Packages vs. Ala Carte

I've been hitting my stride from both a photographic and business perspective. It's given me pause to ask myself (with the help of POTN members) whether or not it's time to forsake the idea of ala carte including giving the disc of images with my base shoot-only price and move to packages.

I offer a pretty full compliment of product (albums, coffee-table books, photoboxes, gallerywraps, thank-you cards, etc.) and some of it is fairly high end. I'd say maybe a third of my clients have been shoot-only and just take the disc of images. Another third may select a coffee-table book or other items that are modestly priced. And then another third will really invest in some high quality albums, etc. I'm hopeful that going the pacakge route will help me move more of those shoot-only clients into a better package.

So I guess a couple of questions. Thoughts and exeriences around ala carte vs. packages? Also, do you do much discounting when you build your packages or is the package price really pretty much just the sum of what you would otherwise charge?

The thought of getting away from a shoot-only option that includes the disc of hi-res images immediately available is a bit intimidating. I plan to include the disc as a value add for my higher end packages but also offer it as a purchasable item for my lower packages. Thoughts and experiences around this?

I do this, and it works well! I book 50/50 re: my a la carte stuff (photography + purchasing a disc) and packages (which include Disc, albums, engagement shoot, canvas prints, various other extras)

I offer tons of prints with all my packages, but only include a disc with the higher end packages...they can also add more prints or a disc a la carte...
my reasoning for including a lot of prints is it costs me very little to include prints and if they already have the prints they will be less likely to print from the disc. This allows me some control in the quality of images people see hanging on my clients wall.

We used to price everything a la carte but re-structured to packages for this year. It worked out nicely for us. I believe that clients can get overwhelmed with all of the options from an a la carte selection and therefore just keep it minimal. When they see 4 or 5 packages to choose from and the offerings of each, they seem more likely to kick in a little extra to get certain options they would pass on if a la carte was the only option. For us, there's no need to discount on packages since the client doesn't know what they would be paying otherwise. If they had an option for either/or, there would probably be a need to show some discount. I think everyone weighs these 2 pricing structures frequently as your business develops but there is no real answer. I like the simplicity of presenting packages to clients instead of a list of priced options. Others prefer breaking it all down individually. It's whatever works best for you.

This is something I've been thinking about lately as well.. I was at the WPPI Road trip last week and Khara Plicanic made an excellent point on pricing... offer one package. The package should contain anything you think the bridge and groom should have. In her example it was full coverage and an album. Everyone gets the album no matter what, she believes it's one of the most important things.. Full coverage also means full coverage of all the events throughout the day.. after they are over she is done (within reason) this eliminates you from being stuck there for a certain number of hours.. if the ceremony, speaches, first dance, bouquet tossing all happen in a 5 hour time frame well then you're pretty much covered and done (once again within reason). I thought this was an excellent idea to help cut out the clutter and confusion that most couples go through when sifting through packages and ala carte options. Makes it simple, to the point and I'm going to be doing it for next years pricing..

tjames, I completely agree with your post. We are in the process of increasing our pricing again, and were just discussing this idea last night!

But then do you have a separate price list for the extras? Engagements, other albums, disk, etc?

Wow, I forgot about this post.

Just for the sake of closing the circle, what I've elected to do is stay a la carte. I offer a price to shoot. The client can either purchase the disc of images for $X if they want shoot-only or the disc can be free with the purchase of $Y of "stuff". But I for simplicity (both mine and theirs), I leave what they can purchase wide open instead of trying to put together predesigned packages. The free disc will encourage a healthy purchase. And as I slowly step up the price ladder, album purchases have come more easily.

I think this approach addresses my needs/concerns. I still offer shoot-only, though now at a higher rate, and I offer an attractive enticement to step up to bigger albums and other purchases.