Blurbからメールが届いてユーロ価格とポンド価格が8/27より値上げされるらしい

あまりBlurb からお知らせメールってこないのだけど、今日突然やってきた。
タイトルは「CEOから価格に関する重要なお知らせ（An important message from the CEO regarding pricing）」で、新価格のPDF付き。

ヨーロッパオフィスなどへの投資と、不況の影響で、値上げしたいということらしい。

To Our Friends in the UK and Europe:

As many of you may know, in the last year Blurb has made
a significant investment in our UK and European business
operations. We now employ a small team in our London office,
house one of our customer support folks in Amsterdam, and we
also print and fulfill our UK and European orders from a print
operation on the continent. The good news is that we are
definitely full-fledged, tax-paying employers in the UK and
Europe (support the local economies!), but of course the bad
news is that we are therefore subject to the cost structures
and currency fluctuations of the same economies.

And the economic news has not been so pretty in the past few
months (as you well know). So, fellow Blurberati, we find
ourselves in a spot where we must increase our prices so as
to stay abreast of increasing costs. We have always had the
goal of being fantastic value for money, and we are confident
that that will still be the case - even with the new increases.

Many prices will move very modestly, and some a bit more so.
All the new prices will be effective 27 August, so that should
give you a couple of weeks to place an order prior to the new
increases should you have interest to do so.

For those of you who utilize our Set Your Price feature, you
will want to update your book detail pages to reflect the new
pricing on or before 27 August when the new pricing goes into
effect.

Finally, I wanted to take a moment to thank each of you for
being a Blurb customer. We started this company with a vision
to enable everyone in the world who had something to say,
whether in pictures or words, to produce affordable books
of uncommon beauty. The fact that you are already doing so,
in such great numbers, is both astonishing and gratifying.

Many thanks and all best,

Eileen

例えば、私が一番利用している、「10x8 Landscape のソフトカバー、20-40 ページ」だと、ポンドだと £9.95から £10.95への値上げ。ユーロだと、 € 14.95から € 16.95への値上げ。

これでも、iPhotoのフォトブックの1/2から1/3くらいの価格なので、コストパフォーマンスは圧倒的に良い。

きっとiPhotoのフォトブックは、アップル製ということでたくさんの人が使っているだろうから、個人的にはBlurbを応援したい。

「あまりメジャーじゃ無いけど、クオリティの高いモノ、コストパフォーマンスに優れたモノ」が好きなので。

ちなみに、Blurbでもハードカバーは選ばない方が良いかも。若干作りが甘かったことがあるので。