pro-pricing: discount rates?

[HighLightPhotos]

Hi,
I know this has been brought up before, since you guys are making improvements constantly (thanks!) I'm not sure if this one is in the works:
Will it be possible to apply a tiered pricing policy for prints? eg. one 5x7 at $8, two for $6 each... etc

Thanks!

[HighLightPhotos]

Is there any thoughts on this?

[grannyrobin]

Is there any thoughts on this? There was a similar thread about a month ago. http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=13042&highlight=print+packages

Here's a quote from onethumb. "There are so many landmines with packages & coupons that they're both very unlikely in the near future."

So... it looks to me like lots of thoughts. Not the thoughts you would have wished for, though.
-Robin

[HighLightPhotos]

ah... print packages.. should have searched on that. what landmines i wonder....

Too bad. It would make life easier. How have others handled this situation? any creative solutions?

[Cindy]

I've been searching desperatly HARD to find a possible solution other than taking & filling the orders myself via phone or e-mail.

My customers want to buy 10-12 different prints of their kids... but expect a discount when purchasing more than 1. So I take their orders and usually print them myself with my R1800... but all the while I'm thinking gee it sure would be nice if we could offer packages on smugmug.

Couldn't you at least add in the cart another dropdown besides specailty, standard, etc... make it Packages. Pro's could set the price... the price would override all other costs pre-set on the photos. The customer once they've choosen the package could add the desired photos to their package choice whether that be all the same or all different... makes no difference to me (okay maybe a little) but it would sure make offering orders so much faster, easier, and be beneficail to all parties involved.

Smugmug Please, please move print packages to high priority for us event photographers, please. I know it's hard... but it's certainly very possible and would increase your profit considerably. At present we event photographers get to pocket what would have otherwise been your %... but we'd rather just let you handle the printing end of it so we can shoot more pictures. :)

Thanks,
Cindy

[tmanchester]

I've been searching desperatly HARD to find a possible solution other than taking & filling the orders myself via phone or e-mail.

My customers want to buy 10-12 different prints of their kids... but expect a discount when purchasing more than 1. So I take their orders and usually print them myself with my R1800... but all the while I'm thinking gee it sure would be nice if we could offer packages on smugmug.

Couldn't you at least add in the cart another dropdown besides specailty, standard, etc... make it Packages. Pro's could set the price... the price would override all other costs pre-set on the photos. The customer once they've choosen the package could add the desired photos to their package choice whether that be all the same or all different... makes no difference to me (okay maybe a little) but it would sure make offering orders so much faster, easier, and be beneficail to all parties involved.

Smugmug Please, please move print packages to high priority for us event photographers, please. I know it's hard... but it's certainly very possible and would increase your profit considerably. At present we event photographers get to pocket what would have otherwise been your %... but we'd rather just let you handle the printing end of it so we can shoot more pictures. :)

Thanks,
Cindy
Couldn't agree more.

[Andy]

hi guys - thanks for the suggestions and input. we really appreciate it!

[Cindy]

hi guys - thanks for the suggestions and input. we really appreciate it!So Andy... any chance this could be seen implemented??? Soon??? And if so would Smugmug want to find out from us what the most requested package options would be in a drop down list (if these would be shopping cart options that is)?
:lust

[Andy]

So Andy... any chance this could be seen implemented??? Soon??? And if so would Smugmug want to find out from us what the most requested package options would be in a drop down list (if these would be shopping cart options that is)?
:lust

as grannyrobin said above, onethumb said (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=13042&highlight=print+packages) on june 9th, "unlikely in the near future." so while we very much appreciate everyone's input on this, i want to caution you that we're still in "the near future" time frame... wish i had a better answer for you ...

[coach-al]

as grannyrobin said above, onethumb said (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=13042&highlight=print+packages) on june 9th, "unlikely in the near future." so while we very much appreciate everyone's input on this, i want to caution you that we're still in "the near future" time frame... wish i had a better answer for you ...
As my sales have increased (thank you Smugmug) I have found more and more need for some sort of discount mechanism. How about some sort of coupon where we could set it up as a certain % off for a certain time period? Then the customer just enters it at checkout and they automatically get the discount.

Right now I have to go to the actual photos and change the prices. A royal pain in the ... for both me and the customer.

Thanks, Al

[tmanchester]

As my sales have increased (thank you Smugmug) I have found more and more need for some sort of discount mechanism. How about some sort of coupon where we could set it up as a certain % off for a certain time period?
Coupons shouldn't be that hard to implement (or so says a friend of mine who is an ecommerce expert). That would scratch a variety of itches in one stroke.

Can we get some feedback on this from the admins?

Thanks

[JimM]

I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in and say I think multiple photo purchases would be great. I would even be okay with it if it were only 2 or more of the same picture (same size and everything). Obviously mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, etc, would also like this print!

[Cameron]

Coupons shouldn't be that hard to implement (or so says a friend of mine who is an ecommerce expert). That would scratch a variety of itches in one stroke.

Can we get some feedback on this from the admins?

ThanksI think part of the complexity of such a feature is that people can fill their shopping cart with items from many galleries. So does the coupon work on your purchase or only for certain galleries? How is that made clear in the cart? I think they'll get around to features like that, but the implimentation isn't as easy as it seems on the surface.

[Andy]

I think part of the complexity of such a feature is that people can fill their shopping cart with items from many galleries. So does the coupon work on your purchase or only for certain galleries? How is that made clear in the cart? I think they'll get around to features like that, but the implimentation isn't as easy as it seems on the surface.

exactly. try it and see, you can add stuff to your cart from many smugmug galleries - and then we have the issue of how to apply the coupon/discount/etc. and the accounting. it's definitely not as "simple" as it seems.

thanks for the suggestions though, everyone - please keep them coming :deal

[tmanchester]

exactly. try it and see, you can add stuff to your cart from many smugmug galleries - and then we have the issue of how to apply the coupon/discount/etc. and the accounting. it's definitely not as "simple" as it seems.

thanks for the suggestions though, everyone - please keep them coming :deal
Wouldn't a "one size fits all" solution be better than none?

Not arguing, just asking. There are other features of SmugMug that alot of people want enhanced (for example, galleries can only be nested so far, sales aren't reported by gallery, etc), but we would rather have what is there than no solution at all.

Has that been considered?

If I'm hungry, it doesn't have to be filet.

Thanks.

[Cindy]

I think part of the complexity of such a feature is that people can fill their shopping cart with items from many galleries. So does the coupon work on your purchase or only for certain galleries? How is that made clear in the cart? I think they'll get around to features like that, but the implimentation isn't as easy as it seems on the surface.Yes but each photo is somehow tagged so that even if someone buys pictures from 10 different websites each website owner gets paid accordingly. Discounts, packages &/or coupons could be tagged according to the website owner just like the photos are and would apply only matching tagged photos.

Not trying to be a pest about this (okay maybe a little :-) but neither do I want to let this need be sunk to the depths of no priority (which is why I added my current #1 feature request to be included in all my signatures. As my own to to keep reminding without being a bother. :thumb

Thanks,
Cindy

[coach-al]

Time for me to put another 2 cents in.

I am doing pretty well with print sales, but I KNOW I could do much better if I had some sort of mechanism to get my customers off their *** and make their orders. In the last few months I've had MANY, MANY customers tell me that they were going to buy some pictures, a some do, but a lot I'm still waiting for. A coupon would work to get them to move, I know it would.

I've been experimenting with just sending an email to a potential customer that had shown some interest and offer a discount for a certain time. It's worked EVERY TIME! But it is a royal pain in the butt to implement it. I spend so much time it's eating up all my profit on the sale. Doesn't make any sense.

So Smugmug, how about it? You are losing sales and I'm losing sales. I like your service a lot but I've got to tell you not having any way to easily have a "sale" is really bothersome to the point where I owe it to myself to look around again.

What do you other photographers do when you want to have a sale?

thanks, Al

[Andy]

Time for me to put another 2 cents in.

I am doing pretty well with print sales, but I KNOW I could do much better if I had some sort of mechanism to get my customers off their *** and make their orders. In the last few months I've had MANY, MANY customers tell me that they were going to buy some pictures, a some do, but a lot I'm still waiting for. A coupon would work to get them to move, I know it would.

I've been experimenting with just sending an email to a potential customer that had shown some interest and offer a discount for a certain time. It's worked EVERY TIME! But it is a royal pain in the butt to implement it. I spend so much time it's eating up all my profit on the sale. Doesn't make any sense.

So Smugmug, how about it? You are losing sales and I'm losing sales. I like your service a lot but I've got to tell you not having any way to easily have a "sale" is really bothersome to the point where I owe it to myself to look around again.

What do you other photographers do when you want to have a sale?

thanks, Al

Coupons are hard - for reasons stated best by onethumb (http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=119083&postcount=2).

But what about the ability for you to set pricing for a gallery, and for you to have the option of ticking a button that says "email me a reminder to change pricing for (gallery url) in X days"

[coach-al]

Coupons are hard - for reasons stated best by onethumb (http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=119083&postcount=2).

But what about the ability for you to set pricing for a gallery, and for you to have the option of ticking a button that says "email me a reminder to change pricing for (gallery url) in X days"
Thank you Andy, I'm going to give that a try.:)))

[Allen]

Time for me to put another 2 cents in.
I am doing pretty well with print sales, but I KNOW I could do much better if I had some sort of mechanism to get my customers off their *** and make their orders. In the last few months I've had MANY, MANY customers tell me that they were going to buy some pictures, a some do, but a lot I'm still waiting for. A coupon would work to get them to move, I know it would.

I've been experimenting with just sending an email to a potential customer that had shown some interest and offer a discount for a certain time. It's worked EVERY TIME! But it is a royal pain in the butt to implement it. I spend so much time it's eating up all my profit on the sale. Doesn't make any sense.

So Smugmug, how about it? You are losing sales and I'm losing sales. I like your service a lot but I've got to tell you not having any way to easily have a "sale" is really bothersome to the point where I owe it to myself to look around again.

