Has anyone had success selling photographs from his/her website? If so, can you share your process? Do you have Buy Now buttons, a store or a personal process that works?
Thanks.
Peacemaker
www.PeacemakersArt.com
Posted by Dan Borzynski on October 8, 2009 at 6:45 PM
I use my website largely as a promotional tool rather than a sale site so currently I do not have anything like a buy it now button or store. That was originally in the business plan but for various reasons in the last two years, this hasn't been something I have been willing to devote time to investigating.
Having said that, I make 2-3 print sales from it every year, in addition to followups from shows or exhibits. It is a largely informal process - we'll exchange e-mails on details and I'll generally take a personal check for the payment. If it is a local customer, I can take a credit card. The site does pay for itself several times over.
If you are considering setting up a website to sell directly from, I'd look seriously at going through some third party for credit card transactions. If you have read the merchant agreements for credit card acceptance over the web, there are extremely tight rules about card security. You *really* do not want to get involved in violating these rules. The net result is that unless you have a large IT budget for software and data security, letting some third party take the risk for card handling over the internet is probably worth the fees involved.
Taking cards at festivals still exposes you to the same rules, but you generally are not going to be storing the cards on a hard drive as you might do with an internet business. Usually, it is a one time swipe of a card on terminal and the terminal promptly deletes the information. Same rules, but easier to handle.
Posted by Brad Mangas on October 9, 2009 at 12:52 AM
There are many template driven website design packages out there that cater strictly to photographers. Sites like the ever popular smugmug, zenfolio, foliosnap, clickit, clickpic, photium, livebooks, photoshelter, ifp3 just to name a few all offer e commerce options. Some of these are used by full time well known professionals and you can bet they want the customer to be able to order at any time they want. Whether they do or not isn't the issue.
Give the customer every option you can to make an easy purchase is crucial. The truth is one just really never knows when an order may be placed. I believe the most important aspect of a website is it's fast easy use by the viewer. Fast loading pages, well organized galleries, the ability to get the information they need right then. This includes prices of your work and the ability to order if the customer so desires.
Many site that don't have a buy now option ask the potential customer to send an email if they are interested in purchasing a print and then wait for a reply. In my opinion this is a big mistake. Asking the customer to take extra time and work just to see about ordering something will turn most people away. Having a purchase option just looks more professional and when it comes to online viewing looks is everything. When it comes to purchasing it must be fast and easy.
We're in the process of a "cheat" of the online buying system, at least in terms of the traditional ways of doing it. Stay tuned for a year or two and I'll be able to say how well it worked. In fact, it works very well as we're currently using it through our studio and we're trying to adapt the same setup for selling art prints and stock. Too soon to tell, but promising.
Our setup is based on a number of premises:
1. We don't want to host and maintain huge online portfolios for the entertainment of casual viewers and thieves.
2. We want direct contact with real buyers of art prints and stock.
3. We don't want to do the printing and shipping ourselves.
Our just-instituted online system for studio sales is built around private, password protected portfolios maintained at a host site (LabPrints in our case, but there are lots) affiliated with our print lab. When studio clients finish a session, we do sales on the spot PLUS we post their images to the host site for future sales and sales to distant friends and relatives. Clients share the site and password with their choice of viewers, who go to the site, select their images, order and pay on the spot. The order is automatically placed with our lab who ships the prints directly to them.
It's a really slick system that works so well we're going to try it for our art print and stock sales. You can see the general layout here and explore one portfolio (Jennifer and John) that's not password protected. Most major print labs work with one or several portfolio hosts such as LabPrints.
How in the heck are we going to migrate our print and stock sales to the same kind of storefront?????
The galleries of print and stock images on our own site will remain quite small, merely examples of available categories. To see more, potential clients have to contact us directly via phone or email. After discussing their needs and pricing (in the case of stock sales), we'll assemble a portfolio specific to their needs and post it with password protection.
That's easy to contemplate for the print sales through LabPrints, but the challenge is doing it with stock sales. We're happy to pay LabPrints for the print services, but don't want to "share" the stock income. That means we'll have to post the individual stock portfolios on our own site.
