Zenfolio about to start charging a fortune for self-fulfilled orders.

LongLensPhotography

LongLensPhotography

Th..th..that's all folks!
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LongLensPhotography
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They take out 7% off profit from their managed orders. It is kind of fair enough as it adds support and a level of guarantee.

Now they want to take 7% of your own self fulfilled orders - thats 7% including the price of that mega expensive frame or canvas they don't offer in the first place!!! You already pay the website fees, which are substantial. This is a daylight robbery, a huge tax. Are you supposed to make the products totally unaffordable by passing the cost or tell customers to instead wire money via personal paypal account?!

Be warned if you self-fulfil. It is not major part of my sales, however I am totally p***ed off having to remove the more lucrative products from my price list due to their sabotage action. Unless they backtrack I doubt I will renew again.

We are writing to let you know that the service fee for self-fulfilled orders will be changing to 7%.

These changes are not yet live, but your account will be updated to reflect the new pricing on May 26, 2017.

What do the changes mean for you?

When you sell self-fulfilled products, a charge in the amount of 7% of the selling price will be deducted from your Zenfolio account balance. If your Zenfolio account balance reaches -$50.00, the credit card on file will be charged to restore the account balance to $0.

Why are we increasing this service fee?

For those with a 0% service fee on self-fulfilled products, we are adjusting our pricing to more accurately reflect the value and cost of providing this service and align with the service fees on vendor and digital products.

Please know that we sincerely appreciate your business, and we are happy we were able to keep this fee low for as long as possible while continuing to roll out many new features and site enhancements. We have also been able to do this without regular subscription cost increases for existing customers.
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I told them to stick it up and at the very least give us HTTPS support. They still have none in place and Google is starting to demote or delist our sites
 
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LongLensPhotography said:
They take out 7% off profit from their managed orders. It is kind of fair enough as it adds support and a level of guarantee.

Now they want to take 7% of your own self fulfilled orders - thats 7% including the price of that mega expensive frame or canvas they don't offer in the first place!!! You already pay the website fees, which are substantial. This is a daylight robbery, a huge tax. Are you supposed to make the products totally unaffordable by passing the cost or tell customers to instead wire money via personal paypal account?!

Be warned if you self-fulfil. It is not major part of my sales, however I am totally p***ed off having to remove the more lucrative products from my price list due to their sabotage action. Unless they backtrack I doubt I will renew again.



I told them to stick it up and at the very least give us HTTPS support. They still have none in place and Google is starting to demote or delist our sites
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That does seem a bit much, personally I believe you should have the ability to cancel your agreement with that sort of change to fees/conditions - a bit like the Mobile Companies have to offer these days.
 
chrism_scotland said:
That does seem a bit much, personally I believe you should have the ability to cancel your agreement with that sort of change to fees/conditions - a bit like the Mobile Companies have to offer these days.
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I probably can. Imagine the inconvenience and the amount of work migrating the site though! I would have done long ago actually.
 
I used to use Zenfolio. Never had my whole site hosted on it, but used zen for galleries and print sales.
Ended my subscription last year due to price increases that I couldn't justify for the very limited use I had with it.
 
Looking at your avatar I'd have thought you wholeheartedly support rampant free market neoliberal capitalism.
 
an1uk said:
Looking at your avatar I'd have thought you wholeheartedly support rampant free market neoliberal capitalism.
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I very strongly oppose neoliberalism and cronyism (and frankly the Friday's night show in Syria too). These are not true classical liberal values, nor represent true capitalism. I hope you had figured this out by now.

By the way the spirit of capitalism allows consumer action and free choice, which is what this is all about. Zenfolio became a screwjob and thus it has to come out far and wide.
 
Anyone who has been using Zenfolio for a while knows that this company does not put customer service first. Just read a few blogs and you will see that.
They have a decent platform that gives it's subscribers just enough to keep them coming back - but no more.

Their constant price increases are either a sign that they don't know what they are doing, or they are constantly focused on how to squeeze every penny out of it's subscribers. They don't even pretend to offer us anything new with their price increases. Take notice - they have NEVER offered anything to their customers as to what you will GET for the price increase, rather they tell us the increase is because, "we just discovered we weren't charging enough".

Their "Feature Requests" blog is a joke in my opinion because if you examine what we subscribers want vs what they actually implement, you will see that almost every implementation they have done quickly have been ones that add to their profit and the implementations that don't add to their bottom line, take forever to get done if at all. This has been blogged about repeatedly. This is NOT customer service.

Last point - this new 7% fee on self-fulfilled products is the sole reason I am actually writing in this blog. I rarely write in blogs. But this new fee is the last straw. Those who defend them by saying, "They have to make money too" are just ignorant of what online services cost. The core infrastructure is already up and running and was paid for long ago, they haven't added anything new that warrants a price increase. I dare anyone to point out what Zenfolio has added as a service that warrants a 7% price increase. The only costs they have is maintenance, and maintenance is software only goes down over time if you are doing it right.

Take this example: ADOBE charges $9.99 a month for software and services that blow Zenfolios platform out of the water in terms of technology, upgrades, customization and integration with workflows.

IF - Zenfolio were to ever offer a major website enhancement, then a price increase could be warranted.
What people who defend them are missing is we already are paying for what we have!
The $360/year they want a year for a self-fulfillment site is more than enough to cover their costs and give them a profit. The 7% is just a money grab. In my case, I will be paying them an EXTRA $1500/year out of my earnings that they literally had nothing to do with. I have already paid for the site and their clumsy shopping cart with the annual fee.

NOT TO MENTION: When you and I subscribed for a self-fulfilled account, we were PROMISED no fees. That is what we signed up for and paid for.
That promise should AT LEAST carry forward until the next renewal. BUT NO - every user will start being charged an additional 7% staring in May. When I told one of their reps that I thought my subscription should be honored until at least my renewal, he sent me a link to the agreement showing me that (paraphrasing) Zenfolio reserves the right to increase prices on anything at anytime.

My Bad for assuming they would honor the subscription package I signed up for through to the end.
Time to start the search for a company who knows how to balance customer service with what they charge...

Any suggestions?
 
That was the reason I went with Photium. Fantastic support and no % for offline orders.
 
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