What do you other photographers do when you want to have a sale?

thanks, Al Why not create one gallery that has the reduced/special prices and set a password. Email these
potential customers with the password and tell them it expires in xxx days/hours. Might get
them moving.
another AL

[bham]

Why not create one gallery that has the reduced/special prices and set a password. Email these
potential customers with the password and tell them it expires in xxx days/hours. Might get
them moving.
another AL
A couple ideas on both topics.

Instead of coupons, discount multiple picture order, etc. (sounds like it just can't happen) why not send some customers a refund from you. I know this isn't exactly what you want but it may work in the short run. Or if you buy 5 8x10's email me and request a 6th at no cost. Then you print and send to them. Just an idea since it sounds like the others just aren't going to happen. I tell customers that if they are going to order more than 20 prints them can email me and I will print them and basically take the order, money, etc directly. But for larger orders it is worth it. I can justify taking the time for them, otherwise I feel my prices are fair and don't see the need to discount anything.

In response of how to get the customers off their butts to order, I suggest x price until y date, then the price increases. Simply explain that why, to financially encourage people not to procrastinate with their order. You could say one month at x price then all prices increase by $1. The amount should vary by average size of your orders and your customers. If most only order 3 or 4 pics maybe increase more, if orders are usually 20 or more maybe less. I have tried this with some success. I am implenting it as I move forward. The key is to be fair, mention it upfront, put the date, etc info in the gallery description and stick to it. This is mainly for events since the more time passes from the event the less likely people are to buy the pics.

Hope these ideas help with some creative solutions to issues you face.

Andy what do you think? Have you heard of these things, tried any, have any input on what you do?

[Andy]

Andy what do you think? Have you heard of these things, tried any, have any input on what you do?

They are some great ideas. I'd love it if you post them in the pro tips thread, in MYOB forum.

I really do think one of the best is the time motivators - buy NOW, this WEEK, becuase next week the price will be higher. Put that on your business cards, too, as you hand out at events....

[coach-al]

I just went to my galleries to take a look and think about what to do. I have about TWO HUNDRED galleries with almost 20,000 pictures! Changing the price by gallery is very cumbersome, not a big deal when you only have a few, but I've got a lot.

I like the idea of implementing price increases after a certain time period. I think that's a worth a try but I think I need to do this going forward after I publicize it. And again, with a lot of galleries this is cumbersome under the current system.

Being able to change a gallery's price by category or sub-category would be very useful. Is there a way to do that now? I don't see it if there is.

One thing I've found is that the more I divide up my event by gallery the better it is (for my customers). For example, I might do a track meet and take 700 pictures. I'll divide that up by event and sometimes by men and women depending how big the galleries are. I'm shooting for under 100 photos in a gallery. It adds up to more work for me but I figure if I don't make it easy for my customers I'm going to lose out in the end.

The suggestion that I create a "discount" gallery might be good for some but my volume would make that unworkable. To create that gallery would take a lot of time, and it wouldn't be one gallery, it would have to be many.

Bottom line I guess is that I'm feeling some strains in the system because I'm getting bigger. I'm assuming that Smugmug makes the most money from the big volume sellers so even if it is "difficult", making life easier for the bigger sellers should be a high priority. I sure hope so.

later, Al

[bham]

Well implementing it will take time but then as you shoot and upload say a month later you just have to change that one gallery prices and once you change one you can change others by copying the prices set on another gallery with one click. Not that much time compared to what it took to upload. Now I wouldn't suggest increasing every month, week, etc unless you really want to keep up with it. Have a reduced price for a certain time, then increases and stays. Maybe after x time it either increases or you hide the gallery and put a note to contact you for pics from the past. Then you can make the gallery public again, with a price increase.

You gotta do what is feasible and works for you depending on your volume, time, etc. You may experiment with it and find what works for your customers.

[bham]

Time for me to put another 2 cents in.

I am doing pretty well with print sales, but I KNOW I could do much better if I had some sort of mechanism to get my customers off their *** and make their orders. In the last few months I've had MANY, MANY customers tell me that they were going to buy some pictures, a some do, but a lot I'm still waiting for. A coupon would work to get them to move, I know it would.

I've been experimenting with just sending an email to a potential customer that had shown some interest and offer a discount for a certain time. It's worked EVERY TIME! But it is a royal pain in the butt to implement it. I spend so much time it's eating up all my profit on the sale. Doesn't make any sense.

So Smugmug, how about it? You are losing sales and I'm losing sales. I like your service a lot but I've got to tell you not having any way to easily have a "sale" is really bothersome to the point where I owe it to myself to look around again.

What do you other photographers do when you want to have a sale?

thanks, Al
Another idea you could have two galleries, one with the discount public and the regular price one private, then when the time comes switch it. This would probably be more hassle then changing the prices though, it would be for me.

I tend to have the same price structures for different categories to ease with price changes, one click it copies prices set for another gallery.

[Doug Munn - JLM PHOTO]

First off, I LOVE YOUR SERVICE!!

You folks are very responsive and down to earth.

In comparing sites and services, I've been taking a long hard look at Photoreflect, specifically for flexibility package pricing, discounts and coupons. I say "long and hard" because I have been very satisfied with our site on Smugmug.

I know that their client base is more narrowly focused than yours, hence their feature set is different. However, the discount and coupon features are attractive, as well as the ability to have a choice of fullfilment options (their lab or our own fullfilment). I also don't know the specific ins and outs of how they do the discount/package/coupon features, either.

We concentrate on event photography of many types. As we continue to evaluate our offerings, we may find that we have two use both hosting services to meet the needs of our different product offerings.

If you see that it would fit your model, to add such features as discounts, package flexibility, coupons, etc., that would be AWSOME!!! Also, the choice of fullfilment would be great, too. We can then keep our eggs in one nice basket.

Doug

[Andy]

First off, I LOVE YOUR SERVICE!!

You folks are very responsive and down to earth.

In comparing sites and services, I've been taking a long hard look at Photoreflect, specifically for flexibility package pricing, discounts and coupons. I say "long and hard" because I have been very satisfied with our site on Smugmug.

I know that their client base is more narrowly focused than yours, hence their feature set is different. However, the discount and coupon features are attractive, as well as the ability to have a choice of fullfilment options (their lab or our own fullfilment). I also don't know the specific ins and outs of how they do the discount/package/coupon features, either.

We concentrate on event photography of many types. As we continue to evaluate our offerings, we may find that we have two use both hosting services to meet the needs of our different product offerings.

If you see that it would fit your model, to add such features as discounts, package flexibility, coupons, etc., that would be AWSOME!!! Also, the choice of fullfilment would be great, too. We can then keep our eggs in one nice basket.

Doug

Hi Doug, thanks for writing, and thanks for the kind words!

I recently tried out PhotoReflect. There's some cool features. But there are, IMO, some considerations, too. Take customer service. Any service issue is between the pro and the lab - PhotoReflect won't do anything, to help you or your client. They wil, after the fact, "liase" between you and the lab, for credits, etc but they won't do anything NOW, when the pros client is having an issue.

We routinely handle all sorts of pro's customer requests on a daily basis. Anything from "I ordered the wrong size" to "Ack - I put the wrong address in!" to "hey, the post office mangled my 8x10!" to "erem.... can you tell me why the color is off?" Most pros love the fact that we handle this stuff for their clients (and we feel that this one reason why you share 15% with us!). As an example, sometimes even pros don't get the color right for our lab - the client writes us, complaining - we happily, and speedily (usually the same day) color correct the files (if the pro won't or can't do it) and issue a no-charge reprint for that customer. All of this adds up to our pros having more time to shoot more, and sell more, and gain more clients.

We'd love to have packages and discounts and we're talking about it all the time. No promises on if/when but stay tuned to Dgrin, and also to our release notes blog (http://blogs.smugmug.com/release-notes/) (you can subscribe via RSS), you'll know as soon as new features are released!

Thanks again for being our customer, and for your time and valuable input.

All the best,

[mercphoto]

Being able to change a gallery's price by category or sub-category would be very useful. Is there a way to do that now? I don't see it if there is.
There is not, but would be useful indeed. In the custom pro pricing page there are currently options for image, gallery and portfolio. What you are suggesting is image, gallery, sub-category, category and portfolio.

One thing I've found is that the more I divide up my event by gallery the better it is (for my customers). For example, I might do a track meet and take 700 pictures. I'll divide that up by event and sometimes by men and women depending how big the galleries are. I'm shooting for under 100 photos in a gallery. It adds up to more work for me but I figure if I don't make it easy for my customers I'm going to lose out in the end.
You should consider putting all the photos for an event into one gallery and then use keywords to sort for the customers. One gallery for you, but multiple faces for your customers. The track meet probably has numbers on the competitors. Put in a keyword for the number, another for the person's sex, another for the event name or date, etc.

See: http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/854362
That is from the Austin Grand Prix and is over 1600 images. Notice all the links in the gallery description. Every racing image on my site is keyworded with at least three keywords. One for the number, one for the track, and one for the date.

[Andy]

See: http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/854362
That is from the Austin Grand Prix and is over 1600 images. Notice all the links in the gallery description. Every racing image on my site is keyworded with at least three keywords. One for the number, one for the track, and one for the date.


Bill, this is awesome. :clap :clap

I've linked this technique into my Pro Tips thread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=201563&posted=1#post201563)

Thanks :thumb

[coach-al]

See: http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/854362
That is from the Austin Grand Prix and is over 1600 images. Notice all the links in the gallery description. Every racing image on my site is keyworded with at least three keywords. One for the number, one for the track, and one for the date.[/QUOTE]
-------------------------

I took a look at your gallery and love the organization. But, please tell me there is an easy way to keyword groups of images, or do you (UGH!) do each image individually?

thanks, Al

[mercphoto]

I took a look at your gallery and love the organization. But, please tell me there is an easy way to keyword groups of images, or do you (UGH!) do each image individually?
Individually. Currently I use Photoshop's File Browser to do this but there must be a better way. I'm updating to CS2 soon, so maybe the Bridge is better at this. Or maybe I need to buy iVMP instead. Dunno. Bear in mind the only thing I need to do individually is the number itself. I can bulk-keyword the track name and the event date easily enough with CS. I do the keywording at the same time I sort through the photos decide what to keep and what to pitch, so its not as bad as it sounds.

