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E-Commerce Selling Prints Site

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Just got a interesting call about doing some spec. shooting and than loading them up on a web site of my choice than give out the info to all the prospective buyers of prints. Not a big fan of spec. work since many times these things do not pan out financially but this one sounds profitable:D

So just thinking off the top of my head I thought of Zenfilio. Now i will fully admit I want to load them up and not deal with anything with sending them out and all that stuff. Customer picks what the want get's there prints i get my money. So really a turnkey solution and than I am thinking also on another note doing the same thing for other work.

So what sites might folks be using and what are some maybe to avoid. I don't mind paying a percentage out for all the service being done either plus this could lead to a lot of other work and right now work is a good thing. LOL
 

Dale Allyn

New member
I tested Printroom (at their invitation) a while back (quite a while now) and found them to be, um, "not to my liking". (See how I cleaned that up?) ;)

They seemed OK at first in terms of setup and the like, comp'd me a pro account, and I mentioned them to a couple of friends who also looked them. We then got spammed to death from them, and the prints were horrible IMO. I set up a test for some note cards and received some with the fold through the middle of the photo! etc. (The boxes with images folded in half even had an insert that said "Inspected by X".) QC was non-existent in my limited experience with them. Maybe they'd be OK for grade school soccer pics for parents or something, but not what I wanted.

Just a heads-up (and one man's opinion) to my friends here. :)
 

jeffwros

New member
I've been with Pictage for almost 4 years and am very happy with 'em. I post all of my events with them and it helps me to stay on track with order fulfillment (they take care of it for me).

If this spec job is a one-time deal and you don't plan to do this sort of thing on a regular basis then, perhaps, something like Photo Shelter, Zen Folio, Miller's or similar resource is the way to go. I admit that I don't know the ins-and-outs of the others but I think that a few of these allow you to pay per event and may be a better fit for what you are doing.
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Hmmm checking them all out Photoshelter looks good but a little pricy but does offer a lot of functions.

Pictage no real info except get a free DVD for info. I will try that one also
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I've been with Pictage for almost 4 years and am very happy with 'em. I post all of my events with them and it helps me to stay on track with order fulfillment (they take care of it for me).

If this spec job is a one-time deal and you don't plan to do this sort of thing on a regular basis then, perhaps, something like Photo Shelter, Zen Folio, Miller's or similar resource is the way to go. I admit that I don't know the ins-and-outs of the others but I think that a few of these allow you to pay per event and may be a better fit for what you are doing.
May not be job specific and may want to incorporate my stock too
 
R

Ranger 9

Guest
I am not an expert at this, but think it might make sense to start by deciding what kind of finished deliverables you want to sell and then working backward from there. For example, if you think your images are going to sell to the fine art/decor market, you'd want a different set of services than if your target market were, say, trade-show displays etc. Then look at vendors who have what you need.

I know it's very mundane, but I'll point out that plain ol' SmugMug recently added a new lab with a broader range of services than they used to have, and they're also set up to support the sale of downloadable files. You do have a per-year fee, but their uptime is good and you get good reports on sales and profit.

The flip side of this approach is that while SmugMug and some of the similar services are fairly customizable in terms of look-and-feel, you still don't have the same level of control as with a custom solution. Particularly if you're going to do stock sales off the same platform, I'd think that the ability to maintain your "brand identity" would be a top priority!
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Been thinking the same thing , I may need two completely different types of packaging . The one is strictly for consumers market the other is much more specialized and needs to hit a different market. Never the two shall mix as they say. Great point
 

glenerrolrd

Workshop Member
Pictage is the standard for event/wedding photographers in the Atlanta area. My daughters have attended/participated in a number of weddings and Pictage keeps coming up. We looked at the service for Elizabeth s event work. Pictage has a well developed fulfillment process and takes the workload off the photgrapher. There quality is decent and appropriate . The only disadvantage of Pictage was the minimum costs involved....if you used it monthly it really worked but if less than that it was expensive.

My daughter went with Zenfolio which is linked to MPIX ..so you understand the price point ....this works fine for the event market ..where she gets a lot of very small orders.
 
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