In fact, that's cool with us. It's what we've been doing all along in response to stock queries before we had a web site, but emailing thumbnails to the client rather than posting private, password protected portfolios to our site. And private portfolios posted on our site are easier than emailed portfolios. Clients will make their selections and come back to us for the sale and payment offline. Same amount of work negotiating use rates and assembling a submission, but lots better than clogging the email buffers.
Yup, we're not convenient for the casual viewers and illegal users.
And yup, we're weeding out all but the serious buyers.
And yup yup, LabPrints is managing the online shopping cart for prints, while we'll handle stock payments offline just as we've always done it.
It's a work in progress, but results are encouraging. We just don't see ourselves as a print lab OR an entertainment bureau for casual tire kickers and illegal users. It will take us another year or two to fully implement and polish the system, but I'd rather do it this way than follow the same-old, same-old online model for photo sales. I'm NOT going to all the trouble of a web site for 2 or 3 sales a year. In the month or so we've been doing it this way we've topped that by nearly 20X.
You have described an interesting strategy, which I have seen in use by other photographers, but in all cases it was centered around studio and/or assignment based photography. I.e. clients contract some work (either in the studio or an off-site assignment) and later come back to the photographer's web-site (with the provided link and password) to check the results and/or order prints. This works very well because they have a vested interest in dealing with the photographer and would be what you aptly describe as "serious" buyers.
Contrast that scenario with someone (an individual, a gallery owner, an art-director, etc.) who is trying to purchase prints from a relatively unknown photographer. I find it hard to imagine that they will take all the trouble to go about the process that you have described, specially when they may not even know what they are looking for. In this case, a portfolio of the photographers best work on a web-site seems to be a great way to capture the interest of a potential buyer, which might result in a sale. What do you think?
I don't claim to be making very many sales from my web-site, but I do average around 2-3 prints per month. I also find that the sales from the web-site increase during the time I have an exhibition, which leads me to believe that folks who attended the show must have later gone to the web-site to see more of my work. I don't do many exhibitions, but I think photographers who regularly do art-shows would benefit from having a web-site that displays more of their work. In any case, these are just some of my thoughts.
So far results have been good Anil, with an equal spread between returning clients and new ones. We have one advantage that's not reflected in what I posted. We're destination-specific, and folks looking for Kodiak photos find us quickly.
And interviewing the potential clients has REALLY paid off in opportunities to demonstrate our professionalism. We garnered a really large sale last month (think in terms of a new car) including not only stock, but also a multi-day assignment to fill in the holes of the client's needs. Talking later she said the reason she went with us rather than others was that conversation. I was able to interview her in depth about layout, lighting, orientation and more. The questions I asked and submission she got was so closely focused to her needs, she had no doubt that she was dealing with a pro who would deliver on the high dollar assignment.
It's early to say for sure, but by first indications only motivated buyers will forge through the process. And I'm perfectly happy deal only with them while filtering out the casual viewer and thief. If I miss the occasional casual viewer who finally gets around to ordering a print or two? Big deal. They provide zero motivation for me to maintain a site with a bazillion photos and the surveillance against theft. The vast bulk of our photos are protected from theft because they're simply not online. And with password protected portfolios we've got a dandy paper trail to track who has had access to them, in the case of theft.
It's purely a business decision about time allocation and return on investment for us. I'm not going to waste my time on activities that result in a handful of small sales a year. If this doesn't work, fine. We'll go back to doing it the way we always have.
Thanks for the additional thoughts on this, Hank. Always appreciate hearing first hand experience.
Posted by Brad Mangas on October 9, 2009 at 5:21 PM
Hank your points on so what about the casual viewer as long as it is hard for the thief's to steal work off ones website are valid and well put. I guess I equate such precautions to the statement, a lock only keeps out the honest people. Making the process difficult so to thwart thieves may work but if they want to steal they will steal. Sure if an honest person wants to buy they will probably jump through the hops to make the purchase, (one hopes).
Your situations does allow for extra precautions due to a well established business. The rewards of hard work and experience has many great benefits. Starting out one does not have that good fortune of being able to intentionally make purchase options more difficult just in case someone wants to steal a 72 dpi 200kb image file. Some people seem to go bonkers when they see one of their images being used without permission. I would probably agree 100% if the majority of photography on the internet, in publications, advertisements, billboards, calanders and hanging on walls of homes and business's was stolen work being used illegally.