[pat.kane]

There are plenty of programs out there that will allow you to assign keywords to a batch of images. Maybe Google something like IPTC batch keywords.

Personally, I use ThumbsPlus from Cerious Software and I keyword every image I take, usually via batch mode initially, then individually where required.

[coach-al]

Individually. Currently I use Photoshop's File Browser to do this but there must be a better way. I'm updating to CS2 soon, so maybe the Bridge is better at this. Or maybe I need to buy iVMP instead. Dunno. Bear in mind the only thing I need to do individually is the number itself. I can bulk-keyword the track name and the event date easily enough with CS. I do the keywording at the same time I sort through the photos decide what to keep and what to pitch, so its not as bad as it sounds.
Hi Bill,

I'm looking around for a way to do bulk keywording and have not found anything I'm satisfied with yet. Did you say you did the bulk keywording with CS? If you did, how did you do it? With an action? Could you give me some guidance?

Thanks, Al

[mercphoto]

I'm looking around for a way to do bulk keywording and have not found anything I'm satisfied with yet. Did you say you did the bulk keywording with CS? If you did, how did you do it? With an action? Could you give me some guidance?
You just select all the images you want to keyword in the File Browser, then click on the keyword you want to assign.

[coach-al]

You just select all the images you want to keyword in the File Browser, then click on the keyword you want to assign.
Thanks Bill. It was right in front of me. CS is so big, great program but sometimes too big! I'm rethinking this whole keyword thing thanks to you.:))

later, Al

[Cindy]

I've been struggling with setting up discounts, sales, etc and putting lots of thoughts into how to best implement this.

For a time I did set up sport galleries to discount prices for x amount of days (usually 1-2 weeks) then the prices went up. I found that worked pretty good at encouraging people to order right away but it was a BIG pain in the rear to remember which galleries I'd discounted and when to change them.

Andy you mentioned a possible box to tick to e-maill us a reminder to change prices... would this be something that could be implemented on a gallery by gallery basis as a smugmug service? How would it work.

Here's 2 things I think would enable this to work better:
1) Addat least 2 more Gallery Price structures. We currently have Portfolio only and if we want it any other way we need to customize it on a per gallery basis. Add Portfolio 2 & 3 ( or custom 1, 2, etc. which we could set up to be our discounted sale price list(s).
2) And here's the biggie to make this work easily!!! Add a way to see a LIST/chart of ALL our galleries at once & the current price structure they fall under.
Across the top of the page have a list of price plan structures (Portfolio 1, 2, 3, etc... if we could name these yeah... that would be even better).
This list would then have little buttons for us to quickly run down and check off which price structure is to go with which gallery.

This way I could see at a glance if I'd left x gallery in the discount list to long. And quickly change it to the Normal Portfolio price list, While at the same time make changes to all my other galleries.

Would something like this work for others?????
Let me know what you'll think? Most importanly lets each keep trying to think of creative but good options that smugmug might be able to easily implement for us.

Thanks to all & Happy Shooting!

[Cindy]

I just realized someone will probably post back immediatly with a 'you can allready set galleries on a per gallery price list'.

Yes... but the way it's set up it's a pain.
One... you have to remember which gallery is set at which price currently to know which one to 'apply to' and
Two... it would just be so much easier to create more than one default price lists such as Portfolio that we could quickly & easily choose from when creating the gallery and changing it later.

And I REALLY want a list to see how each gallery is set to price with one glance. As it is I have to go to every gallery and check it.

Thanks,
Cindy

[Matthew Saville]

CS2 does offer quite a few improvements in these aspects, I think. Mostly stuff I haven't gotten into yet lol, but I'm beginning to discover the powerful-ness of Bridge. You can do some amazing stuff with it, with regards to organization and classification. Some didn't like the changes from CS, but I'm digging it bigtime.

For what it's worth, WHCC and their partner sites offer packages and the like. However, you must kiss goodbye the beautiful interface and go-between that is smugmug, and say hello to FTP uploading and intricate pricing/ordering rules etc. Currently this is an issue on my table and Smugmug wins hands down for beautiful, easy, customer-support intensive service, whereas WHCC is taking the cake once that's all taken care of and their prints leave the lab, un-molested, never with "spam", and always with MY name on the back. Oh and 2nd day shipped, for free. :-D

Take care,
-Matt-

[jfriend]

I just realized someone will probably post back immediatly with a 'you can allready set galleries on a per gallery price list'.

Yes... but the way it's set up it's a pain.
One... you have to remember which gallery is set at which price currently to know which one to 'apply to' and
Two... it would just be so much easier to create more than one default price lists such as Portfolio that we could quickly & easily choose from when creating the gallery and changing it later.

And I REALLY want a list to see how each gallery is set to price with one glance. As it is I have to go to every gallery and check it.

Thanks,
CindyI'm not arguing against your feature requests - I agree they would be useful. But, there are some work-arounds that can alleviate some of your pain in the meantime.

You can create your own pricing templates in smugmug. Here's how. Create several private galleries (galleries never intended to be viewed by anyone but you), one for each pricing template you want to have. Put a couple photos in each. Names the galleries to describe the pricing template that each one stands for (you can give them names like "Wedding prices", "Soccer team prices", "Portrait pose prices", etc... Set prices in each gallery according to how you want each pricing template to be. Because these galleries are private they are not meant to be viewed directly by the public, but they will still show up as one of the galleries that you can set prices from.

Now, when you want to set prices to one of your templates, you just have to scroll through the gallery list to find the named template that matches what you are looking for and apply the pricing from that gallery.

If you've already set some pricing on existing galleries, you can even create a template gallery and set it's pricing from one of your existing galleries.

[coach-al]

Thank you,

John, I use your pricing idea currently and it does work well, but as Cindy says that listing idea with all the galleries and the price templates attached to them would be a great step forward. I would add to it the DATE that the template took effect or even better, the NUMBER OF DAYS that pricing structure has been active.

later, Al

[jcdill]

Smugmug Please, please move print packages to high priority for us event photographers, please. I know it's hard... but it's certainly very possible and would increase your profit considerably. At present we event photographers get to pocket what would have otherwise been your %... but we'd rather just let you handle the printing end of it so we can shoot more pictures. :)

At the risk of getting flamed, I solved this by starting to offer my event photos on another service that DOES all of the things we event photographers have been asking for from Smugmug. I'm *amazed* at the increase in sales I've experienced due to these new features.

What are these new features that I'm using on the other service?

1) Coupons. At the event I now tell people that if they want to see their proofs they need to prepay $20, and for their $20 they get a coupon for $20 worth of free prints from my site. When I have $20 from that customer I know I'm not wasting my time preparing their proofs for display. Most customers buy more than $20 when they order - the average is currently $62 per order.

2) Uploading proofs for ordering, followed later by processed images only for images the customer orders. For the event photographer this is a HUGE time savings. I process the proofs quickly and resize them to 600 pixels and upload them in no time. When the orders come in, I open the raw photo, custom process it for exposure, contrast, saturation, then crop to the correct size for the print or item ordered, sharpen, sign and save with a code that indicates the product the file is optimized for. I upload and "process" the image, the service sends the image off to be printed and sent to the customer. (This other service also uses EZPrints, so I'm getting the same high quality prints and products I get from my Smugmug galleries.)
I spend a few minutes each day preparing the prints for orders. Previously I'd spend 2-3 days processing each and every event image before I could upload to Smugmug, because each image had to be ready to print. :-(

These 2 features alone have resulted in dramatic sales increases of over my sales at prior events. Further, this saved me 95% of the time it took to process my event photos for uploading to Smugmug, and 95% of the time it took to upload those photos to Smugmug. I made more money from just one event (in just one month) with this other service than I made with all of my events and private photo shoots combined on Smugmug over the last year.

In addition, this other service also offers custom watermarking, including the option to watermark with an uploaded image or with custom text, including customize size and opacity. And they offer print packages. My package sales have not been very significant, but I haven't put together a lot of packages yet.

I prepaid for 1 year at Smugmug and that year is coming to an end soon. If I renew my Smugmug account (I'm still pondering this option), I will be renewing at a lower price point since most of the additional features I wanted to use that were only available at the pro level haven't meet my expectations or needs.

So, this is my wake-up call to Smugmug. Other services ARE offering the features Event Photographers have been clamoring for. These other service might not have as much style as Smugmug offers, but I'll swap style for functionality (and sales) anyday.

jc

[Andy]

At the risk of getting flamed, I solved this by starting to offer my event photos on another service that DOES all of the things we event photographers have been asking for from Smugmug. I'm *amazed* at the increase in sales I've experienced due to these new features.

What are these new features that I'm using on the other service?

1) Coupons. At the event I now tell people that if they want to see their proofs they need to prepay $20, and for their $20 they get a coupon for $20 worth of free prints from my site. When I have $20 from that customer I know I'm not wasting my time preparing their proofs for display. Most customers buy more than $20 when they order - the average is currently $62 per order.

2) Uploading proofs for ordering, followed later by processed images only for images the customer orders. For the event photographer this is a HUGE time savings. I process the proofs quickly and resize them to 600 pixels and upload them in no time. When the orders come in, I open the raw photo, custom process it for exposure, contrast, saturation, then crop to the correct size for the print or item ordered, sharpen, sign and save with a code that indicates the product the file is optimized for. I upload and "process" the image, the service sends the image off to be printed and sent to the customer. (This other service also uses EZPrints, so I'm getting the same high quality prints and products I get from my Smugmug galleries.)
I spend a few minutes each day preparing the prints for orders. Previously I'd spend 2-3 days processing each and every event image before I could upload to Smugmug, because each image had to be ready to print. :-(

These 2 features alone have resulted in dramatic sales increases of over my sales at prior events. Further, this saved me 95% of the time it took to process my event photos for uploading to Smugmug, and 95% of the time it took to upload those photos to Smugmug. I made more money from just one event (in just one month) with this other service than I made with all of my events and private photo shoots combined on Smugmug over the last year.

