EW
Elizabeth Warden
Apr 28, 2026
I saw that Staples had competitive prices with Amazon for printing business cards, so I thought I’d try it out. I sent in my order at 10:30 am with advertising showing that they had same day pickup. I needed to go there anyway to drop off amazon returns with the thought that I could divert some of my Amazon business towards a brick and mortar in person when I drop off returns.
After I had already placed the order, I saw the earliest time I could guarantee pickup was 6:30 in the evening. Already this is a problem, because I live 45 minutes outside of town. I was going in town from 11-2ish. I work in the evenings, need to get home, eat something, and get my ducks in a row by being home around 4. I thought I’d just call and see if the 6:30 time was the earliest I could pick it up or if it might be done earlier and that was just autogenerated from the website. I got rerouted to a call center, then routes to customer service, then rerouted to the printing department. After talking to 4 people for some reason, they said I was 6th in line and they had no idea when it would be ready. They said it’s in a strict order and I can’t be prioritized. I’m not expecting that they drop everything to do my order. I just wanted to see if there was a way to know when to come by. I just decided to drop by last and see where things were when I went to drop off my Amazon returns.
When I got to the store, it was 2:20. I came up and asked how long they could hold orders, because I was sure mine probably wasn’t done. They asked my name and found my order and said they’d just get it done right then. So now, all the sudden, they can jump me in line after telling me over the phone that I couldn’t. Now I’m super annoyed because this could have been done 30 minutes ago before I got here so I’m not standing here waiting and staring at them working instead of just picking this up (the point of this service). That is the whole point of me calling, because I run two businesses by myself and my time is literally how I earn money. Wasting a bunch of time picking up business cards absolutely isn’t worth it unless it’s extremely convenient. I absolutely would have liked the choice to just pick them up in a few days or next week rather than waiting a long period of time in person and wasting my time. They didn’t ask me or have any system for any of this. The employee just started rushing around immediately and trying to do the order, even though I would’ve just opted to wait if I’d known it would take this long. While doing the order she was STRUGGLING to do it. Messed up the thing she was trying to do because she was rushing, and she was having issues getting my cards to line up properly. She kept complaining to me saying I can’t get this to work, until I just said, well I’m not sure what to tell you. Because obviously the reason I’m paying for this service is because I don’t want to make my own cards or think about any of the manufacturing of it. I make my own labels; I understand it’s stressful to do. That’s why I’m paying someone else to deal with it. At this point, it’s been over 20 minutes of me just staring at this employee struggle and not being able to figure out how to print my stuff. Finally, after over 30 minutes, she actually starts printing the cards. After over 40 minutes, I was able to check out and leave.
I don’t blame these employees that are obviously dealing with bad working conditions and understaffing. They are trying to follow rigid policies and a huge lack of organization. There is no way to know when or how your stuff is ready unless it’s basically right before they close (meaning you have to get there between 6:30-7). It is very obvious the staff is working with outdated equipment and undertrained with very little ability for other options. It feels like going to a Blockbuster in 2008. This place is rightfully going to get either bought out or shut down. I wish there were low prices locally for things like this, but this pales in comparison to other modern businesses that actually offer convenience and good costumer service.