Posted by Rajeev Thomas on August 9, 2008 at 3:03 AM
Hi everyone.... I have been thinking about a website for my pictures. I know many of you have your own websites. Does anyone here use Zenfolio or Smugmug? What are pros and cons of using them? Is it better to design your own website, get a domain name and find a hosting service? What about meeting customer demand...is it better to do your own printing and shipping etc? I do not own a printer or know any good printing service provider .
John H Egbert in his recent post says "Yes SmugMug I feel has helped a lot in streamlining operations of my website while allowing me to maintain the look and feel of my main site, it handles all the credit card payment operations and gives me a great deal more options to offer clients in prints and licensing of images as stock in my own stock library. I figure if Marc Meunch can use it, so can I. Besides Their costs are low enough for me that I can lower my prices and still make a tidy profit with a heck of a lot less work on my part".
What do you think? Is smugmug the best option out there? I know I am asking a lot of questions here, but I am a newbie when it comes to a lot of these things....thank you in advance for your help,regards, Rajeev.
Posted by Mel Ladewig on August 9, 2008 at 12:16 PM
I think James outsources his printing through smugmug's service.
I do not. I like to have control of the papers and the look of my prints. That said, I have to work with a printer for larger prints, but I like to be very hands on. I also do my own framing unless a print goes above 20X30. I don't have any interest in getting into the stock/licensing market.
I handle my print sales in a personal manner and all of my sales have been to customers out of state. I can accept credit cards through Pay Pal and I'll take checks from people I know. At this point I've sold over 20 prints this way. I'm not making a ton of money, but its putting gas in the tank and film in the camera and at this point, I'm paying for most of my photo trips with print sales from that trip within a year. It certainly will not replace my day job at this rate.
I use a hosting service to host my photography gallery. I do not have an automated ordering system on there right now, and I plan to address that, probably this fall/winter. To tell the truth, I'm not sure that an automated ordering system will generate much in the way of sales. Also, I write code (though different languages than you'd use on the web) most days at work and have little interest in learning new languages and writing more code when I get home.
Yes I use SmugMug and have been very happy with the results they produce. They use the exact same equipment Denver Digital Imaging has used for my work for years and the only difference in they use Kodak Papers versus Fuji. My only nit, but still the results are high quality. All I can say is give them a test print to work on and see for yourself.
I did my research much the same way with WHCC and many other top notch labs. They all are great, but Smug Mug took the credit card handling over for me and the fulfilment and shipping. All I had to do was upload to my secure gallery on their server and set the pages up to look more like my actual site. others have SmugMug host everything. I may migrate that over, but more than likely not as I also have all my POP3 email through my web server.
The smugmug team is very helpful in building a site too.
If you want to talk sometime about it, call me or email me.
Posted by Marc Langille on August 9, 2008 at 2:25 PM
I will also give a thumbs up to SmugMug - very good to work with, no question.
As James indicated, the SmugMug folks are most helpful. You are also welcome to send me questions via e-mail or call me.
Regards,
Marc
Posted by Rajeev Thomas on August 9, 2008 at 2:55 PM
Guys.... You are awesome!!! Mel, James and Marc... thank you!!! Very informative post.. I will email you James and Marc, regards, Rajeev
Discussion
4 repliesJohn H Egbert in his recent post says "Yes SmugMug I feel has helped a lot in streamlining operations of my website while allowing me to maintain the look and feel of my main site, it handles all the credit card payment operations and gives me a great deal more options to offer clients in prints and licensing of images as stock in my own stock library. I figure if Marc Meunch can use it, so can I. Besides Their costs are low enough for me that I can lower my prices and still make a tidy profit with a heck of a lot less work on my part".
What do you think? Is smugmug the best option out there? I know I am asking a lot of questions here, but I am a newbie when it comes to a lot of these things....thank you in advance for your help,regards, Rajeev.
I do not. I like to have control of the papers and the look of my prints. That said, I have to work with a printer for larger prints, but I like to be very hands on. I also do my own framing unless a print goes above 20X30. I don't have any interest in getting into the stock/licensing market.
I handle my print sales in a personal manner and all of my sales have been to customers out of state. I can accept credit cards through Pay Pal and I'll take checks from people I know. At this point I've sold over 20 prints this way. I'm not making a ton of money, but its putting gas in the tank and film in the camera and at this point, I'm paying for most of my photo trips with print sales from that trip within a year. It certainly will not replace my day job at this rate.
I use a hosting service to host my photography gallery. I do not have an automated ordering system on there right now, and I plan to address that, probably this fall/winter. To tell the truth, I'm not sure that an automated ordering system will generate much in the way of sales. Also, I write code (though different languages than you'd use on the web) most days at work and have little interest in learning new languages and writing more code when I get home.
I did my research much the same way with WHCC and many other top notch labs. They all are great, but Smug Mug took the credit card handling over for me and the fulfilment and shipping. All I had to do was upload to my secure gallery on their server and set the pages up to look more like my actual site. others have SmugMug host everything. I may migrate that over, but more than likely not as I also have all my POP3 email through my web server.
The smugmug team is very helpful in building a site too.
If you want to talk sometime about it, call me or email me.
As James indicated, the SmugMug folks are most helpful. You are also welcome to send me questions via e-mail or call me.
Regards,
Marc