Packages vs A La Carte'?

Yo yo yo! So I just bought the company I work for and I'm in the process of taking a deep look into our pricing structure. Recently, we changed our pricing to A La Carte' only.

I'm still weighing out the options and would love to hear some feedback from people who are in the same boat!

Right now, my wedding prices are listed in A La Carte' online. For some reason, I don't really send people to that price page but instead, I consult with them first and build a package that suites their needs. Sometimes, I'll toss in some items and discount them to add a value or close the deal. So basically, I'm spending time creating packages when I could've had pre-made ones to begin with...My whole schtick with my system is, I try and accomodate most average budgets with my pricing structure in case people want to talk me lower. My price will never go below my minimum but has potential to either be stale (meaning client only pays for coverage and nothing else) or can go right through the roof! (Client pays for coverage and also purchases other sessions and albums)

Any thoughts on this opposed to creating packages? We used to have packages but clients either put off fulfilling their print orders (should've added gallery expiration) get overwhelmed or tried to break down the package to get a cheaper price.

I can see packages being psychologically tactical when you add in value as well...We had 3 packages and 80% of the time, the middle one was picked.

I've opted out of doing packages. When I used to have someone else take our family photos I used to hate what was offered in the packages. I really wished I could pick the photos I wanted and what sizes I wanted and how many. For that reason, I love the on line type processing where you upload a few pictures and you pick the quantity and the sizes you want. I believe that this type of service would bring more business.

In the end, the customer knows what they want more than the photographer. Sure the photographer knows they want great pictures but how many do they want?

As far as setting time limits and different price ranges for wedding photography, I have 3 different ones. Each one gets me for a couple hours longer than the previous and is a little more expensive. I also give them a leather bound book with 20 - 30 pages of the photos I think they'd like (I know that's contradicting but I've never had a complaint yet). Then I leave it up to them to go to my web site and order pictures they want.

Based on my limited experiences, I think a package is better and the customer. Often times, if your customers are on the budget, they will find reasons to go cheap. Taking certain items out. When you want to add certain items to their overall cost, let say, additional prints, they want to know if why they couldn't get them without extra costs. Is nice you want to create a custom package. If your customers are on the budget, custom price package means they want to pay less for more... If you have high paying customers, custom package would often mean they want to do something extra or different with additional costs.

True, you want your customers to pay you at certain set price and you go out and do your job, period. You don't want to worry about constantly negotiating the price and trying to justify why you need to charge them extra for a set of prints and etc.

phydoux wrote in post #11943624
I've opted out of doing packages. ....

As far as setting time limits and different price ranges for wedding photography, I have 3 different ones.

errr... so you have three different wedding packages but yet you don't?

I don't do weddings or portraits, for the time being, but what about building customized packages to the needs of each customer? I'm thinking if you are sitting with the customer before hand, just add this extra step.

I shoot primarily weddings and my packages are more for things that the clients get on their wedding day rather than products they get after. For instance, one package is just me, my time, editing, and a copy of their images on a zip drive. Another packages is two photographers, our time, editing, and a copy of the images on an iPod. The third is the same as the second package but includes a print credit and their images on an iPad.

I find if you put too much into a package, like photo prints or albums, people try to negotiate with you on the price of the package by removing what they don't want so even if you have packages you end up spending just as much time restructuring them in order to close the deal.

So instead of including anything in your packages at all, make them truly a la carte, set up an online store (I use InstaProofs) and have the client buy what they want when they want to buy it.

Mixture of packages, some that include products such as albums and others that offer coverage only seems to be the best option to me ... I quite often tailor packages to clients individual needs whether that means adding or removing stuff you just need to be clear on how each thing effects the price.

Packages are popular with customers because they can see a figure in black and white and use it as a basis to start comparing like with like, we all do this everyday and there is nothing wrong with it. Whereas a la carte does offer a more bespoke product it allows for the client to deselect images in order to reduce their costs.

Depending on how you sell it, both methods work well ........ sell the a la carte along the "you and your wedding are unique so why go for a one size fits all" idea, or sell the packages "whats your budget?, yes, we do have something that will suit you perfectly" etc etc

My studio uses a mix of the two methods ........ the clients album includes 60 images for the initial spend. Then the client goes through the images the tried and trusted keep/maybe/delete sales method. They will invariably end up with more images that they want for the album. This way they have spent more than what they budgetted for, but because they have chosen the images they dont feel that they have been sold to.

The package side of the deal benefits me because I have a minimum guaranteed spend, and the benefits from the a la carte the as they end up with an album that they see as being truly unique.

1. Flexible packages. Packages give clients an idea of what typically goes together in a "deal." What if you went to buy a car and had to choose every part from a list to put it together? What you want is a whole car plus a few optional choices.

What that means on your end is knowing precisely what your profit margins are on each item when packaged as well as ala carte. Some things are cheaper packaged with others (obviously, for instance, multiple copies of the same image), some things are not. Some things are profit killers sold one way, profit enhancers sold another way (such as CDs).

You have to know this up front so that you know when asked what package options you can profitably provide: Package A allows different options than Package B. There are options available on an Escalade that are not available on an Impala.

