Bill H.
I ordered a life-size cardboard cutout…
I ordered a life-size cardboard cutout from Build-A-Head in North Carolina and apparently made the rookie mistake of assuming that when you order a life-size cutout, it will arrive looking something like a life-size cutout. Instead, this thing showed up folded in half like somebody was trying to smuggle a six-foot human being through airport security. And I paid $30 for shipping. There was absolutely no warning that the finished product would be bent, folded in half and shipped this way. If I had known I was paying $30 to have a large photographic image folded into the approximate dimensions of a pizza box, I would have thought twice. To be fair, the actual printing looks nice. Unfortunately, it is printed on an extremely fragile piece of foam board that feels about as well suited for outdoor use as a paper napkin. The included easel is equally impressive in the sense that it appears to have been engineered to support absolutely nothing heavier than a cocktail menu. Put the cutout on the easel and you immediately begin wondering whether you're witnessing a product display or the final moments of a structural engineering experiment. And then there is customer support. Trying to get a straightforward answer from Build-A-Head turned into an exercise in patience, persistence and questioning my own life choices. The customer service was, in my experience, absolutely horrible. What should have been a simple conversation about a damaged and poorly packaged product became a frustrating exercise in trying to get someone to actually take responsibility for what had been shipped. One other piece of advice: don't put much faith in the glowing reviews displayed on the Build-A-Head website. Those are the reviews they've chosen to put on their own website. The irony here is that the printing itself is actually pretty good. There is clearly some talent somewhere in the building. Unfortunately, the product surrounding that printing feels like an afterthought, the shipping method is ridiculous, the stand is inadequate, and the customer service experience is the part you remember most. If you need a professional-quality life-size cutout, I would look elsewhere. Spectra Industries is a much better solution. Their products are substantially better suited to what I was actually looking for, and after this experience, I wish I had gone with them in the first place. Build-A-Head managed to take a fairly simple concept — print a person at life size and put them on a stand — and turn it into a small traveling circus involving folded foam board, questionable engineering, $30 shipping and customer service that seems to have disappeared into the wilderness.