Ok, need some help

[TrulyAlaskan]

I have pretty much had it with smugmug, zenfolio, and ALL of the others out there.

We need something better to be able to self Fulfil, I'm sick of being charged commision. I have a paypal merchant account with the virtual terminal. I have been accepting credit cards on location for over a year.

Who has had luck integrating a shopping cart into their gallery?

Seriously, lets see some of these sites. I've gotta get something going here soon.

Here's what I'm looking to do...

- Integrate a shopping cart into a gallery
- Be able to set prices for the image, in whatever size I choose to include... (meaning, since some of my older pictures can only go to 11x14 reasonably, then I want to make sure that someone can't order a 20x30 of that.)
- At least look nice
- Not pay commission.


So, anyone have any ideas?

[Box Brownie]

Not sure if all your criteria would be met but do have a look at www.photium.com

Will the designer is very good about making tweaks and (some) customisation so if it looks close to your needs then you should ask him for some feedback with pre trial/pre purchase questions.

HTH

:)

[hypertech]

Are you inclined to do a lot of the work yourself? If so, gallery 2 and checkout. If not, photo cart.

[TrulyAlaskan]

Hey thanks for the help. Yeah, I can do most myself, I just need a foundation

[dreamcatcher23]

breezebrowser and jalbum do a good job too.

[PhotosGuy]

and jalbum do a good job too. I used a JAlbum skin for part of my site, & linked to the "sell" site that I don't use much.
I combined three into one (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=379495)

[tim]

Photographers Shopping Cart integrates perfectly with paypal. www.picturespro.com I think. Check it out on my Wellington Wedding Photography (http://www.wildphotography.co.nz) website, just click proofs.

[PhotosGuy]

Photographers Shopping Cart That does look seamless & pretty good. It might be a bit pricey at $329 for some people starting out, though.

[tim]

Yeah it's an investment, perhaps starting with one of the hosted services is easier for most people. There's none in NZ, or none that are decent, so I had to do it myself.

[TrulyAlaskan]

Thanks everyone for the input. I actually found a way to keep SmugMug, but use paypal.. so I'm going to do that for a while until I can justify the Photographers Shopping Cart

[cory1848]

Why are you sick of the commission based sites? Either you are going to pay for it upfront or pay for it over commission. I prefer the commission route cause if something goes wrong, I am not the one spending hours trying to fix it.

[TrulyAlaskan]

1 time vs. everytime....

[joelham]

truly alaskan how did you manage to intergrate the pay pal method into your smugmug site???
Im from australia and this is just what i need.
Any help would be REALLY appreciatd.
Joel

[dreamcatcher23]

One thing to consider is who is doing the fulfilment. Personally for me it's worth having a third party do the fulfilment as it just takes so much time - the stress of trying to get orders produced and sent, the time spent queuing in line to mail them, if i go on vacation orders can still come in etc. etc. Basically it's a service I'm willing to pay for, and it works out about $0.80 more expensive to have a company do the work than me and I'm more than happy with that arrangement for the stress it removes and time it gives me to concentrate on more important things.

[TrulyAlaskan]

Joel - PM me, I will send you the code.

Dreamcatcher - Most of my business is based in Alaska, I have a fantastic lab that I use up here. So it makes life easier to wait 2 hours instead of 5 days. I'm sure as my business grows I will use the integrated labs.

[dreamcatcher23]

2 hrs vs 5 days for what? I'm talking about me uploading photos and selling them via the website and customers purchasing them, the company printing them and shipping them and I don't have to lift a finger past the upload... I just wait for the payments into my bank account.

[TrulyAlaskan]

Printing...

I'm not sure where you live, but shipping to alaska is so slow it's insane. So I can wait a week (sometimes 2) to get my prints delivered to the client, or I can use our awesome lab up here (that's cheaper, faster, and I have my computer calibrated to) and get them done in 2 hours. Oh, and the funds go to my account that day. Not at the end of the month.

Again, I sell less online then I do in person. Actually, this last year I have only been trying out smug mug. I just do way more business at saturday market, and through friends that display photos. So, it's just easier for me to self fulfill.