Copy Center

Printing services are all calculated assuming at least one working day production time. This lets us manage the job more efficiently. Copy Center prices assume much shorter production times meaning we have to put it ahead of other jobs to get it done. This adds extra cost which reflects the extra effort and time to get the job done fast.

Depending on the nature of your job, yes. The reality is that places that list prices cheaper than us, these are mostly for self service only and you pay for every page you print correct or not. We do the photocopying for you and charge only for the finished work, and not for any mistakes made. That’s why we have a minimum charge of $1.50 for every print or photocopy job, just to cover our time.

We charge per side of A4 or A3 printing as that is how we are charged for the consumables by the supplier. So for us and you it costs the same if it’s 200 single sided A4 prints or 100 double sided A4 prints on standard copy paper. Sheets are physical sheets of paper and that is a fixed cost if it has single or double sided print on it.

Simply put, any finishing that can’t be done automatically by the copier during the printing process has our labour involved. We have a charge to reflect our time and effort in doing the work. Also there are quite a few finishing options that can only be done manually so if you are not sure please check the options listed to get the correct price or contact us and we can confirm it for you.

For sizes up to A3 standard lamination is double sided gloss, for sizes up to A1 its gloss one side and matte the other. These are the most commonly used standards so that’s how we have our equipment set up. We can do other options but that takes time to swap things over, or the job needs to be sent out to a specialist so we don’t list it as part of our Copy Center services. We are happy to quote for your exact needs.

All lamination has the choice of sealed edge or clean edge. Sealed edge has a 5mm edge of plastic around the edges of the item but it’s fully sealed. Clean edge is where we trim through the laminate and the paper/card under it to make the edge ‘clean’. This process gives a nicer look but there is a risk of the plastic peeling off over time if the card or paper is bent too many times.

While we do everything we can to ensure the best possible finish we are dealing with hot plastic often being applied to rough or damaged surfaces and as such do lamination at your risk.

Our scanners save in JPEG, TIFF, and PDF which is the default format. The standard quality is 300dpi (120dpc) in full colour compressed format,  but we can scan up to 600dpi with no compression at the cost of increased file size. We can use specialised software to convert scans into other formats (covered under the Processing Scans charge) including Optical Character Recognition and saving into Word and Excel formats.

Unless you tell us otherwise our standard practice is to delete all scans off our system after 28 days. (Anything sent by Wetransfer is deleted after 7 days.)  We do this a part of our obligations to data privacy laws. If you plan to reuse the scans at a later date, please tell us and we can put a copy of it on our customer file system. However we are not an archive service and so all saved scans are done so at your risk.

If you have security concerns we are more than happy to delete the files as soon as they have been sent and you confirm you have received them.

Wetransfer.com is a free file transfer service that lets us upload files larger than what email systems will allow (even GMail limits attachments to no more than 25mb per email). The service holds up to 2GB of files and will send you a link via email for you to be able to download the files. You can forward this link to as many people as you like so they can download the files too. Please download the files within 7 days of the link being sent to you as they will automatically delete the files after that time.

Once Wetransfer deletes the file we would have to upload the files again for you to access. Unless you tell us to hold them in our customer folders, we only hold on to scans for 28 days, after that we delete them. After that time we will be unable to upload them back to Wetransfer.

Preliminaries

We have put limits on how much you can order on our online system to ensure that we can give you the best value and fastest delivery of them. These are all produced in house so we have full control over every stage of the process and can give you more options. When we have larger volumes of an item  we often send this work to a production partner of ours who specialise in higher volume work, but have a much more limited range of standard offerings to keep the prices more cost effective. So depending on your requirements we may have to get a custom price for your work. So we prefer to quote for such orders. Please use our ‘Get a Quote’ page to get a price for exactly what you need.

 All documents created by the New Zealand Government are the copyright of the government department or agency that issues them. They put restrictions on what can or can not be printed by people or businesses that are not authorised agents. As a printer we have rules of what we must do on given situations

  • All government forms that can be downloaded as pdfs from their websites, ie tax forms, brochures, applications for grants. We can print those with no restrictions. We can also scan in completed forms to send to your email and to the government department / agency.
  • Legal ID’s for example Drivers Licence or Passports must be copied in a way that make it clear that they are not the original, for example enlarging by 25% or in greyscale.  If the copy is then witnessed by a JP we can copy and scan it without any issue. Scanning the original can be done, but we must do so in a way that will render it useless for making illegal copies of the information. 
  • Currency can be copied but must be scaled up to 25% larger or smaller than the original.
  • Documents or ID require a government authority to both issue the original and fill in the details; we can only copy or scan the original. 
  • Court, police, and Other Legal documents can be copied and scanned, but we will have to check to make sure we are allowed to do so.
  • Other Documents (ie from banks or other instutions) we can copy and scan without issue unless it's marked otherwise.

We offer an editing service for documents but this with the understanding that we can not edit any legally binding documents. We will decide if we can or can not edit any document on a case by case basis.

Our prices are quoted on production of work within a given time frame for production.  We aim to have the work ready for collection no later than (or being delivered from) 9am the date shown when you place the order. This allows us to manage the production process and allows safety margin if we have any production issues. If you require it sooner than the calculated date, then we may have to push other work asside to get your completed sooner.  This can have a knock on effect on our other jobs, adding extra workload for us. The charge simply reflects the extra cost to us which will have to be covered by you to get your order sooner than normal.

Depending on the product you might automatically get a combined discount on the final total price. To receive this discount the products must be:

  • Of the same type. For example ordering several different 6x4" photos, our system will price it as if there were several copies of the same photo
  • Must have the same format. That is using the same size, paper/card, print on each side of the sheet, same finishing
  • Must be placed all in the same order. You can't order products on different times/days and get a combined discount


A second option is what we offer some clients where we manually adjust the prices to reflect the work being done. There will be a handling charge for each additional design included in the run to cover our costs of setting up the order.  For example a run of 500 A6 flyers can be split in 200+200+100, and be charged as a run of 500 plus the costs setting up of the two extra designs in the production run. This option is at our discretion and will be confirmed with you prior to production of the products.

Please contact us if you want to learn more about combined order discounts

Products

There are three options for designing and customizing a product. Click a product on the left-hand panel and choose one of the options.

