www.BUSINESSCARDS.COM: FOR THAT CRUCIAL FIRST IMPRESSION

Tired of handing out the same boring yet overpriced black on white business cards that she sourced from a local stationer, my friend Annabelle, who operates a rapidly growing dry fruits business out of Worcester, Massachusetts, went online to look for business card options. "The first site I came to was www.businesscards.com and I sort of didn't need to look much further," she says.

As a small entrepreneur dealing in aromatherapy products, I constantly meet people and have to hand out business cards, and in the three years that I have been in business one important lesson I have learnt is that your business card (and your official stationery in general) makes a very strong impression on prospective customers, whether positive or negative. In fact, a sophisticated, stylish business card can pretty much decide whether you land a particular order or not.

Considering their importance, business cards often form a curiously neglected part of a person's life. The general idea seems to be that business cards exist merely to provide a person's official contact details and an idea of what s/he does for a living. And those who realize the need to make an impression with their business cards will often go overboard with graphics and colors, so their cards become jokes, really.

Enter Businesscards.com - which describes itself as "the web's one-stop shop". The website's name can be a little misleading, because Businesscards.com manufactures envelopes and letterheads as well as business cards.

Broadly speaking, Businesscards.com has two types of business cards: the 1-2 Color business cards and the Full Color business cards. The 1-2 color business cards use 10 standard ink colors, and you can choose your preferred layout from a large (and uniformly tasteful) selection. The full color business cards have lamination on both sides, which make them durable, tear- and water-resistant. You can also choose between satin and matte finish. Prices start at $21.99 for 250 cards for the 1-2 color cards and from $85.00 for 500 cards for the full color cards. And that really worked for me, because I was paying my offline supplier nearly $100.00 for 500 full color cards. Robbery!

Businesscards.com also has special offers every now and then. Currently, for instance, you can get $15.00 off 4/1 printing for 500 cards, that's full color on the front and black text only on the reverse at no additional cost. Plus, you can work on your letterhead and envelope thanks to some cool interactive tools on the site. In fact, www.businesscards.com is a great advertisement for the company, because the site makes a very favorable first impression thanks to the understated elegance of its layout, as well as the ease of navigation and the quick-loading pages.

Shipping is pretty quick too, and there are four categories here: Ground (delivery within 5-10 business days), Priority (delivery within 3-5 business days), Next Day (delivery next day), and International (delivery within 8-10 business days, depending on country). Businesscards.com is based in San Jose and I work out of Boston, and I was in no particular rush, so I chose Ground delivery, and no complaints there.

All in all, I would thoroughly recommend Businesscards.com for its professional approach and high-quality products.