The average price of basic 4-by-6 inch prints, based on the sites surveyed, remained at 14 cents this quarter. Just a couple of the sites lowered the price of basic prints since January, but this was not enough to have an effect on the average price. Currently there are eight sites offering standard prints below 10 cents per print.
Prices on 5-by-7-inch and 8-by-10-inch prints remained almost identical to what they were last quarter at on average of $0.89 and $2.84, respectively. One site no longer included the price, therefore dropping the price of the 8-by-10 inch print by1 cent, on average.My Photopipe implemented a large drop in the price of the 11-by-14 inch print bringing the average down quite remarkably, from $7.20 in January to $6.86 in April. A few increases and decreases in shipping costs led to only a 2 cent decrease, on average for standard 4-by-6 inch prints.
Costco is currently the only site offering free shipping on basic prints.Photofun.com continues to hold the lowest price on standard prints, charging 5 cents per print.
Along with spring came many limited time print discounts and special offers as well. The sites were advertising free points for signing up and unlimited storage options. New at Clark Color Labs and York Photo is free and unlimited online photo storage. Kodak EasyShare Gallery continues to offer free photo storage but are changingits policy. The storage policy allows users to upload an unlimited amount of photos, however, in order to continue storing photos on the Gallery website, a purchase must be made from the Gallery at least once every 12 months. The amount of the required purchase is based on the amount of storage space the photos occupy.