  1. Custom Design: lets you customize the products. Click it to open the design studio and use multiple tools to create your own design.
  2. Upload Design: using this option, you can upload your own JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, EPS, AI, PDF and PSD images.
  3. Use Templates: We are now adding a range of templates to the range of products we produce. However this is an ongoing process so templates may be limited or uniavlaible for different products.
  4. Hire a Designer: You can hire our team at Copy Express to design things for you. There is no fixed price as each job is unique. You can phone or email to ouline what you want or use our quote system to get a estimation

The type of paper used for difference purposes is expressed in weight. We follow the ISO/Metric stand of grammes per square metre (gsm or g/m2)

Our papers fall in to 3 basic ranges

Standard papers: 100-130gsm which is slightly heavier and thicker than standard copyer paper with a nicer finish. Most flyers and stationery is in this weight range

Heavy papers: 150-200gsm which thicker and has more 'weight' making it feel higher end. Used for preimum flyers or for high end booklets

Cards: 220-350gsm which are stiffer and can support themselves but can't be easily folded. Our greeting cards and business cards come from this weight range.

For orders of one thousand or more we get our offset print partner to print the product on our behalf which means you get much more for money. However we are limited to the run sizes they consider normal for various products and variations. So for them a order of 7000 A5 flyers on 130gsm coated paper is normal, but the same amount on 100gsm letterhead is unusual so they don’t carry a standard (rack) price for it. In some cases we will list the price for the next available quantity for that product if applicable.

If you want an amount of of the product not listed in the options, then contact us directly and we can get a custom price quoted for you.

Coated papers and cards have a super smooth surface with a special coating mixed in to it them to give a brighter colour when printed on. We use a silk finish coated paper our print system has a 'semi-gloss' / silk finish.

Uncoated papers and cards are used where you need to be able to easily mark the surface, such as a form or a loyality card. The uncoated often looks whiter than coated version, but the colours printed on it looks a little paler or softer.

Recycled is paper or card where the majority of it is made from washed reclamed paper and card. You can get in a ultra white form like normal uncoated but normaly it's left only semi-white with visable flecks of the reclamed pulp.

Textured papers and cards can be either coated or uncoated. The differances is that when the sheets are rolled out to their final thickness the rollers have a texture to them that you can feel. Comon finishes are Linen, which has a woven look or Velum that has a rougher finish.

Kraft / Manilla / Box card and board are all the same type of card. It is unbleached (brown with darker flecks of woodpulp) and may only have one smooth side, the other or both being rough to the touch. We do print on the Kraft/Manilla version and the Box bord is used for pads backing and other situations where extra stiffness is needed.

Simply put, there are limits to what we can do. While we would like to offer you every option for every product, it’s just not possible to do so. Sometimes it's just not economic to offer some combinations. Other times it’s a case that it’s physically impractical for us to do, like print some of the larger folded flyer sizes.  In many cases because we rely on production partners to do some of the work, they limit what options we can offer. Where possible we try to offer every combination required for the most common products a business needs.

If you are after some combination of options and you don't’ see it on our system, contact us directly and we can quote a price.

In the process of improving our range of products, we occasionally have to alter or discontinue some of the products or their options. Existing items that used the changed/discontinued formats should be transfered over to the new ranges/options automatically. However this doesn't always happen perfectly and if you see any of the messages, please save your order at this point and contact us directly. We will transfer over the design to the new format and and let you know when you can complete the order.

While we get papers from several different suppliers, who in turn source it from many different paper mills, they all conform to several international environmental standards. We would have to work quite hard to find a paper that isn't sourced from sustainable new growth commercial forests, as covered under the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) or PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification Schemes). The manufacturing process of the paper are also environmentally safe methods vetted by various environmental agencies, with some of the new papers we are getting are classed as 'carbon neutral/negative' where the carbon the absorbed by the trees as much or more than what is generated by the paper manufacturing process.

The printing processes are also as environmentally friendly as we can make them. Our printers are as power efficient as they can be made, and while we never turn them off their low power modes are no worse than a fridge. The inks/toners are as non toxic as they can be, and our printers use the absolute minimums need to print your work (we have to force them to use maximum coverage)  All waste is recycled in various ways; empty cartridges are recycled by the manufacturers, waste toner get used to make paints, we even take the paper offcuts to be recycled. (If you would like to have free bags of shredded paper and card for arts and crafts or for other uses, please do drop by to collect it during store hours.)

While we make all efforts to maintain supplies of our standard ranges of papers and cards we can be subject to supply shortages and delays in stock deliveries (be it local to us or international to our suppliers). In these situations we will do the following

  • Remove the unavailable paper or card from our online system until we have stock of it again
  • Where possible offer an upgrade to the next paper weight at no extra cost.
  • When we can’t do a upgrade, due to cost or practicality we will contact you to discuss alternative options
  • If you want us to source a non-standard paper or card to complete your order we may have to pass on the related costs to you
  • Production time frames may also be changed depending on your preferred options but we will discuss this with you beforehand

Design

All the fonts used in our design studio system are sourced from the Google Font Library at fonts.google.com. They are all free for both personal and commercial use and the names used in the design studio are the names used in the font library.

The cost of the stock images you select is dependent of the supplier. Currently there is Pixabay integrated with the online design studio system. Pixabay is free, but our system is limited to only bitmap stock images (jpegs.) You can go directly to Pixabay to look at the full range of images of offer. We also recomend Freepik as a good alternative source of high quality stock art. Alternatively you can find plenty of public domain/copy left/creative commons artwork that is free to use. You can upload them to use through the image gallery or the designer studio and save them on the system for future use too. Also if you plan to use stock images for business/commercial situations, please check the licence on the sources’ download page as many of them are only free for personal use. All stock from Pixabay and Fotolia are licenced for comerical use based on the planned used of the stock image.

Include serial numbers

As a rule of thumb, we would recommend putting serial numbers on vouchers. For us at Copy Express the serials numbers are part of the cost of printing vouchers. All you need to is ensure that the first number of the sequence is on the design. Serial numbers on the voucher not only allow you to ensure that the voucher is being redeemed for the value it was bought for - they also allow you to track life cycle of the voucher from purchase to use and what items they are being used for, which is useful information in tracking the performance of the business. Serial numbers also are another form of security as you have a log of the voucher purchase in case of a stolen one being redeemed. If you don’t want serial numbers then we recommend setting up a design using our just a few flyers option instead.

