Beware of the ‘Too Good To Be True’ deal…

We at ShutterBooth recieved an interesting, scary, and sad call on Saturday. Around 5pm we received a call from a local venue. They were certain a photo booth was supposed to be there, but they hadn’t shown up yet. This phone call was bittersweet. While it was nice that they assumed that if there was a photo booth there, it must be ShutterBooth, it was a little sad to think that they thought we hadn’t shown up to a wedding. While we were sure that wedding wasn’t ours, we checked, double checked, and rechecked to make sure we didn’t miss something. While we haven’t missed an event (knock on wood), and we feel confident about our systems and procedures in place that ensure we won’t overlook someone’s most special day, we are human and a mistake could happen. We were relieved when we were certain that we had no contact with this client, but felt sad that one of our competitors was at the very best, cutting it extremely close to the reception time, at worst not showing up at all.

In related news, we had a prospective client inform us that she would not be using ShutterBooth because she had found a photo booth company on Craigslist. Craigslist is great for a lot of things, and if you come to our office we could point out that the majority of the furnishings came from Craigslist. We’ll use Craigslist again the next time we need some desks, or filing cabinets, or some beachy décor, but we wouldn’t recommend using them to find a photo booth for your most special day.

Lastly, we receive a lot of calls from potential clients claiming they have seen our Groupon ad. For the record, unless Groupon changes their business model substantially, ShutterBooth Hampton Roads will never offer a Groupon on our photo booth services. The reason is simple, Groupon takes a HUGE cut of the already discounted price the company is offering. If we offered 50% via Groupon, we would only make 25% of our normal rate. We can’t do business at this price point. If a photo booth rental company is willing to do business for 25% off their normal rate, you should ask yourself why. Could they offer this price all the time? Do they have the same quality as higher priced competitors, like ShutterBooth? Or, are they so desperate for income, they’ll do anything to bring in some cash flow? Will they still be open in 9-12 months when you have your wedding if they are offering these prices?

Now, we’ve kicked around the idea of offering a Groupon for something like our Save The Date packages, and that is something that could be a win-win for all involved. But ShutterBooth Hampton Roads will never offer a Groupon on our ShutterBooth service. No, we can’t honor the competitor’s Groupon either.

Just keep in mind that their prices aren’t vastly different than ours, and for a few hundred dollars more, you can be certain that you will receive the highest quality photo booth experience from booking through your event. Plus we’ll actually show up.