Precautions should always be taken and one should always take steps to prevent theft. I guess the question is, how paranoid is one when it comes to their work being stolen, and at what expense of customers is it worth to maybe prevent. A personal choice for sure.
When it comes to stock sites and sales, the more the merrier so that does cause an issue with one not wanting to put much work online to prevent theft. And really the only absolute way of preventing someone from downloading your work to use illegally is to not put it online to begin with.
I appreciate your experience and sharing of opinion, it just made me think a little deeper into the subject.
It's an interesting project to pick the very few images to post that will represent larger sets. In many ways it's like preparing a submission, with the same bottom line: "Your submission is only as good as the worst image in it." It's always a battle in submissions NOT TO put in extras just to pad it larger. Better a small submission of really good images than a mixed one. I know my own keeper to dink ratio and how long I've been shooting. It really, really makes me wonder about the folks that have thousands and thousands of images online.
Discussion
8 repliesThanks.
Peacemaker
www.PeacemakersArt.com
Having said that, I make 2-3 print sales from it every year, in addition to followups from shows or exhibits. It is a largely informal process - we'll exchange e-mails on details and I'll generally take a personal check for the payment. If it is a local customer, I can take a credit card. The site does pay for itself several times over.
If you are considering setting up a website to sell directly from, I'd look seriously at going through some third party for credit card transactions. If you have read the merchant agreements for credit card acceptance over the web, there are extremely tight rules about card security. You *really* do not want to get involved in violating these rules. The net result is that unless you have a large IT budget for software and data security, letting some third party take the risk for card handling over the internet is probably worth the fees involved.
Taking cards at festivals still exposes you to the same rules, but you generally are not going to be storing the cards on a hard drive as you might do with an internet business. Usually, it is a one time swipe of a card on terminal and the terminal promptly deletes the information. Same rules, but easier to handle.
Give the customer every option you can to make an easy purchase is crucial. The truth is one just really never knows when an order may be placed. I believe the most important aspect of a website is it's fast easy use by the viewer. Fast loading pages, well organized galleries, the ability to get the information they need right then. This includes prices of your work and the ability to order if the customer so desires.
Many site that don't have a buy now option ask the potential customer to send an email if they are interested in purchasing a print and then wait for a reply. In my opinion this is a big mistake. Asking the customer to take extra time and work just to see about ordering something will turn most people away. Having a purchase option just looks more professional and when it comes to online viewing looks is everything. When it comes to purchasing it must be fast and easy.
Our setup is based on a number of premises:
1. We don't want to host and maintain huge online portfolios for the entertainment of casual viewers and thieves.
2. We want direct contact with real buyers of art prints and stock.
3. We don't want to do the printing and shipping ourselves.
Our just-instituted online system for studio sales is built around private, password protected portfolios maintained at a host site (LabPrints in our case, but there are lots) affiliated with our print lab. When studio clients finish a session, we do sales on the spot PLUS we post their images to the host site for future sales and sales to distant friends and relatives. Clients share the site and password with their choice of viewers, who go to the site, select their images, order and pay on the spot. The order is automatically placed with our lab who ships the prints directly to them.
It's a really slick system that works so well we're going to try it for our art print and stock sales. You can see the general layout here and explore one portfolio (Jennifer and John) that's not password protected. Most major print labs work with one or several portfolio hosts such as LabPrints.
How in the heck are we going to migrate our print and stock sales to the same kind of storefront?????
The galleries of print and stock images on our own site will remain quite small, merely examples of available categories. To see more, potential clients have to contact us directly via phone or email. After discussing their needs and pricing (in the case of stock sales), we'll assemble a portfolio specific to their needs and post it with password protection.
That's easy to contemplate for the print sales through LabPrints, but the challenge is doing it with stock sales. We're happy to pay LabPrints for the print services, but don't want to "share" the stock income. That means we'll have to post the individual stock portfolios on our own site.