 

The terms and conditions

This is the big one, the rules of how the voucher can be used. These limitations are there to prevent abuse of the gift voucher and that the customer has a fair deal too. At a minimum you should include a statement to the effect that “Subject to our standard Terms and Conditions available in store or on our website” (and make sure that they are available). It’s also a good idea to also include some of the most common terms and conditions on the voucher so that you can point it out to the client

  • Excluding exchange for cash or credit. You want people to spend money with you, so you need this clause, otherwise you end up losing money by the time you factor in the cost of having the vouchers made and the ‘bank’ cost of receiving then refunding the money.
  • Reserving the right not giving out change above a dollar value or as new vouchers. One way to get around the ‘exchange for cash or credit’ rule is to spend the voucher on the cheapest item available then get the rest back in change. By limiting the amount of change given it prevents this and insures that you get the best return from the customer’s investment.
  • The date it will expire. You should limit how long a voucher should be good for, as it motivates the customer to use it before runs out and ensures that you can keep the bringing in new customers all the time. The time limit is up to you but 3, 6 and 12 months seem to be the most common.
  • The right to exclude the voucher from being used for some services, products or promotions. It’s a personal choice but it’s handy clause to have if there is some situation where you don’t want to have a voucher redeemed for it.

 

Theft deterrents

Gift vouchers are a form of tender in your business, so it can be just as much a target of theft as cash or any item on a shelf. There are a few simple steps of preventing theft and duplication. I’ve already talked about serial numbers, so here are some other ways help increase the security of your gift vouchers:

  • Require the issuing sales clerk to sign the voucher (and never pre-sign them)
  • Use colour in the design. A good trick is to have a colour or image that will noticably lighten or darken if copied. We can advise you on what would work best for you
  • We as standard print on 170gsm coated papers as it not commonly available in stores that sell papers for personal printers
  • Attach a sticker when sold or have a ticket puncher as they come with a range of different shapes for punching.
  • Use micro-printing or security shading that makes it detectable if copied
  • Use “full-bleed” art and colour (printing over the edge of the voucher as marked by the black dashed lines on our designer studio)

Yes they do. All colours evoke emotions and moods, so when you pick one it expresses a meaning to the people who look at it. If you are trying to get people to think about your business in a certain way through a flyer, business card, or banner, it can help to pick the right colours to embody that mindset. Below is a table of colours and what they mean.

 

  Red
Power, energy, passion, desire, speed, strength, power, heat, love, aggression, danger, fire, blood, war, violence, intensity, celebration, luck, stop or danger.
  Yellow
Joy, optimism, happiness, danger, sunshine, idealism, imagination, hope, summer, gold, deceit, philosophy, dishonesty, cowardice, betrayal, jealousy, disease and warning.
  Green
Nature, environment, health, good luck, renewal, youth, vigour, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, envy, misfortune, start signal.
  Blue
Peace, harmony, unity, trust, truth, security, confidence, conservatism, order, sky, water, cold, technology, cleanliness, depression, loyalty, immortality, stability, masculinity and protection.
  Purple
Royalty, nobility, spirituality, ceremony, mystery, transformation, wisdom and enlightenment. 
  Orange
Energy, balance, warmth, enthusiasm, vitality, expansion, flamboyant, autumn.
  Brown
Earth, hearth, home, outdoors, reliability, comfort, endurance, stability, simplicity, comfort, trees, nature and autumn. 
  White
Reverence, virginity, nothingness, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, birth, winter, snow, goodness, marriage, cold, clinical and sterility.
  Gray
Safety, reliability, intelligence, melancholy, modesty, dignity, maturity, soundness, functionality, old age and grief.
  Black
Power, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, evil, anonymity, unhappiness, depth, style, sad, remorse, anger, underground, technical, grief and death.

 

One thing to think about is the businesses in the same field as your own. You should be able to pick out the common colours they all use, and that will help you pick ones that should work for you. Another thing to think about is that different cultures have different meanings to each colour. Generally this isn’t too much of a problem, but sometimes it pays to double check if you are dealing with a sensitive or emotional subject.

Our system now generates standardized templates ready for use in many art and design programs. The pdf file is correctly sized to include a 3mm bleed and our standard 5mm safe margin. Load the file into the program of your choice as a layer and create your design. Remove or hide the guide layer when done and save the pdf to upload to our system. If you have trouble seeing the template in your program, most likely you have a non white or transparent background which makes the 1 point wide dashed lines harder to see. Changing the background to white or a very light colour should make the template lines easier to see.

Design Studio

Design Studio is a cloud based software and PDFs can contain a lot of detailed information that could overload your data limits, which is especially bad if you’re trying to use it on a mobile connection. To save data the design studio system only displays a low detailed version of it on the screen while you are editing. When you save the design the system will store the high detail PDF. You can check this at any time by downloading a high resoultion proof from design studio that can be viewed in any program that can read PDFs

The standard text box property tools apply the options you pick to all the text of the box. If you want to add more detail to the text, such as changing a colour or font to just a few words in the body of the text, then you need to use the advance editing tool. The button marked ‘ABC’ will open a new window that allows you to edit the text as you would in a word processor.

In the editor you can select the part of the text you want to change and do the same actions as you can in the standard text box properties. The changes are only made when you save them.  If you make a mistake and save it before you fix it, using the undo button will undo all the changes made to the text box while in the advanced editing too.

 

With products that are both double sided and folded/creased, it can be confusing how the layout of the product works, so we have added these guides to help you. They are in the trim or unprinted area of the design or only used in the proofs, so they won’t be there when you get the finished product.

The Blue & Pink Corners
The cyan (blue) corner and magenta (pink) corner are the same corner of the physical item when printed. The cyan corner is on the front of the document, the magenta corner is on the back of it. Thes marks will show up on your proofs to help you match them up when you print them yourself to check your designs.

Blue Dashed Lines
Due to current limitations of the design studio, it can’t show all the fold lines used in a design. To help show them all we will add a blue dash line to show a fold point. They will only be visible in design studio and your proofs, they are not there in the files we use to print your work.

