Selling Photos via Website - Need an opinion

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Amnesia180

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Hi All,

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) to get the prints sent directly to buyer?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Many thanks,
Amnesia
 
I am not fussed about novelty items such as mugs or mousemates.

Mainly enlarged prints like posters (matt or gloss). If the company offer framing that would be a bonus, if not it doesn't matter. Possibly postcards too?

Was that the sort of answer you are looking?? Sorry if I misunderstood your question.
 
I don't know what type of images your selling, but here are a few of my thoughts.

PayPal is good people feel it's secure and risk free, as apposed to putting their credit card details into a less well known site/vendor.

I guess depending what your selling but many people buy on impulse, they don't want the hassle of sending a cheque, they want it NOW

Do you really want to send an image to a customer with out checking the printed quality, no matter which print company you use they ALL make mistakes, and you don't want to sully your reputation by have a poor print sent unseen.
 
Thank you for the response.
The reason I was initially against order from a printer and having them sent to me is because it doubles on shipping costs, however - your point of checking the print is a very valid one.. I may even invest in some business cards to add that little touch of professionalism with the shipping.

I will also offer frames and use a local framing service to have this done.

I'm not looking to sell £100 prints, my images are more 'that would look nice in the hallway' rather than 'lets setup an exhibit' :)

Can you suggest a good quality UK based printers?

Thanks!
 
Framed pictures are quite difficult to post and expensive as well as very fragile.

Personally I would let any buyers sort out the frames.
 
Amnesia180 said:
Thank you for the response.
The reason I was initially against order from a printer and having them sent to me is because it doubles on shipping costs, however - your point of checking the print is a very valid one.. I may even invest in some business cards to add that little touch of professionalism with the shipping.

I will also offer frames and use a local framing service to have this done.

I'm not looking to sell £100 prints, my images are more 'that would look nice in the hallway' rather than 'lets setup an exhibit' :)

Can you suggest a good quality UK based printers?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

here you go ask for lee he did the tp convention last year with us and very good he was too(y)

http://www.togsprint.co.uk/
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Thanks, that is just what I was looking for!

I've hit a bit of a situation though. My original plan was have a gallery displaying all of my images, then a store displaying the selected prints I want to sell.

If you saw a site with a gallery and a store, would you feel it was a bit of informtion overload?

Amnesia
 
depends on your ballpark sizes really

for event stuff my plan is to sell my standard on the night size print (run it off with the dye sub) mounted and a larger size which I would grab from devon camera as its in town good quality and cheaper than online for anything less than 10 prints.talk to people about what other sizes they want.

if you're looking at fine art stuff or big prints or anything like that I'd consider going for a more expensive printer like togsprint or loxley
 
basically you need to make it idiot proof with little or no scope for the user to cock up the ordering process.

for example, currently i use a fotki gallery and a paypal cart. the user is supposed to take the image reference number off the photo in the gallery and enter it into a txt field, select the required print size and then hit "add to cart". then repeat until done and hit "view cart".

youd be surprised how many orders i get with no image references and i have to chase them up..
 
whiteflyer said:
Do you really want to send an image to a customer with out checking the printed quality, no matter which print company you use they ALL make mistakes, and you don't want to sully your reputation by have a poor print sent unseen.
Click to expand...

From a business point of view, that's bad advice. You want to keep your profit as high as possible, and adding the overheads to check each print and repackage/post to your client is crazy.

Vet your suppliers, find one you trust to deliver high quality, and if you get any complaints on print quality, then replace the print with one that you check before sending on (and notify your printer who will probably refund you for that print anyway). Clients are tolerant of a couple of misprints here and there as long as you fix the issue.
 
neo2810 said:
From a business point of view, that's bad advice. You want to keep your profit as high as possible, and adding the overheads to check each print and repackage/post to your client is crazy.
Click to expand...

not necessarily, what if you want to use your own branded packaging or maybe you want to make the 3rd party printing appear transparent (i.e. - dont want an invoice/packing sheet with another company name in the delivery).

but then saying that i dont have extra postage overheads as i use a local printer..
 
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
 
neil_g said:
not necessarily, what if you want to use your own branded packaging or maybe you want to make the 3rd party printing appear transparent (i.e. - dont want an invoice/packing sheet with another company name in the delivery).
Click to expand...

That's an option my printer offers and I use (y)
 
neo2810 said:
From a business point of view, that's bad advice. You want to keep your profit as high as possible, and adding the overheads to check each print and repackage/post to your client is crazy.

Vet your suppliers, find one you trust to deliver high quality, and if you get any complaints on print quality, then replace the print with one that you check before sending on (and notify your printer who will probably refund you for that print anyway). Clients are tolerant of a couple of misprints here and there as long as you fix the issue.
Click to expand...


Until someone shows several prospective clients a badly printed image and say look what I got from **********. In business reputation is everything.
 
Amnesia180 said:
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
Click to expand...

YES the same ratio
 
I used Gallery2 at one point for just this. You can install a paypal plugin with works with the gallery, showing a buy button under every photo. :)
 
For what its worth and has been suggested, framed prints may not be cost effective, however you might consider slip type mounts, this gives the purchaser a choice of placing the images into there own desiged frames, using slip type mounts , postage costs can be that much lower...

Just a thought...

Amnesia180 said:
Thank you for the response.
The reason I was initially against order from a printer and having them sent to me is because it doubles on shipping costs, however - your point of checking the print is a very valid one.. I may even invest in some business cards to add that little touch of professionalism with the shipping.

I will also offer frames and use a local framing service to have this done.

I'm not looking to sell £100 prints, my images are more 'that would look nice in the hallway' rather than 'lets setup an exhibit' :)

Can you suggest a good quality UK based printers?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
 
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