upset Smugmug customer

Smugmug was my first pick when I started my website 2 years ago. The ease of everything was alluring to me with an all in 1 package. Uploads to sales to printing work great. A short while ago, they jacked up the monthly 50% and I was kind of bummed about that but I figured it was just $10 more per month. I think I'm wasting my money with them!

There is a large photo shoot I do every year and it is my largest earner for the year. What I just realized is that if I go through my Smugmug account and use Bay Photo for my prints, it is going to cost me almost $250 more than just going to Bay Photo as a guy off the street! Why is that???? Here is my break down on the costs. I'm looking for a different website now unless I'm totally missing something.


x115 - Bay Photo My SM
8 wallets - 1.99 - 2.99
5x7 - 1.15 - 1.15
8x10 - 1.79 - 2.49
total= - 4.93 - 6.63
For a total cost of $1.70/person x 115= $195!!!!!!

x20
11x14 - 3.99 - 6.25
So for this I am spending an extra $45.20 just for these 20 prints!


So with the fact that I am paying $240 more to use my site for printing instead of going straight to Bay photo makes me mad. WTF is up with SM?? I'm done with them.
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Welcome to the club. I left SM as soon as the price jump. I went to zenfolio and couldn't be happier. I bought the premier account (the most expensive) which was initially more expensive than my original SM account. However what I get for my money more than covers the additional costs. As I run a small production company and wanted somewhere to show and sell from multiple photographers and with the top package I can do that. SM would have had to have multiple accounts.
As an individual customer you will be able to pay way less using zenfolio to do your prints. they also take a smaller fee than SM so this is beneficial as well. As a final thought I ordered a print from SM and was not happy with the quality at all for larger items. I haven't ordered one from Mpix Pro yet, but have heard nothing but glowing reviews for them.
Just my two cents, but SM deserves to have all of their customers leave after the unjustified price hike!

I think Smugmug is either getting greedy or sales are way down so they need to milk everyone who's too lazy/incompetent* to move on to keep the same revenue. Could be a mix of both. Granted, part of that extra fee is convenience...you have to actually put the order together yourself if you go to Bay directly (this can be VERY time consuming and error prone if you're the high volume type). Smugmug sends the stuff over on your behalf, and they're not going to provide that kind of integration for free.

Having said that, I think if $1.70 per order is going to break you, your prices are just too damn low to begin with.

*by incompetent I mean incapable of creating or buying and setting up their own solution

Why would you think SM doesn't want to make money on sales?

I can recommend ExposureManager. I felt they were the best deal around when I hooked up with them a couple years ago, and one thing I really like is that they kind of disappear so that it appears to your customers that you are doing your own thing.

convergent wrote in post #15397100
I can recommend ExposureManager. I felt they were the best deal around when I hooked up with them a couple years ago, and one thing I really like is that they kind of disappear so that it appears to your customers that you are doing your own thing.

Thanks for the suggestion. I see their print lab is BWC in TX. How's the quality? in comparison to bay, millers, simplycolorlab... etc?

cdifoto wrote in post #15396869
Having said that, I think if $1.70 per order is going to break you, your prices are just too damn low to begin with.

How true.

The world is full of choices. As a large company Smugmug has undoubtedly done a business case to justify what they are doing. They are doing this for themselves and I they have probably factored in the fact that they will lose some customers along the way but the net increase in revenue will offset those that walk. This is the way that business is done, you take risks and hope that it pays off in the end. They are not the only game in town and an internet search will give you plenty of alternatives. I have to agree with CDI in that if this increase in cost is a breaking point for you then you have a price point set way too low. Of course setting a price is entirely your perogative but in the end business is business and if you are pricing exorbitantly low to undercut the competition this is the problems you will always face.

I, too, abandoned Smugmug.

As to whether or not smugmug studied the viability of the price increase before making it, I am sure they did.

On the other hand, I can also guarantee that when Facebook assimilated Instagram, they, too, studied in detail the possible effects of the TOS change. Obviously, they evaluated it to be a positive move overall or they would not have done it.

We all saw what happened to them. They could not backtrack fast enough.

So, too, I think the same will happen to Smugmug. In a faltering economy, with things presently looking to get worse before better, I think Smugmug will eventually find out their latest move will have been ill-advised.

Vote with your wallets. It's the best message you can possibly give them.

It's not that the 1.70/person would kill my profits. My prices are fine. But what I did not tell you because I forgot 1 huge detail in my numbers to justify what I'm taking about. Ok I have a revision on my numbers. I left out by accident the 3 inch photo buttons. Here is my updated math.