Pink Dashed Lines
The pink (magenta) dashed lines are used to show where the front/first panel of a folded flyer is and where it opens up from. It’s there to help remind you the orientations of printing the product when it is folded up.

▼Fold
This marks where the fold point, often with a description of the order the fold there is more than one fold on the sheet.

Front (1)
This text tells you where each panel is in the design and is followed by a number in braces to show you the reading order when as the product is unfolded. This reading order can change depending on the orientation of the product, and in some case will alert you if you have to put images and text upside down to read correctly when folded.

 

Design Studio is setup to work with the English language by default but it only effects the software itself. You can put in text of any language you like in any text box you place in your design. The simplest way to do it is to open a word processor or other text editor. Write the text in the language you want to use. Copy the text in the word processor and then paste it in to the text box in Design Studio. The fonts chosen for Design Studio are Unicode fonts, so they should support most of the characters used worldwide. 
If you don’t’ have the correct characters when pasted in to the text box, here are some ways to fix it: 

  • Try using a different font as it may have support for those characters. 
  • Paste the text in to a text editor like notepad or into a google doc. If the text stays correct then copy this new version and past it in to the Design Studio text block.

What characters and languages that are supported by each of the fonts in Design Studio is handled by the fonts’ owner and is out of our control.

If you need text to be in a language that won't display correctly we will have to take your design and regenerate it in more advanced tools for you. This may result in design time being charged, so please contact us and we will be happy to quote the work.

If you have chosen the Print on Front / Back option of ‘‘Colour/Blank’ or ‘Black/Blank’, that will turn off the reverse side of the design so you can’t put anything on it. You can turn it back on by clicking on the ‘Add Reverse Side’ button to be able to add things to the back of the design. 

When you save the design to the shopping card the ‘Print on’ option will change back to ‘Colour/Colour’, and you can change it to ‘Colour/Black’ if you want only black only printing on the back.

The ‘æ’ button found in the text property panel allows you to put in special characters that you can’t put in through a normal keyboard. Just click the character you want, and it will be placed where the cursor is in the text block.

Here is what all the Characters are used for

  • Ā ā Ē ē Ī ī Ō ō Ū ū - Macron vowels for Maori text
  • ‘ ’  “ ” - Propper quote and speech marks
  • · • ■ □ - For bullet points 
  • † ‡ - Daggers, used for footnotes after ‘*’
  • ° - Degree
  • ¹ ² ³ - Exponent marks
  • ¼ ⅓ ½ ⅔ ¾ - Fractions
  • ×  ÷ ± ¤ - Additional Symbols: multiply, divide, plus or minus, currency
  • © ™ ® - Intellectual property marks, in order: Copyright, Trademark, Register Trademark

If you want to use characters not found here, simply write them in a normal document. Copy the text and then paste it in to the text block. The fonts chosen for the Design Studio should support many of the characters found in the Unicode standard. If a character doesn't show when you put it into the text box then you may have to change the font to one that does. Make use of the Advanced editor for more control

Included in the design studio system are three barcode fonts: Libre Barcode 39,  Libre Barcode 128,  and Libre Barcode EAN13 to let you create your own barcodes.

  • Libre Barcode EAN13 is the EAN format barcode used on EU products
  • Libre Barcode 39 lets you create barcodes containing upper case A-Z 0-9 and %/-+$.*
  • Libre Barcode 128 allows for all standard English Characters.

If you want a machine scannable barcode, you will have to see if your system supports any of the three formats. You will also check to see if your device needs a special opening and/or closing character on the code (such as the ‘*’ seen in the example.) If you can’t find out the information with the manual supplied with your equipment or from the supplier directly, you can test it by printing off the proof images from the design studio and putting it under the scanner.

We make no guarantees that the barcodes will work with your system as there are many barcode types and ways of creating the codes. The barcodes are intended for your own use. If you want to add EAN or UPC registered barcodes, there are very strict requirements on their format and size. We recommend checking the appropriate agency’s who can issue and register your barcode for national and international use.

QR codes (Quick Response codes) is a special type of ‘barcode’ that has found use in a lot of different industries to provide information in a machine-readable form. What makes them different to bar codes is that they can be used to store all types of information. The most common use is to store a web address as in the example here, but you can also use it to contain the following items

  • Phone number
  • Email address
  • An SMS message to be sent to a phone number
  • Geographical location – latitude & longitude with a message
  • Wifi login information including the password
  • Contact information that can stored in any computer or phone address book
  • Calendar information to book appointments or events on any computer or phone calendar program
  • Text – plain text for any purpose.

Many smartphones come with a inbuilt barcode scanning application, or you can download them from the app store. To use it, use open the app or in a sub menu in things like web browsers, contacts/calendar apps, or instant messenger apps and get the QR code in side the scanning box. They will pop up the information for you confirm it’s correct and then lets you decide what happens next.

The system integrated in to the design studio software can create all of these QR formats using the default standards for them. If you want some more advance, there are several websites that generate them for you and lets you save them for upload to the design studio as any other image.

Templates

Templates are a range of ready to use business cards, flyers, etc, to give you a design that you can use to get a job done quickly or as a starting point for your own custom design. Just pick a template and start filling in the blanks or modifying it to be uniquely you. If you want to setup a standardised template for your company staff use, such as a business card, we can create personalised ones where all a person needs to do is fill in some blanks and wait for them to arrive at their door. General templates are free to use as part of our service, while personalised templates will have a design fee for creating the template.

Many of our products on copy express come with a range of pre-created templates that allow you to get a business card, flyer, or other items up and running quickly. They come in two types:

General Purpose
These are the majority of our templates. Available for everyone to use free of charge as a starting point so you can get what you need done quickly, or as inspiration for your own custom design. All the text and art can be changed quickly and simply using the Design Studio. Once you have a personalized version of that template, it is saved to your account and no one else can access it.

