Zenfolio.com Internet site???

[Ron Metz]

Is anyone using or have used Zenfolio.com for their online photo hosting? If so, what has been your experience? They are now affiliated with Mpix and I have had positive experiences with them. Thanks.

Ron

[Designs by Gregus]

Originally Posted by Ron Metz

Is anyone using or have used Zenfolio.com for their online photo hosting? If so, what has been your experience? They are now affiliated with Mpix and I have had positive experiences with them. Thanks.

Ron

I have my pictures on there but have not tried to sell any yet. It might be a good place to sell pictures for you. Sorry I can't tell you more about it.

[Ken Little]

I just signed up. I have had my pictures on Pictage, as my order fulfillment agent. They do great work on the prints. However, at $50 per month with limits of 1,000 prints per month, it was probably more than I needed to be spending. Pictage does try to market for you by barraging all the people who sign into your site with emails and marketing specials on the galleries they logged into. They occasionally offer two print for one specials. Especially around the holidays.

So, they do try to keep you out in front of your customers, doing the marketing for you. However, I also could never seem to figure out their statements, not knowing if I was being charged for something I wasn't supposed to. Their statements are rather cryptic.

So, I have rambled on about who I am currently with, so I can discuss why I am in the mood for a change. My main concerns are:

1) The quality of the print. If I go to the trouble of producing a quality product, I want it to be delivered to the consumer in the same spirit it was created. Pictage, a wedding photography site, did an excellent job as a lab. I was scared to go elsewhere. However, I had used Mpix in the past and wished they were affiliated with an order fulfillment site. I emailed them and they directed me to Zenfolio. Eureka! I think Mpix, associated with Zenfolio would be a comparable lab and produce equal print quality. Others may have different opinions.

2) The cost and ability to make a profit. Mpix produces quality for reasonable prices as a lab. And Zenfolio seems not to take too much. However, when setting up my catalog prices, I had full control in setting my prices. In doing so, I compared the cost against Pictage and the costs appeared cheaper on Mpix. However, I have just joined and don't have experience with them as they are a young site, but very responsive to users and very customer service oriented and I can't verify through actual sales that this is true.

3) Web Site Presentation and Operation - Are my pictures presented well and protected from theft? Do they have a number of products and a good shopping experience? Pictage had a professional looking site, with a good shopping cart. However, they are very much geared towards wedding photographers. They don't offer a lot of products like Zenfolio does. I think the shopping cart experience is probably about equal, except that Zenfolio offers tons more products. Both offer download protection, disabling the right-click "Save Picture As" option. However, Pictage never responded in the forums as to my question regarding the ability to upsize or make more prominent "Watermarks." I shoot prep sports and my daughter tells me my pictures are all over the internet....especially Facebook. It seems that the kids do an Alt-Print-Screen and then cut out the watermark, which resides in the lower part of the picture and is not very prominent. So, I think I am suffering sales due to lack of protection. Zenfolio allows one to produce their own watermark and upload it. So, I am going to create a couple of different watermarks, depending on the intended audience. If Prep sports, it will be more prominent. If landscape, maybe less so. I think one has to analyze the market in which they market to determine the level of potential theft. Once analyzed they can determine the prominence of the watermark. So, Zenfolio wins here in allowing you to upload watermarks and use for different galleries. And Zenfolio offers larger picture views than Pictage. This is only good if you allow the photog the ability to use the appropriate watermark.

4) I know there is a lot of other sites that offer similar experiences, but I am not a full time photog and like to shoot, edit and upload. Zenfolio, appeared to have relatively easy site set up and lower costs, and a great lab attached to it, all for the max price of $100/year. That may be too much for full time photogs who have enough time to do a lot more work themselves, but for my situation it is optimal.

5) One thing I hate that may throw both Pictage and Zenfolio out the window, is that the search engines don't easily find them. So, if you like stock photography and love to have the search engines locate your pictures easily and have buyers using the search engines to locate your pictures, I know that both Pictage and Zenfolio aren't there yet. It is OK when you are able to direct people to your site. But don't expect people to flock to your site in droves or find your site through meta data search engine queries. But for someone like me shooting prep sports, where the parents and students buy, and there are links from the high school site, then my targeted audience is already fully aware of the location of the pictures I am marketing.

Sorry for the long response! I'm tired and just rambling, but hopefully, it will be helpful to someone.

[Ron Metz]

Thanks Ken. This is VERY informative for me. I, like you, choose to not get involved in the image printing etc. and I am also in the process of looking at Zenfolio. Glad to hear that your experience has been positive. I really like your internet site set up.

Ron

[Ken Little]

Thanks for the response Ron. I am busy uploading pictures to my new Zenfolio site located at: Ken Little Photography. I will stil keep my main site located at: Links because it presents me more flexibility. For instance, as I transition from Pictage to Zenfolio, my main site (kenlittlephoto site) has links to both Pictage and Zenfolio. As I gradually move content to Zenfolio and my galleries at Pictage expire, I have the option of redirecting traffic to just Zenfolio. Since some of the high school's athletic sites have links on their website to the "kenlittlephoto" site, it doesn't disrupt traffic. So, in conclusion, if you already have a domain, you can use it to direct web traffic where you want it and you can make it more personal with messages for your targeted audience.

Also, some of my earlier comments mentioned that the search engines didn't pick up the sites too well. By having links that direct more traffic to your site might increase the Zenfolio site exposure, possibly increasing the probability it will be picked up by a search engine. My primary audience is the parents of the athletes and the athletes themselves, so increased web traffic is not a top list priority for the market I'm trying to reach. However, if you shoot stock for stock photography sales, this would be a concern. You want your work easily found and as much traffic as possible.

Lastly, in the Zenfolio forums, there have been some complaints on the shipping costs, saying that for small orders, it is not proportional to the sales price (i.e. a $6 picture with $5 shipping). It depends on the products you sell and to what markets. For higher priced products, this might not make a difference, but to the photographer selling orders of one or two small prints to high school parents, this could be a deal breaker. So, look through the forums. Many Zenfolio members are hoping Mpix, which usually charges lower shipping costs for their lab orders will consider lowering their shipping through Zenfolio. I would monitor this closely before making any decisions. As I mentioned, it depends on your target audience and the product pricing.

If you find that Zenfolio fits your business model, and decide to pull the trigger, then please use my referral code of D3D-9MP-5JM. But more than anything, shop around for what best fits your business model, cost and time, as one referral should not be relied upon until you do the necessary research on what works best for you. I do not work for Zenfolio, but am a banker by day with a passion for shooting sports pictures to cover the cost of my equipment, while I get more experience. You never know in the banking business the remaining length of your career.

I would be interested in hearing from those who use Smugmug or other sites. I know you are out there. I think everyone needs to explore all alternatives before making any decisions. Of course, my slant is from the "shoot, edit and upload" perspective. But there are those who want lower costs and more control and have the time to use their own local lab and do some of the work themselves. It would be helpful to know how these compare to some of the characteristics of Zenfolio. I know it's hard to compare, as without knowing the cost of using each and what business model is being used, it may be an apples-to-oranges comparison. But, it still may be useful to other s in this forum.

[Ron Metz]

Ken,

Thanks again for sharing information. I really like your web site - very user friendly and GREAT shots. I agree with the comment about Zenfolio's shipping costs. I also think that MPIX shipping is a bit high. I juat paid $5.95 to have four prints ($3.96) shipped. I am also looking at having my main web site with Pbase.

Ron