The frustrations of photography!!

I'm not usually one to complain about most things, but this just irks me.

http://www.groupon.com …reativ-imaging?c=all&p=15

I lost a wedding this 2012 because of this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I have been talking with a potential bride about shooting her wedding this summer. She was absolutely happy with me, my portfolio and my pricing. We were working through the contract that I had faxed to her. She would take it to work the next day and fax it back along with her deposit.

Instead, I get an email from her the next morning explaining that she found a deal on Groupon hat she couldn't pass up.

I did some searching and found the link above.

I looked into groupon a while back to see what they were about. The deal with them is that they take 50% of the set price that is put together between you and your groupon rep.

So, a wedding that is offered to someone for $399 means that the photographer makes $199.50.

A hundred and ninety nine dollars and fifty cents!!!

To shoot a wedding for 7 hours, edit what will more than likely be 1000+ photos, and everything else that in involved with he process.

How does anyone stand to make any type of profit with this type of business model?

I'm sorry for the long rant. This just ices the cake on how tough this business can really be.

It happens.

That's pretty bad but unfortunately it does happen

Don't worry about how that other business makes money. Worry about why you lost a client on price.

I agree with cdi. If you read the rules on that package, they only get a CD with low resolution images that are undoubtedly not adequate for printing. They say you get a link for print ordering. Their site doesn't have their print pricing on it but you can make a whack of cash through prints. The last wedding that I did ordered nearly 4k worth of prints and books. I do everything in my power to not include a CD/DVD but if they want one they pay dearly. There are ways of getting your pound of flesh from a customer beyond throwing up your hands in dismay. You certainly can't fault the customer.

cdifoto wrote in post #13643221
Don't worry about how that other business makes money. Worry about why you lost a client on price.

When I first talked to the client about shooting her wedding, we went over budget and their expectations on what they wanted out of the package. She was absolutely 100% satisfied with what I was offering and ready to get the ball rolling.

I can say that I close the deal 100% because the contract never made it back to my office, but it was in her hands literally ready to come back to me the next morning when she saw this.

ssim wrote in post #13643617
I agree with cdi. If you read the rules on that package, they only get a CD with low resolution images that are undoubtedly not adequate for printing. They say you get a link for print ordering. Their site doesn't have their print pricing on it but you can make a whack of cash through prints. The last wedding that I did ordered nearly 4k worth of prints and books. I do everything in my power to not include a CD/DVD but if they want one they pay dearly. There are ways of getting your pound of flesh from a customer beyond throwing up your hands in dismay. You certainly can't fault the customer.

I get the fact that they get low res files and nothing else. They're 100% banking that their profit will come from print sales. The other side of the coin is that they will have to edit all proofs going online for order.

This is where I get a little frustrated. The $200 the photographer made on a wedding is gonna get thin real fast once the wedding day is done, photos are organized and final proofs are up.

Love it how people are willing to work for free. You may invest 5 hours of your own time scheduling, driving, processing, shooting, setting up, materials, taxes, fuel costs etc. You may end up making about 2-3 bucks an hour when its all said and done.

You didn't lose anything. You never had it to begin with.

I would have to study the details, but I don't see anywhere that a professional level of post processing is garanteed or even offered. The low-res could easily be just JPGs straight out of the camera.

Their online print offering could have a token amount of PP to make an enlargement look good. Also, I would think that the number of shots offered as prints would be much smaller than a low-res CD. These folks are not worried about building up a client base as much as getting as many one-time customers as they can (IMO).

And of course the client will end up either paying more in total or getting a grossly inferior product.

It's almost like "Dr. Nick's Hollywood Upstairs Medical College"

Terrible... the site already makes it look sketchy.

What the client gets from this Groupon deal is basically exactly the same as what you are offering via your website - a low-res proof DVD and the option to buy additional images.

They are banking on print sales to make it worth their while which is basically what you are doing.

From their website their standard charges appear to be :

4 x 6 in print - $8
8 x 10 in print - $20
11 x 14 in print - $40
20 x 30 in print - $140

None of which will have to be shared with Groupon.

Keeping a low headline price when dealing with Groupon seems like a good idea to me as it limits how much you end up giving to Groupon.

IMHO $400 up front from the client is probably enough that they are not going to be happy with a set of low-res watermarked proofs on CD so Id say that additional prints / albums sales etc. are virtually guaranteed.

Why not do something similar yourself?

Look at how much you earn from additional print sales compared with your upfront fee - OK you are making less per wedding but what if you could double, treble or quadruple the number of bookings you have - would you be better off?

Dan Marchant wrote in post #13644577
And of course the client will end up either paying more in total or getting a grossly inferior product.

Sorry but you can't say this based on the information available in the public domain.

The OP works in the same way as Kreativ Imaging in that he supplies proof images and then lets them buy prints - the OP's prices are not on his website either.

The OP could be more expensive wrt the upfront commitment and MAY also be more expensive for prints. The OP may of course be cheaper for prints but it is not possible to ascertain this from his site.

Dont sweat it. Most likely the photo will show up with a point and shoot, or a rebel, with a 18-55mm and on camera flash. Odds are she will regret it big time because most likely she will get really crappy pictures.

Theres a lady in my area offering way low prices on weddings and she was using a PNS, she recently got a Canon XS with 18-55mm and a 55-200mm. She usually post her work on hre facebook, and it is terrible. The photos are really bad but she does some fancy bling editing and people seem to dig it. She has no idea what RAW means and she only shoots in Green box mode.

The old saying, "you get what you pay for" will bite her in the ass.