Downloadable
These templates have been created for designers who would rather use their own preferred design programs instead of our Design Studio system. These are pdf files with layers showing bleed areas, crop and fold marks, page orientation marks, and unprintable areas where relevant. While you can use any file format you like to send to us we have found that pdfs are the most reliable for printing so prefer if you save it back in the same format. The marks are explained in more detail here 

Personalised Design Studio Template
Available only to the customers who order them, these templates have been created by us for the customer for their unique needs, for example a business card. These templates can be fully locked so only text information (ie a name and phone number) or some images (id photo) can be changed, but you can not alter the formatting or position of the contents. Alternatively we can set up rules that allow limited changes of formatting based on what variations are needed. These customer specific templates do come with a setup cost but that is priced on what is required to be done.

Personalised PDF Templates
These templates are like Personalised Design Studio templates but can be configured to have very advanced features allowing dynamic customisation based on what is put into the text and graphic boxes, as well as personalised fonts and other features. Currently it’s only available as a per client option but as we add new products in the future they will be making use of this feature as part of our General Purpose range

Fixed Templates - with option of limited order choices
These are products that can’t be altered in any way, such as a product guide. This allows you to have standard items loaded in each staff member's portfolio to allow them to order them and know they can only order fixed quantities of them. We are happy to set this up for you at no cost.

Want to upload your own product templates for your staff to use? We are happy to do that for you but there may be some costs for the conversion work to our system if you want to make use of personalised template features.

Part of the range of templates provided by our system provider have been configured for traditional USA sizes and so can have a few issues when used for New Zealand size products. We are in an ongoing process of replacing them with NZ suitable versions as well as adding lots more created by us.

Yes, but only with our help. Our online system does recognise a wide range of file formats, they are only available for printing and can not be altered inside of the Design Studio system. We can convert other programs templates into Design Studios’s format but it takes time on our part, which we have to bill for. If you are interested please do contact us and we will be happy to quote you for the work.

You can use any existing design you have already created as a template. Simply find the existing desing in your portoflio, click the create a copy , then make the changes needed and save with a new name.

 

If the company has had a personalised template setup by us, some functions of the Design Studio may be disabled when using it. For example you can enter in personal details in a business card, but you can not change the font style, size, or colour. If it is just an update of standard information, like a postal address, let us know and we can update the template for you. If you want more flexibility on how you can format the item to meet that need (ie to be able to change fonts and sizes) we can configure the template for that. If the alterations required are more than a quick fix, there will be a design time charge for it but we will discuss that with you before we start the work.

Printing

Our primary print systems are CYMK (Cyan Yellow Magenta Key/Black) four colour printers using solid toner. Our wide format system is an inkjet CYMPBGMB (Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, Photo Black, Grey, Matte Black). Our print partners offset printing is CYMK. Other colour formats RGB, Adobe’s sRGB and Pantone colours will be remapped as accurately as possible but there may be small amounts of colour/tone shifting. Any artwork uploaded to our design studio will be remapped to CYMK.


If this is a concern, please contact us directly. We will work with you to come to a suitable solution.

300 dpi (dots per inch) is the resolution of the PDF file. This is classed as 'letter quality' where the dots are so fine that the human eye cannot see the individual dots on the page. Our printing systems works at minimum resolution of 600 dpi (actually 1200x1200 dpi), to give a greater range colour gradients and a smoother edges on images.

Copy Expresses uses different methods  depending on the requirements of the job

For high speed / fast production work we use our toner based (dry powder) CMYK printers. These allow for short run fast turnaround produciton with the added benifit that we can use advance extra features such as variable data printing (mail merge) as part of the same printing process.

For large/wide format low volume printing, such as posters, plans and banners we use 6 colour inkjet wide forrmat printers. These have a great colour production and since the paper is fed off rolls we can print very large sheets. They are the slowest and have the higest cost per A4 printed.

Larger volumes and speicality products (like perfect bound books) are offset printed (wet ink) or high volume inkjet printing with a print partner. By doing this we can get you a much better cost per unit but it does come with longer production times and less customisation options.

In an effort to get you the best value for your money, we have a print partnership with a high volume offset printer to handle the larger volume orders. We have priced the work on their normal production times, which are longer than ours but are the most cost effective. If we were to have them print in the same time frame as we do in house, it can double or even triple the cost and only save one or two days at most. We also calculate the printing time to allow for any production issues they may have as a safety precaution. More often than not, you will receive your printing sooner than listed production and shipping times.

If you are working to a shorter time frame, then contact us directly and we can work with you to come up with the best solution to fit your needs.

Pricing & Payments

No, the price list indicates basic prices of products against the speculative quantities. The prices are calculated with regard to the most basic paper/card types, sizes and single side printing. As you know, the final printing cost depends on many parameters: paper/card weights or thickness (GSM), coated or uncoated finish, single or double side printing, and quantity. The final price is the price applied at the check out after all cost and any discounts have been applied

Specials and coupons also change the listed prices. Specials will display the normal price in red with a line through it next to the current promotional price. This always applies to the product production price and excludes any other costs, like design or shipping. Coupons can only be applied to the price when you reach the order confirm screen. There is a panel to the left of the screen for you to enter in the coupon code. This will then apply a discount to the related product’s production price. General information about specials and coupons can be found here and specifics promotions and coupon details are found in the Promotional Information section

Shipping charges covered in more detail in the Shipping section of this FAQ.

The method used to calculate the price and production time of what we print is different for the different types of products we sell. That means the method we use to price flyers is different to plans, different to sticky notepads, different to presentation folders, etc. This is why you can see quite small price jumps from one quantity to another on some products as we have moved from one production method to another which effects both the price and production time. Here are the factors that will effect the price

  • Size of the item - smaller is cheaper to print
  • Printing on one side or both sides - a second side means more printing 
  • Type of paper or card it is being printed on - the heavier or fancier the paper or card is, more expensive it is
  • The total number of them being printed - The more you do the cheaper it gets per unit
  • The type of printing technology being used - offset is best for big orders, toner is better for small orders
  • Does it require labour beyond trimming - folding/creasing and lamination adds both cost and time to a job
  • How soon will it be ready - toner is fast to setup and print, offset is slower to setup

This is not a complete list of factors but rest assured that we aim to have the best value and production time for everything offered on this site

We currently support four payment methods through our online print service: credit card, internet banking, pay in store, and invoice on account (approved customers).

