Zoomin vs iTasveer - Online Indian photo printing websites

This is the Web 2.0 era wherein companies’ bank on user generated content to push their businesses. Its like people having the raw material and companies having the financial power combining themselves to deliver a final product. And hot on the heels are the new services like iTasveer, Pic Square and ZoomIn. These services enable the user to share their favorite photos and even print them. For the time being, we’ll be concentrating only on two services, ZoomIn which is relatively a new one and iTasveer. Let’s get a basic overview of what these websites offer and who has an upper hand on whom.

The core service offered by both these websites are same. And the main source of revenue for them is from users placing orders for their prints. This is a new concept in India as the conventional photo studios rule the roost. But to encourage users to use their service and print their photos from them, ZoomIn currently gives 20 (4X6) prints free and iTasveer gives 15 for the same size. This means that, you have to pay only for the shipping.

Storage Space: The disk space allocated on both the services is unlimited which can help you dump all your photos from your hard disk to their servers. Pretty Neat! However, there’s one catch found on iTasveer. If you again want to download all the pictures, you can download images not more than 100MB per month. That is the only restriction they have.

Uploading: Both the services are again at par. Uploading on both these sites is a breeze and they also support other photo sharing services like Picasa and Flickr.

Ordering: Here, ZoomIn is a clear winner. Ordering photos on ZoomIn is pretty easy and fast because of the AJAX based interface. On the other hand, iTasveer seems pretty cluttered and confusing for a first time user. However, one thing to be noticed on iTasveer is the cropping tool. This tool, which is absent on ZoomIn makes it handy that only the relevant subject comes in the print.

Pricing: Well this is the most important criteria. iTasveer’s prices are a tad expensive in comparison of ZoomIn. But the 4X6 prints which is the normal size for a family album is 50 paise cheaper than ZoomIn. This saving is not much but it can save some bucks for you if you’re ordering in bulk. The shipping price charged is also neck to neck with ZoomIn charging Rs. 25 whereas iTasveer charging Rs. 30 for a order.

Product Variety: iTasveer’s store clearly says it all. They print photos even on T-Shirts, Mugs, mousepads which lacks on ZoomIn. I am sure ZoomIn must be thinking to expand their product portfolio with something better and competitive.

As it’s said that nothing’s perfect in this world, neither of the services can be termed as perfect. It just depends on the user on how he uses it. In some points, ZoomIn won the accolades and in some iTasveer. As more and more players spring up, this service factory will be interesting to monitor.