[ QUOTE ]
...The web is so seductive! It sounds so easy! All I need to do is take my camera and shoot a bunch of really great pictures and I'll be in business. I'll go to one of these sites and upload everything and wait for the checks to roll in, minus 15% of course. I won't need to have any printing equipment. I won't need to have any viewing stations. I won't need to hassle with employees. My expenses will be minimal and my customers will love me.
My problem is that in my desire to please my customers I sometimes violate my own rules and I get screwed every time I do it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Norm, beyond the sarcasm I think you're right to an extent, but I also think it depends on your customer base and what the customer's expectations are. Your business model precludes using the web...they would be conflicting models. In the case of the customer not buying, if he knows he can only get images on the day they are shot, then in the future he may be more apt to buy if he knows you'll never post them online.
Some photographers I know who have online sales models do very well, myself included, but some do quite poorly. When I ask the poor-performing ones how they promote their work they just give puzzled looks. People struggle online for various reasons. However, I am one of "those" you love to hate because the online model works for what I shoot because my online sales are a supplemental income stream. Online print sales is not an applicable model to everyone or to every type of event, but for some things it has its place. After I collect my charge to show up and shoot (which includes my required profit), the online print sales are just supplemental profit. I could limit the length of time images remain online, but considering I can still get print sales from 1-year old events at no additional cost to me means I'll keep them up until sales stop.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I'm with you on web sales/rip-offs Norm. I don't shoot events, mostly T&I sports & schools and some weddings & portraits.
We've had a number of ocassions at a family anniversary where we'll take portraits. We try to show everything on a large LCD after a portrait session, but during a dinner party, it's just not convenient. Since many family members are from out of town, we've emailed B&W proofs to them rather than coming to the studio to see them like the local family does. We've almost NEVER rec'd an order from emailed family. Even with right-click disabled, all they want is to see/copy the image and if the quality stinks, so be it. Now our answer is $200. deposit toward your print order and we'll email the images. This policy is not negotiable.
I know of parents who have copied sports images off photogs web sites, printed them and given them out to the players on their team. No wonder these guys get no sales. It doesn't matter that they look like crap or have copyright all over them, people just don't care.
Next time you're in an office, have a look in a secretary's desk area. I almost always see photographs with a big PROOF written across them.
It's a different society now. Get your money NOW or it's spent at the other guy's store.
For T&I, we've stop giving team pictures to the coaches. We had far too many coming up to us saying, "I'll give my son my photo, we don't need to buy one". Not only that, but we know that some coaches would copy the photo and hand them out to anyone who hadn't bought from us. Now, all of the coach pictures are made with a certificate type border and huge print that says "Thanks for Coaching". If any parent gives that to their kid they're not only cheap SOBs, but *****s too! We had a call from one coach last week screaming at us because we hadn't printed one player on the team who had an NSF check. He figured we should be able to 'donate' the pictures, after all, he's just a kid!!
I am puzzled why you give out proof sheets. How about a huge 40" LCD in your trailer and show them on that - "buy now at $XX, or it'll be 50% more after the event. Besides don't you need a 40" LCD at home - do you ever get home?? How about a PS action that puts rust spots all over their car for the proofs? I think my brain needs a long rest, we've been going 45 days straight and another 20 to go before a day off. Is this 100 post thing retroactive?? This is like rebates, by the time I get around to it, the offer will have expired.
On a different note, I had parents in the studio yesterday who wanted me to make enlargements of their 22 year old son who died in a car crash. They had me in tears going over all the photos they had, some were mine. People don't cherish what they have in life, or the photos that we take until something as tragic as this happens. It does make us pause and remember what's important in life.
Doug
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Is there a way to charge a viewing fee that is directed at an individual computer? Say I chage a $5 or $10 viewing fee that lets the customer get beyond the thumbnails? maybe that fee is refundable if they order prints?
I am not using the correct nomeclature I am sure, but I know that if I post something on the bulletin board I host for Olympic Shooting (with guns not a camera) we can backtrack annoymous posters to a specific computer, even within a person's house. Surely there must be a way to peg that same specific ISP to a viewing charge, allowing that computer access to the fullsize online photos? yes, I am sure once they are there, they can lift the image and e-mail it to Aunt Sally still, but at least we get something from each participating family
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
PrintRoom.com has cards you can purchase, PhotoPasses. You could put the website address and password on your card and only give those out to customers who purchase them.
A thought? I have not tried that yet.
That would get you pre-payment for photos, that you would post.
No one buys any photoPasses you do not upload.
Ed
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
the problem I see with preprinted card with a password, is everybody passes it around, or posts on some bulletin board.
In my case, since I host the predominant bulletin board used by the sport of Olympic shooting, I could easily removed such posts... but it sure would make me look like the grinch.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I think that we are all struggling with a fine balance between protecting our sales and dealing with idiots. The question is how hard do we want to stop the idiots versus sending real customers away. I wonder how many people walk into car dealers every day, take a few test drives and leave without buying a car. What would happen if the local Ford dealer started charging $25 for a test drive, or let you try the F-150 free and then required a $25 fee to try the F-350? After all they have to cover the gas salesman (normally) has to take time off the floor. It’s part of their cost of doing business.
In our line of work we have to display our work if we’re going to sell it. Whether you’re selling on-site or on-line, people have to see what they are buying. Unlike my studio where someone is paying a sitting fee up front with the expectation of buying prints after the fact, most events have a different business model. We have little or no control over all of the other cameras at an event. At best the event promoter will control who can shoot from “prime” areas and even then some don’t care, or won’t restrict areas for us. Again it’s the mentality out there. We can either ‘boycott’ those events or deal with it and find a way to succeed without dwelling on all of the idiots that simply were born to keep us buying our prilosec. I’ve chosen to ignore the idiots.
Norm I feel you pain. I would have done the same thing for the guy, and have in the past. What else could you have done? Had you faxed a contact page we both know that the phone would be ringing with some complaint about the ‘fax quality’ and ‘I really can see the pictures to make a selection’. It’s b/s, you know it, we all know it, but what could you have done that MIGHT have made the sale? Assuming that you watermarked the crap out of the images there wasn’t much else you could do.
Put differently, my father-in-law is the produce manager for a major supermarket. Everyday the produce gets put out, and everyday dozens of idiots come in and squeeze this or pinch that or sample a grape. Next day pound after pound of bruised produce gets tossed and he’s 5 pound short on grapes. It’s the nature of his business. He can’t put up barriers between the customer and the product, even though it may save him $100,000 a year in tossed produce. It’s just built in to the cost we pay for an apple.
I do the same thing, I’ve tracked my sales for events and figured out what a particular future event should generate for ‘unit’ sales, then set the prices accordingly to make my money. What I have stopped doing is burning my *ss about all of the idiots that come as part of the package. We simply smile and stick to business. All I can do is to try to keep on step ahead of the idiots. If I’m going to an event where I expect that 3 viewing stations will get tied up with tire kickers I simply setup extra stations. What else can I do? Putting out a ‘viewing station cop’ won’t help, and takes away one person from helping my customers.
I know that I’ll never be able to stop someone from buying one memory mate and scanning 4 more copies. I know that if I put up the images from the little league tournament some of them are bound to show up on myspace, but if I don’t I also know that I can’t sell them to everyone who left right after the game. I know that the servers will melt for a few days after each event AND I know that the sales will limp in for the next 30 days, but that’s what they’re there to do, serve. In the end I guess that I too, expect people to buy, but understand when they don’t, and cater to those that do.
E.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Re: Yes, I really do expect you to buy things!!! 
Linear Mode