In addition, this other service also offers custom watermarking, including the option to watermark with an uploaded image or with custom text, including customize size and opacity. And they offer print packages. My package sales have not been very significant, but I haven't put together a lot of packages yet.

I prepaid for 1 year at Smugmug and that year is coming to an end soon. If I renew my Smugmug account (I'm still pondering this option), I will be renewing at a lower price point since most of the additional features I wanted to use that were only available at the pro level haven't meet my expectations or needs.

So, this is my wake-up call to Smugmug. Other services ARE offering the features Event Photographers have been clamoring for. These other service might not have as much style as Smugmug offers, but I'll swap style for functionality (and sales) anyday.

jc

Hi JC,

Many thanks for posting. Proof and reupload, and custom watermarks are extremely high on our priority list. Thanks for making it so clear why it's important to you event photogs.

All the best,

Andy
SmugMug

[coach-al]

Hi JC,

Many thanks for posting. Proof and reupload, and custom watermarks are extremely high on our priority list. Thanks for making it so clear why it's important to you event photogs.

All the best,

Andy
SmugMug Andy, I didn't hear you mention coupons on your priority list? I just want to make it clear that proof, reupload and custom watermarks are very low on my priority list. To tell the truth, they are not even on my priority list and I'm an event photographer too.

But COUPONS are my absolute number 1. I love a lot about smugmug but I really feel that coupons are necessary for my business. This is not just a convenience feature, it will have a big impact on sales (both Smugmug's and mine). And I know this is true because I've tested it. Since I continue to hear nothing but it's too hard to implement I will be forced to check out other services. Maybe I'll use 2 services, or maybe this other service will meet my needs. We'll see.

JC's message should certainly be a wakeup call to Smugmug. Please consider this message a strong second of that wakeup call.

later, Al

[Andy]

Andy, I didn't hear you mention coupons on your priority list? I just want to make it clear that proof, reupload and custom watermarks are very low on my priority list. To tell the truth, they are not even on my priority list and I'm an event photographer too.

But COUPONS are my absolute number 1. I love a lot about smugmug but I really feel that coupons are necessary for my business. This is not just a convenience feature, it will have a big impact on sales (both Smugmug's and mine). And I know this is true because I've tested it. Since I continue to hear nothing but it's too hard to implement I will be forced to check out other services. Maybe I'll use 2 services, or maybe this other service will meet my needs. We'll see.

JC's message should certainly be a wakeup call to Smugmug. Please consider this message a strong second of that wakeup call.

later, Al

Hi Al, I can promise you that we're awake :D we read, and listen to every single request here on dgrin, and via our help@smugmug.com email.

Onethumb said this about coupons (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=13042&highlight=coupons) and I've repeated it a bunch of times... it's something we'd like to do but we're always faced with some mathematical issues, as well as cart-complexity issues. We talk about it all the time, but I can't promise if or when we'll have them.

We'd be sorry to see you use another service - but we do understand how important coupons are to you.

I wish I had a better answer for you,

[coach-al]

Onethumb said this about coupons (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=13042&highlight=coupons) and I've repeated it a bunch of times... it's something we'd like to do but we're always faced with some mathematical issues, as well as cart-complexity issues. We talk about it all the time, but I can't promise if or when we'll have them.

We'd be sorry to see you use another service - but we do understand how important coupons are to you.

I wish I had a better answer for you,
Thanks Andy,

I just read all of that Onethumb thread. An interesting read and I agree strongly with the users. Those ideas all sound great to me. I'm baffled as why you can't at least come up with some sort of compromise to give us something in this area.

Put restrictions on the coupon. We only want it to work for our galleries anyway. There must be a way to mark it only good for a certain photographer's gallery. The way I set up my galleries I don't think there is that much crossover into other photographer's galleries. I don't restrict it but my events are specific to my customers. I imagine most event photographers are similar.

Oh well, I know you've heard me. I will be spending the day setting up a gallery on this other service. There is no sign up fee but there are restrictions on upload storage so maybe a dual system will work for me.

You do realize that the way Smugmug is set up that it could become the main storage area and this other site could get all the promotion sales? Time to stop saying how hard it is and attack it in my humble opinion. I'd much rather keep all my business with you.

later, Al

[mercphoto]

Onethumb said this about coupons (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=13042&highlight=coupons) and I've repeated it a bunch of times... it's something we'd like to do but we're always faced with some mathematical issues, as well as cart-complexity issues. We talk about it all the time, but I can't promise if or when we'll have them.
The use of coupons mentioned in this thread (basically, a pre-paid dollar amount to the customer from the photographer) is different than the coupon mentioned in Onethumb's thread (which is a % discount). I agree the discount method has potential mathematical pricing difficulties. However, the pre-paid coupon route does not have that particular problem. Possibly pre-paid coupons would be easier than discount coupons?

[Andy]

The use of coupons mentioned in this thread (basically, a pre-paid dollar amount to the customer from the photographer) is different than the coupon mentioned in Onethumb's thread (which is a % discount). I agree the discount method has potential mathematical pricing difficulties. However, the pre-paid coupon route does not have that particular problem. Possibly pre-paid coupons would be easier than discount coupons?

Thanks Bill for the clarification. This is something that we're discussing. Thanks also to everyone for their input here in this thread, it's really valuable and we appreciate it so much.

No promises on if/when but we're talking about it!

[cybercrypt13]

I would just like to voice an opinion here on this and other related topics. I joined smugmug in order to sale and post my photos for MY customers easily and have them be able to purchase on line and without having to bother me.

With that said, If there was any way on earth I could opt out of the typical smugmug thought pattern and just have my site, my customers and my features I would do it in a second. I did not buy into your services because I think I'll sale a tone of pictures to other people (not my customers) on your site. I joined for the benefits to my customers only.

My largest and really my only problem with your services is that you limit my functions because you are allowing people to purchase from 100 different photographers at once. That might be great for everyone else, but me personally its very annoying have such a limiting shopping cart experience just because of they way you have chosen to setup your services.

I am paying a yearly subscription as well as smugmug takes 15% of my profits to further support their services. It would be nice if we could have a little more available to us for all this. It might not mean much at this point, but if you ever loose me as a customer its going to most likely be because of these types of issues.

I would love to have the option to opt in or out of your typical business model. If I opt out then you don't provide any of my photos in customer searches, but you allow me more options in my shopping cart to support my own customers. Such as back buttons when they clear a shopping cart, coupons, qty discount rates as well as a little customization of the cart itself so that it fits in with the rest of my template layouts.

From a programming perspective this would not be that big a deal and would add an extra layer to your services for your professional clients.

Just my 2 cents...

[mercphoto]

With that said, If there was any way on earth I could opt out of the typical smugmug thought pattern and just have my site, my customers and my features I would do it in a second. I did not buy into your services because I think I'll sale a tone of pictures to other people (not my customers) on your site. I joined for the benefits to my customers only.
I'm not trying to be flippant when I say this but its obvious that you CAN opt out of the typical smugmug thought pattern. Joining Smugmug is entirely voluntary of course. You can have your own site developed that tailors exactly to your needs if you wish. Or a switch to Photo Reflect or Exposure Manager, etc.

There are things I do and don't like about Smugmug. There are features I would like have added that are not there yet. Some will get there, some will not. But for now, for the price I pay for Smugmug, going it alone or with the other services I've seen is a step down from what I currently have. Its why I stay where I'm at.

I can understand people wanting improvements to Smugmug. What I can't understand is how personally some people seem to take the "limitations" of Smugmug. As if SM is out to screw you somehow. Chill people. This is a business. They offer a particular service for a particular price. You either like it or you don't. You either spend your money with this merchant or with another.

Signed, a mostly satisfied SM user.

[Andy]

Hi Glenn, Many thanks for posting - we love to hear it straight like this.

I would just like to voice an opinion here on this and other related topics. I joined smugmug in order to sale and post my photos for MY customers easily and have them be able to purchase on line and without having to bother me.

With that said, If there was any way on earth I could opt out of the typical smugmug thought pattern and just have my site, my customers and my features I would do it in a second. I did not buy into your services because I think I'll sale a tone of pictures to other people (not my customers) on your site. I joined for the benefits to my customers only.

Are you saying that you don't want the SmugMug Guarantee (http://gshutter.smugmug.com/gallery/970734) that you link on your site? Most of our pros really love it that we handle any issues for their customers, thereby freeing up their time to shoot, and get more customers!


My largest and really my only problem with your services is that you limit my functions because you are allowing people to purchase from 100 different photographers at once. That might be great for everyone else, but me personally its very annoying have such a limiting shopping cart experience just because of they way you have chosen to setup your services.

I'm not sure what we're limiting here - could you please elaborate? As I've said in other threads, we're constantly innovating and offering new features. And I and others on the team have commented on stuff that we're trying to come out with -- listening to the suggestions from our customers. Some things take longer than others, though, and we appreciate your patience.

I am paying a yearly subscription as well as smugmug takes 15% of my profits to further support their services. It would be nice if we could have a little more available to us for all this. It might not mean much at this point, but if you ever loose me as a customer its going to most likely be because of these types of issues.

15% fee covers the complete cost of the transaction, shopping cart functionality, and customer service - and our guarantee. If you don't see value in it well, then, I'm not sure what I can say to convince you! What I can tell you is that we deal with pro's customers all day long - far and away the majority of help is provided within 15 minutes, almost all within an hour - and rarely, longer. This is 24/7 365 days a year. I know, because I was re-doing some pro's customers orders on Thanksgiving... (a new fellow, he didn't quite understand calibration and color issues fully, so I redid by hand, an entire order).



I would love to have the option to opt in or out of your typical business model. If I opt out then you don't provide any of my photos in customer searches, but you allow me more options in my shopping cart to support my own customers. Such as back buttons when they clear a shopping cart, coupons, qty discount rates as well as a little customization of the cart itself so that it fits in with the rest of my template layouts. We've covered the cart customization issue here many times on this forum - we cannot allow cobranding or any customization in the cart, as it's part of the secure part of our site - necessary for the secure transactions - and our dealings with your customer's credit card.