In fact, that's cool with us. It's what we've been doing all along in response to stock queries before we had a web site, but emailing thumbnails to the client rather than posting private, password protected portfolios to our site. And private portfolios posted on our site are easier than emailed portfolios. Clients will make their selections and come back to us for the sale and payment offline. Same amount of work negotiating use rates and assembling a submission, but lots better than clogging the email buffers.
Yup, we're not convenient for the casual viewers and illegal users.
And yup, we're weeding out all but the serious buyers.
And yup yup, LabPrints is managing the online shopping cart for prints, while we'll handle stock payments offline just as we've always done it.
It's a work in progress, but results are encouraging. We just don't see ourselves as a print lab OR an entertainment bureau for casual tire kickers and illegal users. It will take us another year or two to fully implement and polish the system, but I'd rather do it this way than follow the same-old, same-old online model for photo sales. I'm NOT going to all the trouble of a web site for 2 or 3 sales a year. In the month or so we've been doing it this way we've topped that by nearly 20X.
You have described an interesting strategy, which I have seen in use by other photographers, but in all cases it was centered around studio and/or assignment based photography. I.e. clients contract some work (either in the studio or an off-site assignment) and later come back to the photographer's web-site (with the provided link and password) to check the results and/or order prints. This works very well because they have a vested interest in dealing with the photographer and would be what you aptly describe as "serious" buyers.
Contrast that scenario with someone (an individual, a gallery owner, an art-director, etc.) who is trying to purchase prints from a relatively unknown photographer. I find it hard to imagine that they will take all the trouble to go about the process that you have described, specially when they may not even know what they are looking for. In this case, a portfolio of the photographers best work on a web-site seems to be a great way to capture the interest of a potential buyer, which might result in a sale. What do you think?
I don't claim to be making very many sales from my web-site, but I do average around 2-3 prints per month. I also find that the sales from the web-site increase during the time I have an exhibition, which leads me to believe that folks who attended the show must have later gone to the web-site to see more of my work. I don't do many exhibitions, but I think photographers who regularly do art-shows would benefit from having a web-site that displays more of their work. In any case, these are just some of my thoughts.
Best regards.
And interviewing the potential clients has REALLY paid off in opportunities to demonstrate our professionalism. We garnered a really large sale last month (think in terms of a new car) including not only stock, but also a multi-day assignment to fill in the holes of the client's needs. Talking later she said the reason she went with us rather than others was that conversation. I was able to interview her in depth about layout, lighting, orientation and more. The questions I asked and submission she got was so closely focused to her needs, she had no doubt that she was dealing with a pro who would deliver on the high dollar assignment.
It's early to say for sure, but by first indications only motivated buyers will forge through the process. And I'm perfectly happy deal only with them while filtering out the casual viewer and thief. If I miss the occasional casual viewer who finally gets around to ordering a print or two? Big deal.
It's purely a business decision about time allocation and return on investment for us. I'm not going to waste my time on activities that result in a handful of small sales a year. If this doesn't work, fine. We'll go back to doing it the way we always have.
Your situations does allow for extra precautions due to a well established business. The rewards of hard work and experience has many great benefits. Starting out one does not have that good fortune of being able to intentionally make purchase options more difficult just in case someone wants to steal a 72 dpi 200kb image file. Some people seem to go bonkers when they see one of their images being used without permission. I would probably agree 100% if the majority of photography on the internet, in publications, advertisements, billboards, calanders and hanging on walls of homes and business's was stolen work being used illegally.
Precautions should always be taken and one should always take steps to prevent theft. I guess the question is, how paranoid is one when it comes to their work being stolen, and at what expense of customers is it worth to maybe prevent. A personal choice for sure.
When it comes to stock sites and sales, the more the merrier so that does cause an issue with one not wanting to put much work online to prevent theft. And really the only absolute way of preventing someone from downloading your work to use illegally is to not put it online to begin with.
I appreciate your experience and sharing of opinion, it just made me think a little deeper into the subject.
It's an interesting project to pick the very few images to post that will represent larger sets. In many ways it's like preparing a submission, with the same bottom line: "Your submission is only as good as the worst image in it." It's always a battle in submissions NOT TO put in extras just to pad it larger. Better a small submission of really good images than a mixed one. I know my own keeper to dink ratio and how long I've been shooting. It really, really makes me wonder about the folks that have thousands and thousands of images online.