Credit Card payment through the Copy Express website

  • Credit cards currently accepted are Visa, Master Card, & American Express. Other credit cards maybe be supported by our processor but we can not guarentee it. Processing is handled in system but is managed by an international secure processor. Payments will list Copy Express as the Payee. 
  • For orders over $87+GST we reserve the right to keep the order on hold till the payment has been cleared by our processor. Once cleared we will begin production and email you with an updated eta for work completion. This clearing may take 1-2 buiness days due to limitations imposed by banks and is beyond our control.

Internet Banking

  • Work to be paid by internet banking will be kept pending until payment is made.
  • We will send you an invoice will full instructions on how to make payment next business day. Please make sure you have filled in all contact details when you set up your user details on our system or this will delay the processing.
  • Once we have received proof of payment (a screen grab of the competed bank transfer will do just fine) we will begin production and you will be emailed by the online system with an updated eta for work completion.

Pay in Store 

  • The order can be completed by putting a code in the transaction window which will allow you to save the order.
  • Orders are automatically put on hold till we have recived payment instore. Store hours can be found on our Contact Us page. Once payment is made a revised eta is applied to the order and the production of the order begins.
  • Payments by this method are cash, physcial card, or via smart phone or wearable using Paywave. (We can not guarrentee that your smart device will work in our system as not all devices work with our reader)
  • NZ debit, NZ prepaid, NZ credit cards, American Express, or UnionPay cards. Our terminal may support payments from other cards from overseas banks / services but we reserve the right to add a processing fee for the higher processing charges. If you want to pay over the phone, please use the credit card options through our website instead as its the same process but will not add a processing fee.
  • We do support Paywave, but debit cards must insert or swipe their card as a normal EFTPOS transaction.
  • We do support payment smart phones / devices using NZ accounts and is treated like a Paywave payment. Other eletronic wallet services may not work on our termal and we reserve the right to add a processing fee to cover the higher charges. 
  • Not being able to pay on collection of the goods will either result in a invoice for an internet banking payment or the goods being held till payment is made.

Invoice on Account (Approved Customers)

  • Invoice on Account payment is only available to customers credit acount with us. This process is independent of online print services and must be completed before you are able to make payments using this method.
  • Accounts are limited to 5 buiness days or 20th of the month payment cycles. Each option has different maximum credit limits and credit check requirements.
  • Internet Banking is the prefered method of payment, other payment options may receive a payment processing charge.
  • If you have several outstanding invoices on your account, we reserve the right put all new work on pending until payment is made on the existing invoices.
  • All payments are process to clear the oldest invoices first.
  • You can still place orders and pay by the other options with your account however the work is placed on pending till the oustanding invoices are cleared.
  • Placing a order by this option when not an approved credit customer will result in the order being treated as an Internet Banking order instead.
  • Contact us if you want to learn more about this payment option.

See our Terms and Conditions to see our full list of conditions of payment.

All designer charges are based on a calculation on how long it takes the designer to create the average example of that type of product. This is only an estimate as each job is unique, the final charges may be higher than given on the product pages. We will contact you directly to discuss your job in more detail before work begins should we consider that the job will require more time than what is allowed for the design charge. If you have prepaid for the work, then any additional design charges will be billed to you and will require payment before we release the work. If you are unsure, simply save the order in your account and contact us directly, we will be more than happy to discuss the situation with you.

We try to make all charges as transparent as possible so we will list the per unit or per lot charges on the product page. There are costs to start production of all printing which must be covered. For there products where we allow you to order any number of units you like instead of fixed quantities, this set up cost must be accounted for. Orders under a given minimum value we round it up to cover those cost. The minimum value is different for different types of job based on how much work is involved to do them.

Specials are promotions created by us to promote a product or service. The special will apply a discount on the costs of a product or service on the product pages. These are available to all customers using our services and are automatically applied when you meet the required conditions. Specials will show the normal price in red with a line through it next to the discounted price. Just complete the order as normal and the checkout will show the adjusted prices.

Coupons are promotional discounts that can only be used by entering a special code at the checkout stage. Enter the coupon code in that section and you will see the price adjusted on the screen showing how much you are saving.

Package Deals are where you get a price reduction for buying several matching products together. A typical example would a business starter package of letterhead stationery, printed envelopes, and business cards together which will give you a discount to the total price. Our system will alert you of any package deals that could add when you place an order for a product found in those packages

There will always be limits for any promotional special/coupon/packages. Limits may include

  • Available between two calendar dates
  • Limited to one product or product range
  • Minimum order quantity or fixed order quantity
  • Minimum spending value
  • Single use per customer, single use per order but reusable over multiple orders, applied to multiple items per order

Please check the Promotional Information page for the terms and conditions for current Specials, Coupons and Package Deals.

The '(20)' after your company name is simply a internal marker we use for our acounting systems to date your invoices for the 20th of the month. If you apply for and recive a 20th of the month terms then it will be added to your invoicing name. Should you see the (20) removed from the invoice name, this means you have either been shifted to a 5 business day invoice cycle or you've not been correctly invoiced. If it's the second case let us know so we can correct the mistake.

Introduction
Depending on your account you might have access to two different types of invoices, ones generated directly from our online print system or from our accounts department. Which one you can use for your accounts depend on the payment method you use. Please look at our FAQ section 'What payment methods are avaible'  for more information on the payment methods.

Credit Card
Once you have completed payment you will be able to download a pdf invoice complete with GST number from the Orders entry on the My Account button. 

Point of Sale
This order is left in pending (uncompleted) till you have made payment in store. Once we have processed it we will update the order to accepted and you can download pdf invoice complete with GST number from the Orders entry on the My Account button. 

Internet Banking
This order is left in pending (uncompleted) till you have made payment in via your bank. We will generate an invoice through our accounts systems which you receive as a separate email invoice complete with instructions on how to make payment. When we receive payment from you the order is change to processing. For accounting purposes you should use the link in the email we sent you to download the completed invoice from our accounting system at any time. 

Invoice on Account (Approved Customers)
The invoice downloadable from the website list the normal retail price for any items ordered through it. It does not reflect any specialist discounts you may receive from us (ie Fuel Accountants client discounts). The invoice emailed directly to you from our accounts system is the correct invoice amount. You must use this for your own accounts and you can use the link in the email we sent you to download the completed invoice from our accounting system at any time. 