From a programming perspective this would not be that big a deal and would add an extra layer to your services for your professional clients.

Just my 2 cents...

It's really interesting to watch an engineer read this type of statement - what may seem trivial to a lay person is often in fact, quite complicated.

We don't claim to be a site for everyone, Glenn. We do try really super hard though, to provide a beautiful viewing and buying experience, and world-class customer support - for our pros, and for their customers, too.

We hope you'll stay. Either way, thank you so very much for the valuable input.

[cybercrypt13]

mercphoto,

I don't think anyone has said anything about smugmug being out to screw anyone. I also think it should be obvious that I think they are the best solution in town or I wouldn't be with them. However, anytime I see anyone ask for a process change or enhancement, we get the same answers. "Can't because its possible someone will be buying from more than one photographer". That just seems a rediculous response when I would imagine the majority of their sales come from single photographer orders. Maybe I'm wrong but I just don't see that many people going to smugmug and buying from 10 photographers in a single setting. But again, I don't have access to smugmug's records to know anything about this...

However, good or not, its not free and we do pay for it. Therefore we all have the right to our opinions. You are happy and that is great. I am happy but would like to have things work the way it would make more sense for MY customers. I am not interested in limiting my customers just because its possible to order from more photographers at the same time...

Sorry if I offended you..

[cybercrypt13]

Andy, It could be funny to see them read my statement, however, I am a software engineer so I do know quite a bit about what it takes to do things. While I'm not an expert at CSS I do know quite a bit about the other aspects of how things work and what it takes to do what.

As far as your guarantee, I don't see anywhere that I said it was a bad thing or that I wasn't interested in it. Here is a very simple but very negative issue that you can't fix because of the fact that my customer Could order (but won't be) from other photographers. If they mess up and want to clear their cart and start over, you leave them on a page that has no links back to my site. Then they have only the option to hit a back button that shows them a full cart again. Granted if they hit back one more time it will still be empty but most people don't know this. They look for a way to get back...

You have no abilities to do qty discounts or pricing packages, again for the same reasons. So far any enhancement I've asked for related to the shopping cart has received the exact same answer.

I'm also not speaking of the backend order processing pages as I fully agree that you could not possibly give us access to those parts of the process, however, the shopping cart page is nothing more than a front end to choose products.

Again, I'm not upset and am happy with smugmug, just stating an opinion on an observation that you guys may not notice you do. ...

[Andy]

Andy, It could be funny to see them read my statement, however, I am a software engineer so I do know quite a bit about what it takes to do things. While I'm not an expert at CSS I do know quite a bit about the other aspects of how things work and what it takes to do what.

As far as your guarantee, I don't see anywhere that I said it was a bad thing or that I wasn't interested in it. Here is a very simple but very negative issue that you can't fix because of the fact that my customer Could order (but won't be) from other photographers. If they mess up and want to clear their cart and start over, you leave them on a page that has no links back to my site. Then they have only the option to hit a back button that shows them a full cart again. Granted if they hit back one more time it will still be empty but most people don't know this. They look for a way to get back...

You have no abilities to do qty discounts or pricing packages, again for the same reasons. So far any enhancement I've asked for related to the shopping cart has received the exact same answer.

I'm also not speaking of the backend order processing pages as I fully agree that you could not possibly give us access to those parts of the process, however, the shopping cart page is nothing more than a front end to choose products.

Again, I'm not upset and am happy with smugmug, just stating an opinion on an observation that you guys may not notice you do. ...

Hi Glenn, thanks again for posting - we really appreciate your direct feedback!

[bham]

Smugmug - The ultimate in photo sharing.

Just remember this was the goal, and is still the mission, vision of the company (I assume, since it is on the homepage). Yes all the things we want would be great, but the origin of the company wasn't the ultimate pro's profitable, fully customizable, everything you want site.

Hey I want improvements but realize everything is not as easy as snapping your finger. The things they have accomplished so far have exceeded my expectations.

I think the pre-paid coupon is a great possibility and maybe be much easier to implement, maybe not. :scratch

Hope those who coupons are important to figure a out a way to do it here or there.:):

[cybercrypt13]

Smugmug - The ultimate in photo sharing.

Just remember this was the goal, and is still the mission, vision of the company (I assume, since it is on the homepage). Yes all the things we want would be great, but the origin of the company wasn't the ultimate pro's profitable, fully customizable, everything you want site.

Hey I want improvements but realize everything is not as easy as snapping your finger. The things they have accomplished so far have exceeded my expectations.

I think the pre-paid coupon is a great possibility and maybe be much easier to implement, maybe not. :scratch

Hope those who coupons are important to figure a out a way to do it here or there.:):
I don't see your point. Photo sharing? How does that say: "We let you buy photos from 10 photographers at once?"

I'm sorry, but at some point you have to just say it... If you are making the majority of your money on tom and betty and aren't really that concerned with making any changes at all because 80% of your sales are multi-photographer sales, then just say it. At least I won't hang around hoping. I can either decide to stay, based on its own merits or go somewhere else. Everything in between is just excuses to me.

I'd love to know what percent of sales are multi-photographer purchases.

Also, I don't look at the fact that 95% of your customers are happy. Remember, I'm a software engineer too and the one thing I've learned is that no matter what things you do, most people will never know you did them. Most people either don't pay attention, or just plain don't care about anything. The accept things for the way they are. Because I write software for a living I am always trying to improve things. Of the 700 business customers I have to support, I can tell you that less than 2% of them challenge us. The rest, they just do their thing and never tax the system...

I'll stop though because it sounds like I'm the only one with this opinion...

[flyingpylon]

Not to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly what I mean when I say that Smugmug doesn't completely set expectations properly. There is a huge difference between "I sell my photos on my smugmug-hosted web site and they take 15% of the purchase price for their services" versus "My photos are for sale at smugmug and when they sell one, they send me 85% of the purchase price". A lot of people expect the former and are frustrated when they find out it's the latter.

My comment has nothing to do with whether 85/15 is "worth it" or whether smugmug should or should not be run this way. I'm just pointing out what I see as a very common misunderstanding that could be better addressed at the very beginning.

[Andy]

Not to beat a dead horse, but this is exactly what I mean when I say that Smugmug doesn't completely set expectations properly. There is a huge difference between "I sell my photos on my smugmug-hosted web site and they take 15% of the purchase price for their services" versus "My photos are for sale at smugmug and when they sell one, they send me 85% of the purchase price". A lot of people expect the former and are frustrated when they find out it's the latter.

My comment has nothing to do with whether 85/15 is "worth it" or whether smugmug should or should not be run this way. I'm just pointing out what I see as a very common misunderstanding that could be better addressed at the very beginning.

Hi Flyingpylon, thanks for posting.

I must be dense today, becuase I'm not following you at all. Are we not being clear on what the 15% is for?

[flyingpylon]

Hi Flyingpylon, thanks for posting.

I must be dense today, becuase I'm not following you at all. Are we not being clear on what the 15% is for?No, that's not it exactly. It's the business relationship that's not clear to many people. It took me a while to catch on as well.

Many people assume that smugmug is providing them a web-based store to sell their products as they see fit. They assume smugmug should be a transparent technology provider that's helps the photographer transact business with their customers.

However, I feel smugmug operates more as a consignment store or outsourced fulfillment house. The photographer is more of a vendor that places their photos in the smugmug-owned store where they are sold along with those from other vendors. The photographer can customize their "shelves" in the store, but in the end the customers check out at smugmug's registers and they are smugmug's customers.

The problem is that when people assume they are operating under the first scenario, they feel justified in expecting certain features or functionality that would help them run *their* store the way *they* want. But since in reality the second scenario is more correct, certain things are either not possible or are inherently more complex. People get upset, and it just seems like if the misunderstanding had been avoided with some better information up front, everyone would be happier.

I think smugmug's business model is somewhat unique (at least among photo sites), and people mistakenly assume it's something else. I think it needs to be made more clear how things work.

[mercphoto]

No, that's not it exactly. It's the business relationship that's not clear to many people. It took me a while to catch on as well.

Many people assume that smugmug is providing them a web-based store to sell their products as they see fit. They assume smugmug should be a transparent technology provider that's helps the photographer transact business with their customers.

However, I feel smugmug operates more as a consignment store or outsourced fulfillment house. The photographer is more of a vendor that places their photos in the smugmug-owned store where they are sold along with those from other vendors. The photographer can customize their "shelves" in the store, but in the end the customers check out at smugmug's registers and they are smugmug's customers.

I agree with Flyingpylon's assessment of how many people probably think SM operates versus how it actually operates. Think of an antique mall as an example. There may be 50 individual vendors under one roof who are renting floor space. But in the end, the customer goes to the Mall's check-out line and gives money to the Mall, not the antique dealer.

The thing is, with the antique mall example its pretty obvious what is going on to the customer. Not quite so with Smugmug.

My own customers often find this confusing as well. They believe they are buying from ME. Fortunately this has caused me little gripe so far, and the very few customer support issues I've had I have been able to re-direct to Smugmug to handle the issue. (and they do so quickly).

How to remedy this I'm not so sure. Since it has impacted me very little I've given little thought to this particular issue.

[jfriend]

No, that's not it exactly. It's the business relationship that's not clear to many people. It took me a while to catch on as well.

Many people assume that smugmug is providing them a web-based store to sell their products as they see fit. They assume smugmug should be a transparent technology provider that's helps the photographer transact business with their customers.

However, I feel smugmug operates more as a consignment store or outsourced fulfillment house. The photographer is more of a vendor that places their photos in the smugmug-owned store where they are sold along with those from other vendors. The photographer can customize their "shelves" in the store, but in the end the customers check out at smugmug's registers and they are smugmug's customers.

The problem is that when people assume they are operating under the first scenario, they feel justified in expecting certain features or functionality that would help them run *their* store the way *they* want. But since in reality the second scenario is more correct, certain things are either not possible or are inherently more complex. People get upset, and it just seems like if the misunderstanding had been avoided with some better information up front, everyone would be happier.

I think smugmug's business model is somewhat unique (at least among photo sites), and people mistakenly assume it's something else. I think it needs to be made more clear how things work.FlyingPylon - this is an excellent summary of what's going on in this argument.