2. But keep things simple as possible, especially the visual appearance of your price list. Don't make them do any arithmetic in their heads, because that takes them out of emotional euphoria and into logical practicality. Bad, bad, bad for you.

That's another reason for flexible packages rather than everything ala carte. That's also a reason why I love, love, love ProSelect software. It does all that stuff right on my laptop. I enter in all my product pricing information beforehand, including packages, and as clients say, "Umm. That package, one of those, and two of those but one in color and one in black and white," I punch it in and ProSelect spits it out.

3. People want to know what other people are buying, then decide for themselves whether they want to be average, above average, or below average. If you can say, "This is what everyone else is getting," it moves the sales along. That effectively creates a "package" even if everyone actually bought ala carte.

I'm in the sports world, not weddings, but just implemented a bunch of new packages and price structures for every single order size. I used to have one package and everything else was a la cart, it worked for me but not for them when I evaluated it - and was receiving a lot of questions - though my new cart is only 2 months old, it's been great so far. There's three options...

1) Straight up a la cart, pick and choose, usually for smaller orders.

2) Bulk discounts of the same print size (20+, 50+, 75+ more prints, bigger discount).

3) 7 different packages - since I'm baseball it fit perfect with Grand Slam, HR, Triple, Double, Single, Base on Balls, On Deck.

If they can't find a option that fits their specific needs and budget in there then I'm at a complete loss. Nobody has asked for any changes, only received one email for clarification and that was it - he saved $24 on his order and in turn bought something else for $30.

Weddings though, I can see using 3-5 packages, after of course the fee for shooting, maybe allow some changes but you can't spend too much time with these custom packages, unless you're putting that time in your original fee to start with.

MJPhotos24 wrote in post #11945076
3) 7 different packages - since I'm baseball it fit perfect with Grand Slam, HR, Triple, Double, Single, Base on Balls, On Deck.

AWESOME idea...Thank you...lol

I would recommend tofurious for broadening your understanding of how packages affect marketing.

Oh, and congrats on buying the company! Awesome news! So happy for ya!

RDKirk wrote in post #11944957
1. Flexible packages. Packages give clients an idea of what typically goes together in a "deal." What if you went to buy a car and had to choose every part from a list to put it together? What you want is a whole car plus a few optional choices.

What that means on your end is knowing precisely what your profit margins are on each item when packaged as well as ala carte. Some things are cheaper packaged with others (obviously, for instance, multiple copies of the same image), some things are not. Some things are profit killers sold one way, profit enhancers sold another way (such as CDs).

You have to know this up front so that you know when asked what package options you can profitably provide: Package A allows different options than Package B. There are options available on an Escalade that are not available on an Impala.

2. But keep things simple as possible, especially the visual appearance of your price list. Don't make them do any arithmetic in their heads, because that takes them out of emotional euphoria and into logical practicality. Bad, bad, bad for you.

That's another reason for flexible packages rather than everything ala carte. That's also a reason why I love, love, love ProSelect software. It does all that stuff right on my laptop. I enter in all my product pricing information beforehand, including packages, and as clients say, "Umm. That package, one of those, and two of those but one in color and one in black and white," I punch it in and ProSelect spits it out.

3. People want to know what other people are buying, then decide for themselves whether they want to be average, above average, or below average. If you can say, "This is what everyone else is getting," it moves the sales along. That effectively creates a "package" even if everyone actually bought ala carte.

Agree completely! I should give ProSelect a try!

Plus I second reading Tofurious blog for marketing and pricing ideas! What a wealth of resources!

Wow! One day and I get lots of great feedback! Thanks everyone!

I think I've decided to stick with the A La Carte method. What I plan on doing is not showing the client the price site until they request it after our initial consultation. I'm currently using ShootQ to host my price page as well as manage all of my contacts/shoots. You can view my pricing here.

I'll have a newly built site up soon.

I'm not listing 4hrs of coverage as it falls under my minimum amount so I'll be pricing it the same as 6hrs. Anything over 8 will have to be discussed. As of now, my minimum to take home from a wedding is $1,600. All of my coverage prices hit the mark and everything else is just money in the bank. I like to feel out the client (not physically or else it would be creepy.) and get a solid budget from them. Sometimes, I'll build a package that flexes their budget by a little bit but enough to add value and justification. If that doesn't work, I provide them with a backup that meets their exact needs.

Another thing I'm testing out is booking a photo viewing after the wedding and on that same day, all of my prints are 50% off. They're priced high enough to where I'd still make a nice profit but still slightly lower than my competitors. I've found this to be more profitable than pre-built print packages that come with the booking.

When I had prints added onto packages, the client would only default to those prints and not purchase anymore. It sucked pretty hard! When I did 50% off for 1 day, I found that I was making more sales because of the sense of urgency.

I'll keep you guys updated with my experience!

Question: What difference does having 4-6-8 hour plans actually make to your bottom line? Could you realistically schedule two weddings in a day even if they were only 4 hours?

Isn't the entire day effectively blocked by one wedding, regardless how long it is? If so, you might want to rethink the value of using time as as price differentiator. It may be more effective to base price differentiation on factors that actually make a cost difference--and market "all day, one price."