Photobox feedback?

The Daily Telegraph has claimed Photoboxgallery.com "is a great way to showcase and sell your photos".

What do people think? I am using Zenfolio (see below) as an on-line gallery but have not dipped my toes into selling as yet, it's been pushed firmly into the "too hard, do it another time" box. So comments on Photoboxgallery (and whether my images are even saleable) would be gratefully received.

Pro's and Con's?

Photobox is good in as much as you can set up a gallery/multiple galleries to sell you photos at no cost to yourself - you upload your photos and set your prices, Photobox will print the order and send direct to your customer.

The major downside is that your customers can find your costs within 3 clicks - do you really want them to know that the print you have charged them £20 for costs you 20 pence?

Photobox are OK, not the best but not the worst either.

Gary,

Thanks for the honest appraisal. Not exactly sure what you mean by "your costs", because how would Photobox know what I judge a particular image to have cost me? Unless you a referring to the 10% Photobox take in commission?

In the past I've taken the view that photos don't sell thenselves, so the fact that they can be viewed in a web gallery is never going to make me a fortune by itself, whether Photobox, Zenfolio or whatever. I'm thinking about being more proactive locally, using the zenfolio site as a handy "go-to" if I find anyone interested.

Any views on the saleability or otherwise of my work?

I have a photobox gallery and have sold some pictures from there - enough to have credit sufficient for all my own printing needs. It is a very handy place to sell photos from but I'm not sure it's so great for showcasing your photos. In my case, most of my sales came after I had a 2 page spread of shots in the Daily Mail and i got a lot of enquiries asking where people could buy them.
Great advantage is they do all the work as far as I'm concerned - I just point people to the gallery when I get an enquiry.
I do think you need somewhere else to actually showcase the pictures though, I get many enquries via my Flickr gallery.
Brian v.

i use photobox for all of my prints, but wouldnt use them to showcase my work. Im waiting for smug mug to use photobox for UK printing (im hoping anyway)

Richard, what I meant by setting at no cost to yourself is that you can register with Photobox and then create galleries as you please, whereas the 3 websites in my signature cost me money to run - not a huge amount, but not free like a Photobox gallery. There is the cost of registration for the address, and then the webspace itself, the advantage is that my website address is, for example www.myeventphoto.co.uk as opposed to http://www.photoboxgal​lery.com/eventphotogra​phy which is a bit of a mouthful. I also see I havent updated it for 3 1/2 years!

I have no familiarity with Photobox, but if you're already set up with ZF, why not just do it there? Mpix is an excellent provider and it's real easy to set up.

Thanks guys,