It appears that most pros expect smugmug to be a "technology and infrastructure provider" and want smumug to get out of the way as much as possible letting the pro control as much of the customer interaction as they desire. Smugmug does not have that agenda. From seeing this debate for more than a year, it feels like smugmug wants as many pros as they can attract to hang out at smugmug, but they want everyone to know that the pros are hanging out at smugmug and they don't want to be "transparent" in any way. I understand that the customer needs to understand that support on print issues comes from smugmug and that the credit card statement will say smugmug on it, but those problems could be solved without denying the pros much of the experience they are asking for (like a branding presence in the cart, for example).

That leads to unfullfilled expectations for things like branding in the shopping cart, custom backprinting, discount coupons, print packages, retouch-on-demand, selling digital files, full HTML control of the page, better watermarks, etc... Some of those are just pro-features that smugmug hasn't gotten to yet, but several are exactly what FlyingPylon describes - a mismatch in expectation and agenda.

This thread about the smugmug link at the bottom of the page is an exact encapsulation of such an issue. A pro didn't like that the link made it too easy for his customers to see the non-marke-up print prices (consistent with the expectations of a transparent technology provider). Smugmug's answer was that customers need to know that smugmug itself is behind the fullfillment and service aspects of the pro's site (consistent with the consignment store model). Our response to smugmug was that the current link is a marketing/advertising link that doesn't do what pros want and doesn't do what smugmug said was the reason for having the link there in the first place.

The other main thing I think is going on here is that smugmug's main business isn't serving pros. Its main business is serving the masses who aren't after most of the things being asked for here. For reasons we don't know, they decided to make a pro-offering and to offer some pro-like features that were convenient for them to implement within their main system. But, I don't get the impression that they are really going to sleep at night thinking about how they can create a giant "pro" business serving people who make serious money off photography. Rather, it feels from the outside, that they are interested in finding ways to get more of their existing users to be attracted to a higher priced service offering by putting some compelling features into a "pro package", but aren't really trying to beat the other "pro services" out there. If they were, they simply couldn't ignore the types of things that an event photographer need to really drive business that were so aptly described earlier in the thread (coupons, retouch-on-demand, print packages, etc...).

I'd add one more thing that's actually a positive for smugmug. The reason you see people griping about this is because they like a lot that smugmug has to offer and it isn't easy to find some of the nice things that smugmug has elsewhere. But, at the same time, when pros get the feeling that smugmug just doens't share their "pro agenda", they get frustrated. They want things to work out at smugmug because there's a lot to like, but they start to sense that smugmug may not be going in the right direction for them.

P.S. It also doesn't help that smugmug never shares anything about upcoming features that would be interesting to pros. That means that you can never get any credit for anything that you are planning to do or are already working on. In fact, you can only get credit with your customers for things that are already delivered. I know you don't want to make promises that you can't keep, but keeping your customers in the dark about what you do want to do is probably not the smartest business decision if you want to keep the most vocal customers with the most unmet needs (your pros) unless you really aren't planning on doing much of it at all.

[cybercrypt13]

Here Here!!

I'll also add, that if all the pros leave to go somewhere else, smugmugs photos they are making so much money on will dry up and they won't be making the sales they do today. If all you have is aunt susie and marian showing the family their photos then you'd basically become a snapfish...

I don't begin to claim that I bring enough business to smugmug yet for them to care much about whether I come or go, and I'm sure they are starting to wish I'd go, but their solution looks like it was designed for ma and pa with the pro thing being an after thought. It has a lot to offer I agree, however, with the things it lacks, I am beginning to think that $150/year plus 15% on top is a little much for what I'm getting. Don't get me wrong, I like most of what is available, but I just don't see this becoming a long lasting relationship with the constant reminders that I'm not the customer type they are mostly focused on...

I hope that changes but at the moment I'm not all that comfortable with where I am sitting...

Just my 2 cents...

[Andy]

Hi John - thanks for such a great post.

FlyingPylon - this is an excellent summary of what's going on in this argument.

It appears that most pros expect smugmug to be a "technology and infrastructure provider" and want smumug to get out of the way as much as possible letting the pro control as much of the customer interaction as they desire.

I can tell you that a very small percentage of our pros post here on Dgrin -- that doesn't in any way diminish the value of the suggestions and comments made here - but we listen to all of our pros - Dgrin/forum posters as well as those that have never, ever posted online (way the majority). In fact, I just spent the past weeks speaking live by phone to many many of our pros (over 100), and without question, the majority of these would disagree with your statement above - they *want* us to be there for their customers. To help them. So they can be out there, shooting more and getting more customers.


Smugmug does not have that agenda. From seeing this debate for more than a year, it feels like smugmug wants as many pros as they can attract to hang out at smugmug, but they want everyone to know that the pros are hanging out at smugmug and they don't want to be "transparent" in any way. I understand that the customer needs to understand that support on print issues comes from smugmug and that the credit card statement will say smugmug on it, but those problems could be solved without denying the pros much of the experience they are asking for (like a branding presence in the cart, for example).

If there's a way to acheive this, we'd love to do it. For now, the cart is the way it is. Not co-branded.



That leads to unfullfilled expectations for things like branding in the shopping cart, custom backprinting, discount coupons, print packages, retouch-on-demand, selling digital files, full HTML control of the page, better watermarks, etc... Some of those are just pro-features that smugmug hasn't gotten to yet, but several are exactly what FlyingPylon describes - a mismatch in expectation and agenda.

Many of these are in the works features we'd love to implement, and we've commented on them in other threads. Specifically, backprinting, watermarking, proof and reupload, digital downloads... But we never promise if or when, only that "we're listening" and stay tuned... I don't know how much more open we can be, without compromising anything.

This thread about the smugmug link at the bottom of the page is an exact encapsulation of such an issue. A pro didn't like that the link made it too easy for his customers to see the non-marke-up print prices (consistent with the expectations of a transparent technology provider). Smugmug's answer was that customers need to know that smugmug itself is behind the fullfillment and service aspects of the pro's site (consistent with the consignment store model). Our response to smugmug was that the current link is a marketing/advertising link that doesn't do what pros want and doesn't do what smugmug said was the reason for having the link there in the first place.

The other main thing I think is going on here is that smugmug's main business isn't serving pros. Its main business is serving the masses who aren't after most of the things being asked for here. For reasons we don't know, they decided to make a pro-offering and to offer some pro-like features that were convenient for them to implement within their main system. But, I don't get the impression that they are really going to sleep at night thinking about how they can create a giant "pro" business serving people who make serious money off photography. Rather, it feels from the outside, that they are interested in finding ways to get more of their existing users to be attracted to a higher priced service offering by putting some compelling features into a "pro package", but aren't really trying to beat the other "pro services" out there. If they were, they simply couldn't ignore the types of things that an event photographer need to really drive business that were so aptly described earlier in the thread (coupons, retouch-on-demand, print packages, etc...).

Hmm. Well, you know that I've joined the company, to take on these very issues. We love our pros, and our pro business - it's critical to our success. My role is, among other things, to specifically look after our pros - make sure we're doing right by them, help to create new features, offerings, service their clients better, and yes - to grow our presence in the pro marketplace. We've set up a Support Center in Salt Lake City - largely because of the growth in our pro business - and we'll continue to grow that, to support the needs of our pros, and their customers, as well as also standard and power users, too. How will we do that? By innovating - providing new features (how about themes -- our most popular feature ever - and yeah you'd be surprised at how many pros are using them - not everyone is a CSS/HTML). More features will come out, too. And also by providing a great interface (style!), reliable service (uptime), and world-class support.

And yeah, we do in fact lay awake at night, working out ways to serve the pro market better.

I'd add one more thing that's actually a positive for smugmug. The reason you see people griping about this is because they like a lot that smugmug has to offer and it isn't easy to find some of the nice things that smugmug has elsewhere. But, at the same time, when pros get the feeling that smugmug just doens't share their "pro agenda", they get frustrated. They want things to work out at smugmug because there's a lot to like, but they start to sense that smugmug may not be going in the right direction for them.

P.S. It also doesn't help that smugmug never shares anything about upcoming features that would be interesting to pros. That means that you can never get any credit for anything that you are planning to do or are already working on. In fact, you can only get credit with your customers for things that are already delivered. I know you don't want to make promises that you can't keep, but keeping your customers in the dark about what you do want to do is probably not the smartest business decision if you want to keep the most vocal customers with the most unmet needs (your pros) unless you really aren't planning on doing much of it at all.

Well, there's another point to consider, too: we don't really want our competitors to know exactly what we're doing, either! I think we've been extremely straight-forward about which features seem "likely" and "not-likely." But we're never going to say YES until we're absolutely certain.


John - your input is really valuable - thanks so much for taking the time.

[DavidTO]

Here Here!!

I'll also add, that if all the pros leave to go somewhere else, smugmugs photos they are making so much money on will dry up and they won't be making the sales they do today. If all you have is aunt susie and marian showing the family their photos then you'd basically become a snapfish...

I don't begin to claim that I bring enough business to smugmug yet for them to care much about whether I come or go, and I'm sure they are starting to wish I'd go, but their solution looks like it was designed for ma and pa with the pro thing being an after thought. It has a lot to offer I agree, however, with the things it lacks, I am beginning to think that $150/year plus 15% on top is a little much for what I'm getting. Don't get me wrong, I like most of what is available, but I just don't see this becoming a long lasting relationship with the constant reminders that I'm not the customer type they are mostly focused on...

I hope that changes but at the moment I'm not all that comfortable with where I am sitting...

Just my 2 cents...

Cyber,

Not sure what all your problem is here, but I have to say:

You've customized the bejeebus out of your site. Doesn't look ma and pa to me. And you've gotten more customer support than I could imagine getting anywhere else. All this for $99/year. No one is paying $150 yet, and you'll be grandfather'd in at that rate for a long time. They haven't promised forever, since that's a really long time, but you will be left at that rate for a LONG time.

I know that pros have a lot of ideas and requests for improving the service, and I see smugmug working hard to implement them in a way that serves their entire customer base.