 

Understanding a Invoice from the Copy Express accounting system

When you receive an invoice from Copy Express accounting system it follows business standard formatting:

The top section will contain: your contact details and our contact details, Invoice number, date it was issued, our GST number. Please make sure that you have filled in all information required by system when setting up your online account as we rely on that to make sure you are billed correctly.

The middle section will list a description of each item ordered and related charges. Each item item listed will have the invoice number from that job followed by the deatails of the item. All prices listed exclude GST and are subtotalled with any discounts applied below before the tax is calculated. You may see two additional entries in this section – the account management fee and a prompt payment discount. All prices quoted assume prompt payment and have a 10% discount automatically applied. If you fail to pay the account by the due date, this prompt payment discount and any other discounts will be removed, and full price will be charged being the amount added by the account management fee. You will have to pay that on top of the total price listed. Additional charge may also be applied for outstanding invoices. See our Terms and Conditions page for more information.

You could instead have an entry marked Prepay. Incases where we have to outsource work to a production partner we require prepayment before we can release the job for production. The amount charge may be the full amount of the work, or a deposit to cover start up costs. If only a deposit is requested then you will be required to pay the remainder in full before you are able to receive the finished order.

The final due amount including GST is in bold at the bottom, with the date payment is due by. We include notes on how to make payment including our bank account number for deposits. While we will accept payment instore for outstanding invoices, processing fees may be applied to cover the additional costs of reciving your payment.

 

Making payment for Internet Banking & Invoice on Account orders not using internet banking

If you change your mind and wish to use other methods for the above two types of payments the following points apply.

  • Internet Banking is a pre-payment option and as such the work is on hold till payment is made. Due the costs of genertating the invoice for payment, a payment processing charge may apply if you want to change payment type. 
  • Invoice on Account is a post-payment with the understanding that payment is made by internet banking. Due the costs of genertating the invoice, a payment processing charge may apply if you want to change payment type.

Shipping

Our primary shipping method is by courier. When we complete an order we will send you a confirmation email that includes the shipping company and the shipment tracking number/s. The courier company will also send you an email with a hyperlink to your delivery allowing to track the order at all times. If you are requesting shipping please make sure you fill in all delivery details accurately, including any directions in how to reach the address should it not be immediately obvious from the public road. All goods must be delivered to a physical address. Post Boxes, Post Bag, or Mail Centres are not acceptable delivery addresses.

If the delivery address is incomplete or confusing, the courier company will hold on to the package until they recive new delivery instructions. You will have to contact them directly with the instructions using the supplied tracking code to identify the delivery and arrange delivery on the next delivery cycle.

Prices listed for shipping are for business, residential, and non urban delivery rates. If you have a selected the wrong delivery type, we will put the work on hold and invoice/send a payment request for the additional costs or arrange a credit if there is an overpayment. The work will not be released until payment is made so please ensure you chose the right option when placing your order. If you are not sure, check the Post Haste Address Checker. (Opens up a new browser window)

Deliveries are made during the hours (9:00 am to 6:00 pm) Monday to Friday, excluding pubic holidays. We do have the option of a Saturday delivery (9:00 am to 1:00 pm) but this is an additional charge so please contact us directly if you want to make use of this service.

When the goods arrive at their desitenation the couriers will take the following action:

  • Business Addresses: they will drop off and should request someone to sign for the package or the delivery will not be made. If you want the courier to leave the package without signing you must include full instruction on where the package is to be left in the Special Instruction section of the checkout screen. Targeted delivery times are by 12 noon that day.
  • Residential Addresses: if there is no one to sign for the package, the courier may leave the package in a location near a door in a way that is hidden from the street. They will make a note of what they have done and may upload a photograph of the location to the tracking information. We recommend including instruction on where to leave the package should no one be home in the Special Instruction section of the checkout screen. Targeted delivery times are by 6pm that day
  • Non Urban Addresses: depending on the address being delivered too, they may not wait for a signiture. The courier may leave the package in a location near a door in a way that is hidden from the street. They will make a note of what they have done and may upload a photograph of the location to the tracking information. We recommend including instruction on where to leave the package should no one be home in the Special Instruction section of the checkout screen. Targeted delivery times are by 6pm that day

Once the package has left our store we no longer have responsiblity for the goods as it has been transfered to the couriers. Any issues relating to the condition of the goods when delivered, time taken to deliver, or errors in delivery are with the couriers. Please contact them directly in such matters. If you do have issues, please do contact us and we will help you in this matter the best we can, but we have no liablity for that aspect. Post Haste Couriers can be reached by www.posthaste.co.nz or phoning 0800 106 828. The tracking code on your invoice is the delivery information they require.

Delivery times are estimates only as we have no control of the process once it has left the store. Should weather effect travel, ie storms on the Cook Strait or traffic jams on a motorway, then deliveries will be delayed. If you have not received your goods by the estimated date, please check with the courier company network status page (opens link to their website) to see if there is any transport alerts that are effecting their services. If volumes are especially high then there will be delays in delivering your order. Please check the website first for general delivery updates and use the tracking functions to see the progress of your delivery before calling their customer service line. 

For the few items which have a delivery by New Zealand Post general mail service, we set the delivery time based on standard delivery times as quoted by them for all major urban centers. For smaller urban centers and rural addresses delivery many have an additional one to three days. We can not provide tracking information for items sent through the mail network and do not take any liablity for failour to deliver or damage to items during delivery.

There are three general shipping zones, Wellington Region, North Island, and South Island.

Wellington Region covers following areas Wellington, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Porirua, and Featherston. Communities like Paraparaumu, Martinborough, Carterton, Waikanae, and Masterton while in the greater Wellington Region are outside the local delivery zone for our courier and will be charged at the North Island rates.

North Island covers the rest of the island. South Island covers all of the South Island.

Each of the zone has a standard business, residental, and non urban areas price option. Which areas are defined what type varies from community to community. You can check it on the Post Haste Address Checker

All deliveries are for Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays.


