Photo Orders, what to do?

I have been taking pictures for the high school football team. I sell the photos online.
I had a parent contact me wanting to know if she could have the digital format instead of prints. I assumed this to mean she wants a cd. I had no idea what to tell her. My first thought was no way. I give her the images on a cd and she can make as many copies as she wants instead of paying by picture. I have heard of putting pictures on a cd and selling for for like 20 dollars or more, but if I did that for her I would have to start doing it for everyone.

Tips and or suggestions on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Brittany

Gimme a minute to secure all the buttons on my flame-proof suit - ahhhh okay - now then . . .

#1 - I am and likely always will be a person who really enjoys shooting as a HOBBY!

#2 - I have been "miffed" when a Pro shoots a set of pics ( my kids - then grandkids ) and only offers PRINTS! This is a world where E-mail bumps the USPS out as the number one way to stay connected to friends & family. I resent having to scan the photo into a digital format for sharing with the masses !


So - that said - I can't wait to see what past practice and proceedure for Pros turns out to be here.

There has to be a "reasonable" cost option to get the pics digitally.

Charge her your "Happy" price. If she bites then great. If not, then she can always scan the photo herself after purchasing the print. As far as the world of email goes, I'm sure parents can figure out how to send a link of the gallery to friends and family. That will probably be faster than emailing that 10MB bitmap image they bought and scanned!

There lies the #1 difference. A pro needs to feed his wife and kids and there is a bazillion links on the web about justifying why a "pro" charges what they charge.

Yes, there is a price attached to digital transfer. When you consider all the relatives that want (4) 5x7 and (6) 8x10 and wallets, thats a minimum loss of $$$ in sales for the "pro", so justifying digital transfer of high resloution images at $$$/image is fair.

Set a price britt (take in your time, equipment, editing, etc, etc. Tell her the price for the CD, if she can understand business expenditure v's income, as long as you price according, it will be all good. If not, well, you win some you lose some.

You simply charge enough to make up for the loss of sales you'd get through prints. It ranges all over the board depending on your area and the prices of your prints. Personally I don't sell digital except for one gallery because the client (who already paid pretty good) wanted me to offer them - and not one purchased digital, they all got prints. On the site it says why I don't - basically, you lose control of it. Thought about it heavily but each time just say no.

As for the miffed comment, you pretty much nailed why a lot of photogs won't offer digital. They need to make money, you're paying for there SERVICE of being a professional photographer. By someone getting the digital and sending it around you're costing print sales. Kind of like Metallica and Napster - except noones paying $50 to come watch us shoot images and buy t-shirts.

My daughter had her pic taken for a contest she was in. If we spent $50 on prints, we got the cd with all the images. Normally, we would not have spent $50 on prints for this. But to have the cd included, we didn't hesitate.

I figured because it was parents of the players. I would loose a fortune if I just handed out a cd and once that got around everyone would expect one. I made over a $100 in one order, but I know they will be back for more. If I had given her the digitals on a cd she wouldn't have spent a hundered dollars. I know the topic of money and photographers is always one of the big discussions, I just wish it could be more cut and dry. Very few people have any respect for a photographer, we just get in their way....lol.
Thank you for the feedback, keep it coming. I like to here others stories and ideas.

I think it depends on what the parent is asking for. If they want just one file, or all photos of one specific player, that's one thing. If they want files of the entire game, that's quite another.

We offer CD's at the event. Customers may purchase a CD of either a single image, or all the images of one particular person. The problem with selling a CD of the entire game is; once they have the files, they, or their kids, (most likely) will share the files, and you'll not see another purchase from that team.

For pricing; We sell a single image CD for slightly more than an 8x10, and a mulit-image CD for about what our average print order is. This allows us to make a sale by showing value, and keeping costs low. BTW, no post is done on the CD images, they are straight out of the camera. Sometimes with the EXIF data stripped, depending on the situation.

britt777 wrote in post #6612096
I have been taking pictures for the high school football team. I sell the photos online.
I had a parent contact me wanting to know if she could have the digital format instead of prints. I assumed this to mean she wants a cd. I had no idea what to tell her. My first thought was no way. I give her the images on a cd and she can make as many copies as she wants instead of paying by picture. I have heard of putting pictures on a cd and selling for for like 20 dollars or more, but if I did that for her I would have to start doing it for everyone.

Tips and or suggestions on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Brittany

I charge $15 per digital download image off of a sports gallery. That is the average, per image print earning per picture before I started offering digital downloads. Someone wants 3 images it's $45. 10 it's $150... they don't like the fee they don't the images. They can always buy them.

Just had a mom order 1 print from 3 galleries and then she sent me an email asking when her CD of all images from all galleries was coming? I gave her the link for the 3 photos she ordered and told her how to order all the pictures. If she had been reasonable and asked for a volume discount I would have obliged. Instead she was furious because she was "entitled" to the images of her child. I told her I was entitled to remove them from my web site and did. Now she has nothing and I got rid of a PITA customer. First complaint in 3 years of shooting these images for this club. I'm happy and 100s of other customers are too. Couldn't give a damn that she's not.

Good luck.

If you sell the file to one person they can give it to everyone, and for sports teams they probably know each other well. Bye bye print sales. For portraits I haven't entirely decided whether i'll sell files or not, but at a minimum they'll have to buy a print of it first, then they'll have to pay for the file.

Sports and school photos are different to weddings and portraits, but honestly for $50 I wouldn't do anything. Given my skills and experience I have a minimum hourly rate i'm happy to work for, and preparing prints takes a fair bit of work. I have to eat and pay the mortgage.

Sell her the CD but make sure the price is at least the average sale you're getting on prints. I've seen the price for CDs range from $50 to several hundred depending on the situation.
One solution that I've heard is to charge for $50-100 for the image on CD but only at a 5x7 print size. That way it gives the customer the ability to give little Jimmy's picture to all the aunts and uncles but keeps them from going elsewhere to print big prints.
If they're really looking for online presence, consider giving web sized images for free with your watermark on them.

tomslens wrote in post #6624343
If they're really looking for online presence, consider giving web sized images for free with your watermark on them.

Why bother giving the watermarked images away, when it's so easy to steal them?

tomslens wrote in post #6624343
Sell her the CD but make sure the price is at least the average sale you're getting on prints. I've seen the price for CDs range from $50 to several hundred depending on the situation.
One solution that I've heard is to charge for $50-100 for the image on CD but only at a 5x7 print size. That way it gives the customer the ability to give little Jimmy's picture to all the aunts and uncles but keeps them from going elsewhere to print big prints.
If they're really looking for online presence, consider giving web sized images for free with your watermark on them.

What if they give copies of the CD to everyone? No more sales.

A file for a 5x7" print is typically 2100 pixels on the longest side. An enlargement can actually look pretty good at 100ppi, so with that 5x7" file they can make a 20" print which will look fine unless you get up close.

Basicaly Tim has it.

Once they have the CD be prepaired for them to try any and everything with it. It doesn't matter if you give them a CD full of wallet sized prints, they're still going to try and get an 8x10 out of it... and so will all of their friends that they had make copies of the CD for them.

Bottom line is charge enough for the CD so that if you don't take in ANY print sales you'll still be content with your profits.

I generally offer both, but I also don't often get the chance to take enough action photos of a particular kid to make enough profit on prints alone.

So when someone wants a 75-100 (Depends on the sport and number of photos) dollar CD/DVD, great, because I don't have to pay the price for printing.

That said, I make a good 70 dollars on a CD/DVD instead of needing to sell many prints for the same margin.