You've gotten much more than your $99 in customization help alone, not to mention all of the PS work they've done for you.

I agree with you in the long run. Maybe this isn't the place for you. It sure is for me. Great people, great service, I couldn't ask for more.

[cybercrypt13]

I agree that the support has been awesome which is one of the reasons I'm still here. And for the customization help, it was mostly needed due to the entire site being CSS which most other companies don't do for various reasons. But its all good. The site is updated and nice, however, the shopping cart while nice, confuses my customers. It has a few bad processes such as no back button when you clear the cart. I don't care what anyone has to say about that, I program and I know how to fix something like that and its not that difficult. I've even given advise on an easy way to pull it off. However, all I hear is that "the cart is for multiple photographer orders and can't be fixed the way you want it." which means that a customer clears their cart and they're left on a blank page. A NONO in web programming. You never leave a customer without an option...

There are many other things listed on this thread that are also issues. So while I agree that they do have a slick solution, its not for pro's that want options. Its a solution better than most at this moment, but for those wanting a slick solution that will allow you to customize it for your customers, it just doesn't work. We are piggy backing in on a different business model than I was lead to believe at the onset. Or perhaps no one realized these problems existed? yet I see other posts speaking of years which lead me to believe these problems have always existed...

Perhaps since we are paying more money for the services per year we warrant our own block of servers and our own shopping cart processes. Then you could break those away that are not interested in having our photographs in your internal galleries where we can customize our solutions the way we want... But anyway, its all just opinions and we all have them. I'm happy enough for now... but unfortunely still looking for something better...

thanks,

[DavidTO]

I'm happy enough for now... but unfortunely still looking for something better...

thanks,


Good luck finding it.

[cybercrypt13]

Good luck finding it.
lol, at the moment I won't... I'm hoping smugmug will start taking care of these things before I have to. Just not sure thats going to happen either...

[Mike Lane]

Here Here!!

I'll also add, that if all the pros leave to go somewhere else, smugmugs photos they are making so much money on will dry up and they won't be making the sales they do today. If all you have is aunt susie and marian showing the family their photos then you'd basically become a snapfish...

I don't begin to claim that I bring enough business to smugmug yet for them to care much about whether I come or go, and I'm sure they are starting to wish I'd go, but their solution looks like it was designed for ma and pa with the pro thing being an after thought. It has a lot to offer I agree, however, with the things it lacks, I am beginning to think that $150/year plus 15% on top is a little much for what I'm getting. Don't get me wrong, I like most of what is available, but I just don't see this becoming a long lasting relationship with the constant reminders that I'm not the customer type they are mostly focused on...

I hope that changes but at the moment I'm not all that comfortable with where I am sitting...

Just my 2 cents...
I started out with snapfish, smugmug is no snapfish. Surely you agree that there is a balance that a site like smugmug must maintain? The issue is not that they are not focusing on you, the issue is that they are focusing on a much wider spectrum than just you or any of its pros. Yes, the idea is to be a photo sharing site AND to be the best pro photography site out there. The benefits of smugmug are clear. I'm not going to say that there isn't room to grow, everyone including Baldy, OneThumb, JT, and Andy know that. They are busy every single day developing things that everyone including but certainly not limited to the pro account holders ask for. But it's clear that they're not going to jump just because we say jump, nor should they. You say you're a software engineer so you know you have to approach a project of the magnitude of smugmug intelligently and purposefully. You can't pick up project after project and try to make everyone 100% satisfied -- not even your paying customers (which I am one as well).

My opinion is that there is a way to approach these things. Believe me, I talk to these guys on a regular basis, I know they're busy as all get out. Pestering them with requests won't get you any farther than simply stating your ideas. Moreover, threatening to take your business elsewhere (IMHO) won't do anything at all. If you haven't noticed it's way too easy for you to pick up and leave. That is on purpose.

Suggestions are great. Each one is read and pondered upon, and believe me they get thousands of suggestions (dgrin only counts for a small minority of them). So far IMHO they have gone about all of this the right way. Deciding on a project, developing it, and rolling it out 100% before moving on to the next project.

I realize you're a bit frustrated that you perceive that you're being ignored or something. I guarantee you that every one of the developers knows of your concerns too. In the end it's going to be up to Smugmug to decide on the direction that Smugmug goes. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the features as they come out. Provide constructive feedback and enjoy the evolution of the best service out there to an even better service over time.

[rainforest1155]

However, all I hear is that "the cart is for multiple photographer orders and can't be fixed the way you want it." which means that a customer clears their cart and they're left on a blank page. A NONO in web programming. You never leave a customer without an option...Without having closely followed this and all the shopping cart options I really have to agree. I just tried it and the 'cart empty' page is just no good.

Why not simply list the links of last 5 visited sm-pages or just people the visitor had prints in the cart before purging it?? :wink :wink
This could be at least implemented as long as somebody has a better idea! :dunno

Andy?? What about that?

Sebastian

[Andy]

Andy?? What about that?

Sebastian


Thanks for the suggestion, it's certainly a good one..Sebastian - I can promise you that it will be discussed amongst the team!

[Doug Munn - JLM PHOTO]

For the money, Smugmug does a darned good job.

Some implementation tho'ts on the custom pricing/product issue.

1. There are some product combinations that you don't have, and I shouldn't expect you to have, such as some products that we sell using CafePress. Also, we do have special combo packages or prints that we print inhouse or we send to our personal pro lab. It would be WONDERFUL if I could easily extract the image filename from a page and encode it into a button using JavaScript to send to my site so that I can fulfill a customer's complex order requests more easily.

Perhaps, smugmug could expose the filename as a javascript value on the page the same as you do the album number and image ID.

PLEASE??????:clap
----------------------------
2. I see the problem in the shopping cart where you allow people to select from multitudes of albums at any time.

HOWEVER.....

The pricing for a particular picture is determined from THAT picture's album. Since that is the case, could you allow us to program in tiered pricing for albums? That way, if somebody orders multiples of a particular print, they get discounts based on that print's purchases. The calculation's could come from that print's pricing guide established by the photographer.

As for me, I would be happy with discounts for multiple prints of a single print in a single size. First print $x, 2nd print $y, 3+ prints $z. Allow us to set our tiers and discounts within each pricing gallery.

--------------------
3. Coupons - why not have a coupon button on the shopping cart? This would just refresh the screen with coupon blanks on the line with pictures where coupons were allowed. If a valid coupon ID for that picture (based on site, category, sub-c, album, pricing, etc.) is entered, the pricing for that picture (and all other qualified pictures) is adjusted accordigly.


----------------------
4. Combo prints - You have a wide number of products that I don't price out or use.

Why not allow me to create specific packages as products. As each item is created on a product creation page, your base price would appear. That item would appear on all of my price lists and I could then adjust my retail prices for that particular class of pictures (I use different pricing for different stuff). These would not be new products, just combinations of your exisitng products. I could then make my own package discounts with package combinations.

We could even mix product types, such as an 8x10, 2-5x7, 8 wallets and a large coffee mug or a mouse pad (as long as each product doesn't need to be customized - that would be a nightmare). Now product mixes like that would be VERY HOT for us event people.

This could also be an easy answer to #1 and #2 - although I'd still like the filename attribute exposed.

If you can do #4, I will be VERY HAPPY:D (although I still want #1 also:wink ).

I know that this is a lot to digest, but I hope that it gives some alternatives that can prove useful.

Doug


P.S. I found the posting with the hint about multiple hidden albums to store pricing to be VERY USEFUL!! THANKS MUCH!!

[Mike Lane]

The new capability to put information in the head of the document is a prime example of smugmug listening to its customers. Major league props on that one!

[Andy]

{snip}

I know that this is a lot to digest, but I hope that it gives some alternatives that can prove useful.

Doug

Hi Doug- thanks so much for taking the time to post this great feedback. We really appreciate it!

[jfriend]

In fact, I just spent the past weeks speaking live by phone to many many of our pros (over 100), and without question, the majority of these would disagree with your statement above - they *want* us to be there for their customers.
My exact words were "let the pro control as much of the customer interaction as they desire". How much the pro wants to do themself versus have smugmug do will vary by pro. The gripes here are that smugmug asserts and inserts itself in many places with an "advertising type of flavor" that it doesn't have to (backprinting, footer links, shopping cart look and feel, etc...) and there are clearly some pros who resent that. It's a given than any pro who uses smugmug is doing so because they want smugmug to provide some infrastructure and services. Otherwise, they'd just set up their own web-site from scratch. The gripe is that you aren't offering enough control over which things the pro wants smugmug to handle and which ones not and/or how it is presented to the customer.

If there's a way to acheive this, we'd love to do it. For now, the cart is the way it is. Not co-branded. If you wanted to do this, it's a very solvable problem. Many shopping cart providers/credit-card processors offer a branded or co-branded experience. I haven't seen any engagement on HOW to solve this. It doesn't appear that anyone is trying to solve it. Yes, you probably should separate out a pro's branded shopping cart from pics bought from other sites, but I've seen no pros here who are bothered by that. As I've written here before, it consistenly sounds like you are using the "prints ordered from multiple sites" as a defense mechanism against trying to really offer a solution here. If you wanted to solve this problem you could. I would think you were actively engaged in solving this problem if I saw discussions on what the challenges were to be overcome before this could be done and saw some smugmug engagement in what the choices were to overcome those challenges. As it is, we just hear it's too hard for reason x, y and z. Instead, I've seen no engagement on what challenges need to be overcome (other than the orders from multiple sites) and a solicitation for ideas to solve those challenges.

Here's a hint. If you floated a message that said, "here are the challenges that would need to be solved before we could allow some co-branding in the shopping cart (presumably, you'd have some security issues and some support issues)" and then challenged us to come up with creative ways to solve those challenges and had some knowledgable people from smugmug to participate in the proposed solutions, then we'd feel like you were actually trying to find a solution.