  • Wellington  - covering Wellington, Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt, Porirua, and Featherston
    • Business addresses - Next business day between 9am and midday
    • Residential address - Next business day between 9am and 6pm
    • Rural addresses - 1-3 business days between 9am and 6pm
  • North Island - outside of Wellington
    • Business addresses - Next business day between 9am and midday
    • Residential address - Next business day between 9am and 6pm
    • Rural addresses - 2-3 business days between 9am and 6pm
  • South Island
    • Business addresses - 2 business days between 9am and midday
    • Residential address - 2 business days between 9am and 6pm
    • Rural addresses - 3-5 business days between 9am and 6pm

All deliveries have an email sent to you with a tracking link to our courier service’s website so you can track the delivery of your order.


Saturday delivery is available, with an additional surcharge, contact us directly if you require that service.

Overnight delivery for South Island businesses and residential addresses is available. Please contact us directly for a custom quote.


Yes you can collect from our offices during normal business hours as one of our shipping options. Just drop in and give us your details or order number and we will hand it over. You will be contacted by email as soon as the order is ready to collect (or you can choose to be contacted by phone if you prefer). This is the best choice if you require work done on a tight deadline. We do not charge for collection.

If you need an order to be delivered by a guaranteed date, our recommendation is to contact us directly by phone to discuss options. Depending on the order and time frame there are several options for delivery we can offer. This will allow us both to adjust our production schedule and confirm if there are any delays in delivery with our delivery companies. Please be aware that while we can build in leeway for delivery delays in the production process, once the order has left our offices we have no control over it and are not liable should the order miss the expected delivery date.

Shipping is priced on the following factors

  • Is the address in the: Wellington Region / North Island / South Island
  • Is the address: business / residential / non urban (rual)
  • The total weight weight being shipped rounded up to the nearest 5kgs to a maximum of 25kgs per shipping box

Our couriers define types of addresses as:

  • Business - high density locations, typically Central Business Districts or industrial areas or larger suburban shopping areas. Some residential locations, such as apartment complexes or mixed use buildings might also qualify under this classification
  • Residential -  medium density locations, most residential suburbs are classed as this. Any businesses that are surrounded residential areas fall under this category.
  • Non Urban - low density locations, generall outside the town/city limits. This may also include areas within city limits but have very few addresses per kilometer of road. This rate is directly effected by the distance traved by the courier and the default price list is a baseline charge. Depending on the address they charge more and we will send you a payment request to make up the difference. Items will not be shipped to it has been paid.

This can vary from area to area so we recommend that you check your address with the Post Haste Address Checker to see what your address classes as. (This link will open up a new browser window)

We calculate the delivery date by the last product to be finished so we can pack in as few boxes and minimise the costs to you. If you want the items to be shipped as completed or to be delivered to several addresses put these instructions in the ‘Special Instructions’ section of the checkout screen and choose internet banking as your payment method. If you want to pay by credit card still select internet banking, and add a note in the special instructions. We will recalculate the price based on those instructions and update you accordingly, sending you a payment request if you want to pay by credit card.

The delivery dates are calculated for the following situations

  • If the product is being collected from the store, then the date calculates it as being ready for collection from 9am that business day.
  • If the product is being shipped by courier then it is calculated to be delivered to your shipping address between the hours of 9am to 6pm that business day.

Because this is an estimate, your printing may be ready before this date and time, and we will notify you as soon as it is ready for collection or a courier has been booked to collect it. While we will do our best to get your work delivered to you on that date, we will do our best to notify you should there be any reasons for a delay.

Delivery times with shipping is calculated based on our courier's normal delivery estimates. We have no control over any delays to their deliveries. Because delivery times can change frequently we are unable to adjust our delivery times estimates on our website.

If the goods have been shipped out on time but have not reached you by the ETA, then this is a matter is between you and the courier company. We provide both contact information for the delivery company and the package tracking number to help you with this.

As we ship almost all products by courier all items are charged out based on the volume and weight of the item. As printing is quite dense (a pack of 500 sheets of a4 of copy paper weighs 2.5kg but only has a volume of 0.019m3) generally we will hit the weight limits long before we hit the volume limits. As a rough rule of guide anything not be shipped locally will be priced in multiples of 5kgs up to a maximum of 25kgs for a single package. Local shipping is one flat price up to the 25kg limit per package. 

For some products we offer a flat rate for shipping. This is for a total orders that are smaller and lighter than than a ream of copy paper. 

Orders where the combined weight is greater than 25kg or can not be safely packed in to a single box we will split the order over the minimum shipping cartons. There will be additional charges for each extra package. We will contact you before shipping to confirm the revised shipping charges and any payment required.

This is an interal referance to ensure you are correctly charged for your shipping.

  • [B] is for the high density delivery zones such as city centers
  • [R] is for the medium density delivery zones such as resedental subburbs
  • [NU] is for low density delivery zones such as Rural Deliverys

As each account can have several delivery addresses we uses these codes to idenify the cost structure for delivery zone area. We explain it in more detailhere

If you can not be there when the package is being delivered please include this in the 'Special Instructions' with clear details of where the goods are to be left. If you don't the courier will take one of the two following actions. They may leave a 'unable to deliver' note in your postbox  with information on how to organise redelivery.  The the courier may also just leave it in a location not visable from the street and make note of it in their delivery delivery records which you can access through the tracking email link you have been sent.

If you want to have all your deliverys done unattended, sign up for Post Hastes My Dropzone service which records a designated drop off point with a scannable barcode for automatic delivery notification to you by the courier. You can find out more at www.posthaste.co.nz/mydropzone 
(This will open up a new browser window)

Other Common Questions

Copy Express operates the following hours

  • Monday: 9am - 5pm
  • Tuesday: 10am - 5pm
  • Wednesday: 9am - 5pm
  • Thursday: 9am - 5pm
  • Friday: 9am - 5pm
  • Saturday: Closed
  • Sunday: Closed

Exceptions to these hours are the following

  • All public holidays: Closed
  • Week of Christmas and New Year: Closed
  • Second and third full week of January: Monday - Friday 9am-1pm (summer hours)

You can place an order at any time day or night. The estimated completion date given by our online systems calculates the time based on these hours and assumes the work being available for collection or delivered from 9am the day listed. If the order is placed before 10am during normal store hours then that day is part of the production time. After 10am the work delivery date is calculated from the next business day.