts? Yikes! Since you are scrambling to move your photos from Costco, do you really want to move them to another temporary location and perhaps have to do this again? Don’t let anyone hold your photos hostage.
- Consider how easy it is to download your photos from Shutterfly…wait IT IS NOT EASY. I recently did this. First, I had to enter my account and click on a link to download my photos. Then I waited for an email that had another link to download a zip file containing my photos. Warning…these are compressed photos, not your originals. If you want your originals, you must look for a link in that email to make a second request for the full resolution photos. Then you wait again for yet another email containing another link so you can finally download your full resolutions files. It should not be that difficult to access your own photos.
So what do you do now?
Don’t worry, I’m here to help.
You will need to do three things to save your photos.
- If there is any chance that Costco is the only place your photos could be, then you need to download your photos out of Costco. More on this later.
- Keep your photos on your computer or external hard drive (EHD).
- Decide on a safe, private and permanent cloud location for your photos – if you are looking for a cloud service.
Where do I store my photos?
If you’ve been following me for a while, you will know that I use FOREVER to store my photos. This company’s sole mission is to preserve memories. If you are not familiar with FOREVER read on to learn just a few of the benefits.
- FOREVER is private and secure. It is not free but that means that you will not become the product. Free or very low cost storage means that you as the consumer pays in other ways. Usually that’s by sacrificing your privacy, giving up your rights to your content and you will never have any guarantees for longevity. FOREVER is very different in the very best way. There will never be any data mining.
- FOREVER offers permanence. You actually OWN your storage and your content. This is a huge difference.
- I recently learned that Costco and Shutterfly are for-profit-only companies whos goal is to maximize their profits. That’s not all that surprising really, but it means that if preserving memories does not lead to higher profits then they will stop offering that service (and delete your memories). However, FOREVER is a for-profit, public-benefit corporation. This means that there is a strong incentive to be highly efficient and responsible with their money. It also means that they must deliver the public benefit of preserving clients memories. By law they must take this public responsibility into account in all their decisions.
- FOREVER has Ambassadors, like myself and and we build relationships with our clients. This allows us to provide very personalized customer service. You won’t find this at Shutterfly/Google/Apple. I think there is a big difference between a customer and a client. Which do you want to be?
- FOREVER makes it easy to upload, download (no photo hostages here), share, print and make photo books and gifts. All in one place. It is always getting better based on feedback from our clients. Photo prints and photo gifts are great quality and are often better priced compared to Shutterfly.
- Many Forever Ambassadors like myself are also Certified Photo Managers. This is because FOREVER adheres to many of the best practice standards while making it easy for people to use. You don’t need an IT degree to navigate it. Plus you are supporting small business owners, not corporate giants.
Try FOREVER for FREE
If you must make the painful switch from Costco, why not give FOREVER a chance. If you need help, reach out and I will try to make it as painless as possible. You can create a FREE account using the link below. This will be the start of our client/ambassador relationship and you will be supporting my small business.
https://www.forever.com/ambassador/joanne-soltesz
If you need any help, I’m just a click away and can help guide you through the process of downloading from Costco and Organizing in FOREVER.
Warmly,
Joanne
Thanks!