Selling Photos via website - Need an opinion

Hi Everyone,

I have come here for a spot of advice. I'm currently redeveloping my entire website and would like the option to sell prints.

There are a couple of ways I could go about this, but am looking for your opinions on what you feel may be best.

1) Have a standard gallery with a link to my Alamy .com profile.

2) Set-up a HTML gallery with small "paypal" links (or integrate a photo shopping cart) and then use a service such as Photobucket (or other high quality printer service) to get the printed and sent directly to buyer.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Kind Regards,
Amnesia

I don`t know about the first option...I never tried it, but I would go for the second option for sure. I have several websites. Of course my photos leads to clickbank products or whatever, but I guess is the same ...more or less.

I would skip photobucket as they are not high quality. you are better off going with someone like zenfolio or smugmug.

Thank you for the feedback. I am from the UK and would assume zenfolio or smugmug ship to the UK?

I suppose with option 2 I have the ability to set my own prices and profit margins, etc.

The only problem with Smugmug, etc would be that they will put their own delivery note in with the item (showing what I paid) it may be worth me investing in some carboard tubes and business cards and having the photos delivered to my own address, before shipping out to whoever buys the product.

With regards to Smugmug, that is not a true statement. There will be no invoice indicating what the photographer is charged. Check out their help file or go to the Dgrin website and check through all of the support posts. I have had an account with them for several years.
Hope this helps.
Mike

Cheers, Mike.

I'm from the UK and SmugMug is all $$ based subscription fees, etc.

I will keep an eye out for some UK based companies, offering a similar service (unless anyone here can recommend?).

Amnesia180 wrote in post #9815266
The only problem with Smugmug, etc would be that they will put their own delivery note in with the item (showing what I paid) it may be worth me investing in some carboard tubes and business cards and having the photos delivered to my own address, before shipping out to whoever buys the product.

I think both have blind shipping options . . . your idea will significantly increase overall costs with double shipping costs. Besides, they probably get some shipping discounts because of their volume, where your second time shipping would likely be at full shipping price.

The only situation where you second-shipping might make sense is if you were adding some portion of the overall product that they don't supply, such as custom made frames, or something. In such a case, they are not likely to be purchasing through a Smugmug type of business, but through your own custom web site that would include the frames.

Thank you for all the advice.

Can anyone suggest a UK based printers? The reason I ask is because after doing some more research Smugmug offer a gallery solution, whereby the customer can order my print directly from my site and Smugmug will process it.

If I were to take the order myself via say a paypal cart, I will then have to place a separate order with a printer who will ship to the client (along with invoice, etc). Which is what I want to avoid.

Thanks,
Amnesia

Photobox have Pro Galleries that may be of interst to you. I've not tried it myself, but I've thought about it. If anybody has used them I'f like to hear your comments.

Thanks for the link - I've found a good supplier in the UK who are sending me some free sample prints of my work! So I'll check the quality before sticking to one provider.

Now, I've run into a problem. Originally I was going to have a gallery - displaying all my good quality photos. Then a separate "store" with a selection of prints for sale.

If you ran into a website, that offered a gallery AND a store, would you see this as information overload?

Thanks!
Amnesia

Zenfolio offer UK based printing as well as dealing with payments in Sterling. I think you have to use the Pro level suubscrition ($100 per year IIRC) to get custom pricing (for use as a business). It was the one I was tempted to go for but atm I am waiting until my bank balance is a bit healthier!

Thank you for all the help, I've been receiving some really useful advice and making plenty of enquiries.

I do have a simple question... regarding sizes.

I have a number of cropped images which I have edited and would also like to sell. Do the ratios need to be accurate?
For example, If I am looking to sell a particular image in 18x12, 24x16 or 20x30. These are all 1.5x ratios to each other.... should my image be the same size?

Thanks!
Amnesia

I use Photobox for UK sales- a pro selling account is free AFAIK and you can set prices etc. They obviously take care of printing and shipping to customers.
Brian v.