Bay Photo:
1.99 wallets
1.15 5x7
1.79 8x10
1.75 button
6.68 total x 115 = 768.20
11x14 sponsor at 3.99x20 = 79.80
768.20+79.80 = $848.00 total cost at Bay Photo

Smugmug: This is the default pricing.
2.99 wallet
1.15 5x7
2.49 8x19
4.95 button
11.58 total x 115 = 1331.70
11x14 sponsor at 6.25x20 = 125
1331.70+125 = $1456.70 through Smugmug

Now do you see why I'm all worked up?? That is over 40% more going through my SM website than using Bay Photo straight up. I'm looking for a local lab to see what I can get close to me, bu I will not hesitate to use Bay Photo. They have great quality.

You are mixing the two businesses! Yes, printing at Bay IS cheaper! But...Does Bay host your pictures?....Does bay allow you to set prices for your pictures?.......Does bay present your pictures in Galleries and allow independent people to purchase pictures?.....
Why don't you just compare printing at Walmart then....if you were looking for cheaper. They are different companies doing different services....which happen to overlap. I too am not liking the Smugmug price increase....and will probably change this year....but as for your issue.....can't support your thinking.

Any hosting site that does not allow self-fulfill would never get my business as I'm happy with the lab I get most of my images from, though since they have a minimum do use other labs for small orders. If you're just looking for a hosting service to sell prints have to recommend PhotoCart - it's on your own server and all self-fulfill so you cut out the middle man and just buy the program (you can buy it from someone who has it but no longer uses it a little cheaper, know of two out there for sale). It means you have total control though, so have to keep up on everything, report everything, etc.

Other services, Exposure Manager would be second if just for prints as not sure if they have the site templates and everything right now. Really there is still no perfect service out there yet!

Need a little more than would suggest PhotoShelter, they need improvements in the print business side of things pretty badly, but keep hearing some new things are coming out.

To what the OP is talking about though if I use one of their vendors through PhotoShelter or go straight to them there's no increase in pay - SmugMug should be getting their % of photo sales, not through upping the price to send it to one of their labs - that's a big problem to me as well as it ads up and no way would continue to do it.

jcpoulin wrote in post #15401947
You are mixing the two businesses! Yes, printing at Bay IS cheaper! But...Does Bay host your pictures?....Does bay allow you to set prices for your pictures?.......Does bay present your pictures in Galleries and allow independent people to purchase pictures?.....
Why don't you just compare printing at Walmart then....if you were looking for cheaper. They are different companies doing different services....which happen to overlap. I too am not liking the Smugmug price increase....and will probably change this year....but as for your issue.....can't support your thinking.

Bay does not charge for the privilege of printing with them.

SM already has a subscription fee AND a 15% cut on sales, most people are under the impression that this is their revenue feed and covers their costs as well as giving them enough profit to operate.

I have no idea what's up with Smugmug lately.. I'm just glad I got off that train. I did a little happy dance the day I finally cancelled my account.

Csae wrote in post #15403581
Bay does not charge for the privilege of printing with them.

SM already has a subscription fee AND a 15% cut on sales, most people are under the impression that this is their revenue feed and covers their costs as well as giving them enough profit to operate.

That's what I thought. Boy was I wrong. Lesson learned.

I don't use Smugmutt or any other similar type of site but reading the customer feedback which is substantially complaints, I wonder how they are going to fare.

On another site which is hosted by smugmutt, the moderators there are extremely touchy and sensitive to any less than glowing comment levelled at smugmutt. One recently got on his high horse and lambasted people for saying things which were not complimentary but beyond question were completely truthful. His position was it was bad form to criticise the company that hosted the site like people should feel guilty for not blowing sunshine up the companys backside at every opportunity.

It was lost on no one that the mentality and attitude he displayed was typical of their current across the board position that many user's had experienced.
As they say, it comes from the top so one can only wonder what those at the top are thinking?

I watched the vid from the CEO making their case for their price hikes but I doubt it will appease the majority of members. I'd love to see their internal predictions over how many customers they thought they would loose and how many they actually have.

I think there are a lot of loyal people who stick with things once they have got onboard out of a sense of duty if nothing else so it would be interesting to know what proportion of people have vocally jumped ship and what proportion have quietly stayed.

IF they are going to charge an account fee, making markup on the sales and also taking a percentage is likley going to be double dipping just a bit too much for many.

Personally I would far more prefer to host my own site with a shopping cart and do the orders myself.
What could be a better use of your time than taking money?

glumpy wrote in post #15404313
Personally I would far more prefer to host my own site with a shopping cart and do the orders myself.
What could be a better use of your time than taking money?

This is what I do, but only because I'm low volume with high margin. If I was high volume with low margin or even simply high volume with the same margin I'd be letting something like Smugmug take care of the entire process ie I would not touch it at all.