Online print sales

[DougAxford]

Mike, since the post started a while back, we've completed our present on-line sales gallery for our preschool season which is in full swing right now.

We opted for a slideshow gallery from Show-It Web followed by a sales gallery from Breeze Browser. One seamlessly flows into another in the show. The Breeze section integrates with Paypal and customers order with Visa/Mastercard or Paypal right on the gallery. All transactions are in local currency and we get the email confirmation within seconds. Money is transferred to our own bank whenever we request it within 3 days. Paypal charges so far have been 3.9% total.

ShowIt Web is $99 to $199, but we use it already for our web site, so no extra charge
Breeze Browser Pro is $69., but we had it already, so free
Paypal is 3.9% vs our regular CC charge of 2.75
I can't imagine doing things any cheaper.

Next season, we'll probably make some changes and add eos templates (on Breeze site) to automate things a bit more for us.

We have a countdown clock on the gallery and customers have 1 week to order. We email each customer with their own unique gallery link and it is very secure. Pretty well impossible to hack into unless you really know your stuff. No passwords needed. All images are heavily watermarked.

We did a survey of the first 50 customers and we had all positive responses. Sales from our web gallery have been tremendously worth while. School averages are from 50 to 100% higher than our old system of proofs or pre-paid.

The only negatives is that we offer so many choices for sales, our web order section is awkward which we want to change with eos and some customers think that they have to register with Paypal, even though they don't. But the Paypal site encourages customers to sign-up and if they read things more carefully, that's clearly stated on Paypal.

We have not yet offered this for weddings, portraits or sports. I think weddings will be next and we'll see how it goes. Probably never for family portraits. Our current policy is not to put up family portrait gallery until a minimum print order of $500. has been placed, or a deposit is made. I have NOT been happy with on-line portrait sales at all. People just look (& steal) and don't buy.

Doug

[ChrisPerry]

Originally Posted by Mike Keller

Bump for more input on this topic.

Chris, on InstaPrints, have you had any resistance o the web site requesting email addresses to view an event, or is that something you can turn off? I know I'd use a bogus email address the first time I checked it out!

Some do use bad emails, but not many. I use marathon for my email program and find 10-15% of emails go bad every month anyway. I know quite a few that use a hotmail or yahoo account and rotate them every couple of months for this very reason. IMO, just get a spam filter and don't worry about spam! I've got 7 addresses and a couple of 6 or 7 years old, if not older and I get maybe a spam a week total.

[DougAxford]

We get 5% bad email addresses because people write so darn poorly and incorrectly. When it bounces, we wait until they call us in a big huff asking where there email is. Duh

[Steve Brenner]

Mike,
I have used Printroom.com for a couple of years. The site:
1. Allows for html and flash intro screens,
2. Has a very effective program (MAC or PC) to upload thumbnails,
3. Provides for visa/mastercard payments (for a 3% fee),
4. Charges a modest annual sum to store image thumbnails,
5. Informs you of any sales and automatically requests you to upload full files for fulfillment (or you can send in a DVD with all files which allows product production without any action on your part),
6. Produces the print or item at a low cost and sends them to clients for you,
7. Allows you to set the prices you want to charge per item (you also pay 13% of these prices),
8. Has provision for password protected galleries for private clients,
9. Provides a personal account rep to help guide you to effective use of the site,
10. Holds conference call training sessions for new users each week,
11. Stands by you as a professional by redoing items for unhappy clients (only have had one of these),
12. Generates summaries of all orders and monthly sales reports.

I guess you can tell I have been happy with their services. Go to Studio Home Page and check out their approach. Good luck.

[captionsoflife]

I personally use www.dotphotpro.com

You can see an example of it by looking at my site hosted through them www.captionsoflife.dotphoto.com (The reason I really like it is you can set it up like I did where it shows your website first, then adds dotphoto to it.. makes it looks more like You)

I really like using them because you can set your own prices and decide what you want to include for others to be able to purchase. I'm talking anything from your wallet prints to mugs and calendars. You don't have to keep track of your inventory because you upload your images, create your price lists, password protect the albums you want limited acces too (for weddings, portraits, etc) and all dotphotopro charges you - is what you would have paid for the print had you bought it yourself.. the rest of the money you get in your designated checking account about a month later.

I hope that helps... haven't found anything I dislike about them yet. Stick away from Photomax - its more of a mlm then anything (at least when I checked them out two years ago they were)

Take care!