Print Prices

[minatophase3]

I could use a little advice here. I have recently been asked to sell a few of my prints :D !

As I have never sold any prints before I am not too sure on what to charge. Here is what I am thinking.

5x7 - $15
8x10 - $30
11x14 - $50
16x20 - $75

I will have all of these printed at Shutterfly or another similar type of printing service. Do these prices seem OK? Personally, I am just excited that someone wants to put a print of mine on their wall.

Also, what about putting my name on the print, is that something that many of you do? It would be nice to have my name on the prints but feel that it would detract from the look of the print.

I appreciate your feedback.

Tim

[IanBMW]

I would say it depends how good your work is, But the prices sound good to me. Actually I think im going to steal them.

[minatophase3]

I would say it depends how good your work is, But the prices sound good to me. Actually I think im going to steal them.

Of course my work is excellent :lol: . Ok, don't know about that, but the prints look pretty good. Here are the two prints that she wants in 11x14

http://www.thenationfamily.com/images/tim/portland_zoo/images/colorful_bird4.jpg

http://www.thenationfamily.com/images/tim/portland_zoo/images/sun_bear.jpg

Again, I am just happy that she wants them and pricing is secondary, but I do want to make sure they are priced reasonable so that she can afford them and will hopefully buy more in the future.

[IndyJeff]

Nobody can tell you how to price your prints. What you have to do is figure out what your cost is per print, each size, and what your time is worth. Now you must also consider how much the customer is willing to spend to own one.
I guess the easy part is your cost. A little more difficult is, how much is your time worth? The hardest part would be determining how much the customer is willing to pay.
When I set my prices for my event photography, I considered that each shot may be sold once. I also considered that I would rather sell 5 shots of one kid to his mom at $5 rather than 3 shots at $7. I figure I will get about a 25% selling rate on total shots, if I raise the price that figure may go down. If I lower the price I may sell more but, the profit level would be so low that I would have to damn near double the sold rate to make up for a dollar less per shot. My costs are fixed, no matter how much I charge so any discounting I give comes directly out of my share.
You always want to charge the maximum the market will allow. You can ask for $50 for an 8 x 10 and maybe you will sell one or two but, lowering the price to $30 may double your sales. Now if you went down to $20 you might sell more than at $30. Your costs would be the same, your profit margin may be lower but the increased sales might make up for the lost $10.
If your costs are say, $5 for an 8 x 10 and the following were true;
sold 2 @ $50...profit would be $90
sold 4 @ $30...profit would be $100
sold 8 @ $20...profit would be $120
Lowering the customer cost may increase your sales because more people would be willing to pay the $20 rather than the $50 and in the end you would make more of the $20 sales than the $50


Actually by increasing my 4 x 6 price from $5 to $7, I would make $2 more per shot but selling 3 instead of 5 would leave $1.48 less in my pocket. The customer would spend $25 for the 5 but save $4 and get 2 less photos at $7 so in the end everybody loses. I am counting on volume.