Many of these are in the works features we'd love to implement, and we've commented on them in other threads. Specifically, backprinting, watermarking, proof and reupload, digital downloads... But we never promise if or when, only that "we're listening" and stay tuned... I don't know how much more open we can be, without compromising anything.You have to at least put yourselves in our shoes for a moment. We've seen these discussed. We've seen which ones had at least a warm reception. Further we've seen lots of new things get implemented that were not on the tops of our list. So, it's not ONLY an issue of development cycles and bandwidth and time. It's also an issue of priority and desire. And, we have ZERO idea where these things are really prioritized on your list and when/if they will ever see the light of day.

You can choose to NEVER disclose any future plans if you want. The cost will be that some customers will get impatient or angry and wonder if you do actually have their best interests in your plans. They have to guess. When 3-4 releases go by and none of the things they asked for show up, how can they not wonder if any of those things will ever materialize. It's only human nature to start to question it.

Hmm. Well, you know that I've joined the company, to take on these very issues. We love our pros, and our pro business - it's critical to our success. My role is, among other things, to specifically look after our pros - make sure we're doing right by them, help to create new features, offerings, service their clients better, and yes - to grow our presence in the pro marketplace. We've set up a Support Center in Salt Lake City - largely because of the growth in our pro business - and we'll continue to grow that, to support the needs of our pros, and their customers, as well as also standard and power users, too. How will we do that? By innovating - providing new features (how about themes -- our most popular feature ever - and yeah you'd be surprised at how many pros are using them - not everyone is a CSS/HTML). More features will come out, too. And also by providing a great interface (style!), reliable service (uptime), and world-class support.

And yeah, we do in fact lay awake at night, working out ways to serve the pro market better.
I didn't know that your specific focus was more on the pro-end of things. That's good to know that someone is focused on that. I know there has been a lot of development focus lately on customizing your site with the CSS-izing of the site and themes and while used by some pros, that's also available at lower levels. While we've seen lots of other features get added to the site, I am actually unaware of any significant pro-specific features that have been added to the site in the last few months (please enlighten me if I'm missing some significant ones). With such a long list of pro-requested things getting no visible attention, it's easy to start wondering if those things are getting worked on or not. How could we possibly know?

Well, there's another point to consider, too: we don't really want our competitors to know exactly what we're doing, either! I think we've been extremely straight-forward about which features seem "likely" and "not-likely." But we're never going to say YES until we're absolutely certain. Every business has to decide for itself how to draw this trade-off. If you never tell anyone anything in advance you can never miss their expectations and you will not tip off your competitors. At the same time, you will often not be able to sell to or retain a customer who needs things that are in your future plans. It is a balance. I'm expressing an opinion that telling your pro customers nothing about what is coming in their future, seeing many months and many other new features go by without any news on the requested pro features is going to hurt your pro business. You have to decide how much you agree or think it matters.

[3rdPlanetPhotography]

I may be kicking a dead horse, however, something simple would be a screen for the pro accounts that would create an athorization number that we could apply say a 10% discount for that number. It's a one time use number and when the customer orders they type in that number. They get the 10% and the number is no longer valid. That would be a pretty cool feature.

kc7dji

[Andy]

I may be kicking a dead horse, however, something simple would be a screen for the pro accounts that would create an athorization number that we could apply say a 10% discount for that number. It's a one time use number and when the customer orders they type in that number. They get the 10% and the number is no longer valid. That would be a pretty cool feature.

kc7dji


Thanks kc, for the suggestion!

[Andy]

You have to decide how much you agree or think it matters.

Hi John,

Thanks so much again, for the really valuable feedback and comments. We really appreciate you taking the time.

[coach-al]

I may be kicking a dead horse, however, something simple would be a screen for the pro accounts that would create an athorization number that we could apply say a 10% discount for that number. It's a one time use number and when the customer orders they type in that number. They get the 10% and the number is no longer valid. That would be a pretty cool feature.

kc7dji
kc7:

I love that idea! :clapI would also suggest a settable valid time period. Also that Smugmug needs to check that the number goes with the photographer that set it up to take care of the cross-gallery problem.

Andy, maybe you could explain why something like this would be difficult. On the surface it doesn't seem that hard to do but maybe there's something we're missing?

thanks, Al

[Shay Stephens]

Speaking as a pro who is very picky and wants everything to be a certain way, I must say you are going about things all wrong.

It sounds like you want the world, which in itself is not a bad thing, but, you also want it on a dime. That just is not possible. If you want the world, then you have to pay the piper for it, or, bust your rump and build one yourself.

You have probably heard the phrase, you can have two of the following three things:
Fast
Good
Cheap

I would probably alter it to read:
Cheap to run
Easy to set up
Just the way you like it


You can have a website cheap and easy, but it likely won't be just the way you like it (read: existing gallery software or websites).
You can have a website just the way you like and easy to set up, but it isn't going to be cheap (read: paying someone else to do it for you).
You can have a website cheap to run and just the way you like it, but it isn't going to be easy to set up (read: build it yourself)
Now the reason I am even responding here is that you caught me just after spending the night and into the morning (5:30am) installing new server software on my own webserver and making sure all the services and websites were working properly. I paid hundreds of dollars for the server software. I buy all the hardware and pay for the monthly business class DSL service. The website that runs on it is hand coded by me which has taken hundreds of hours of labor over the course of many years. I have plans to add some features to the website that will take even more time and effort to design, build, test, and maintain. It is expensive, difficult, and time consuming, but it ensures that I get exactly what I want. I control everything.

So you have to ask yourself, just how much are you willing to spend to get things just the way you want them? Ask yourself just how much you are spending now on smugmug to get what sounds like 99% of what you want, and how much that would cost if you wanted to ensure you got the last 1% of what you are looking for, and believe me, that last 1% is going to cost you :wink

Besides just the website, smugmug also provides customer support for printing issues, they deal with your customers for returns, they may even help you with getting better results in the future. You know how much that would cost? I don't have anyone to help me with that, I must do it myself and at my own expense for the reprinting if necessary. If there is a color issue with my prints, I must figure out the problem, fix it, and have a test print to verify the problem is fixed before I resubmit the order for reprinting. That takes time and effort. But I want that level of control, so I pay the price for it.

So it boils down to this. What are your priorities? What is your business need? What are you willing to pay for it? Answer those questions honestly to yourself, and then act on it.

But whatever you do, stop looking at (what is essentially) a gift horse in the mouth (http://www.goenglish.com/DontLookAGiftHorseInTheMouth.asp) :wink



PI'm happy enough for now... but unfortunely still looking for something better...

[cybercrypt13]

Shay,

I'm sorry but I could not disagree more. We pay the fees they request which are not the cheapest. We also pay a 15% on top of that fee to cover their support and other things you mention. Its their business to provide the best product. If that means later that they raise their rates then that is their deal, however, you can not compare your situation of having all these problems and writing your own code to a company that is in business to provide this service.

I am a software engineer and manage a much more complex setup and program install than what Smugmug is doing here. If we operated our business by not adding new features because we didn't feel our customer's had paid enough to warrant the change, we'd be out of business. Our prices do go up over the years, but its a result of all the new features that were added. However, to say you can't have it all is just rediculous. The price dictates how many customers you have. The services and support dictate how long those customers stay.

You could have the cheapest software on earth that does the least amount. YOu will become nothing more than a stepping stone for people to step on, on their way up. Trust me, this is not a good business model...

[Andy]

The services and support dictate how long those customers stay.

Hi Glenn, and we hope you do stay! But as Onethumb has stated in his Smug Blog (http://blogs.smugmug.com/), we know that if we don't continue to innovate, and provide high quality, high value services, and support, that you will look elsewhere.

Funnily enough, today, we were discussing at length one of your suggestions that you've made many times in numerous threads and - we hope to have some news on it for you!

All the best,

[DavidTO]

Glenn,

My opinion? Shay's right on the money, especially about how NOT to go about getting what you want. Seems to me you've gotten $99 worth of patience alone. You're not paying me, and mine's run out...

[cybercrypt13]

Hi Glenn, and we hope you do stay! But as Onethumb has stated in his Smug Blog (http://blogs.smugmug.com/), we know that if we don't continue to innovate, and provide high quality, high value services, and support, that you will look elsewhere.

Funnily enough, today, we were discussing at length one of your suggestions that you've made many times in numerous threads and - we hope to have some news on it for you!

All the best,
Thanks Andy, I am not planning a move, my last response was only directed at the comments. I know they didn't come from smugmug...

Thanks and look forward to new stuff... :-)

[Shay Stephens]

http://forums.shaystephens.com/graphics/the_soup_nazi1.jpg

it's a joke! :rofl

Shay,

I'm sorry but I could not disagree more. We pay the fees they request which are not the cheapest. We also pay a 15% on top of that fee to cover their support and other things you mention. Its their business to provide the best product. If that means later that they raise their rates then that is their deal, however, you can not compare your situation of having all these problems and writing your own code to a company that is in business to provide this service.I didn't say it was a problem. I want full control, and what I listed is what it takes to have that control. You want the world, you have to pay for it. And I don't consider $99 a year *in the slightest* expensive if you are a pro with paying customers. It is a drop in the bucket of expenses for running a professional photography business.

I am a software engineer and manage a much more complex setup and program install than what Smugmug is doing here.And here is the crux of the problem. You are used to having full control over your web app. I used to be a web developer. And thus, I also desire and want full control. So I pony up to have and exercise that control. You should do the same and stop whining because unless you have full control, you will never be happy with a pre-made web app that you subscribe to no matter how much they bend over backward for you.

[cybercrypt13]

Actually I disagree again... I don't look at any of the requests that have been made as being some give me the world type requests. They are quite reasonable from a professional photographers point of view. They are also, despite what has been stated, not requirements for a total rewrite of the system.

I don't want nor require total input and decisions on smugmug. The very few requests I've made have seemed to be reasonable from the perspective of clients. I prefer to keep my clients on a consistent interface/experience and prefer to keep My name in front of them as long as possible. While saying this I understand why it hasn't been done to date, but there are ways to handle it.

But its ok for us to disagree on this as its what makes things change... :-)

[Mike Lane]

Trust me, this is not a good business model... I'm not so sure I should trust you about that. From the world-wide-webatron:

Smugmug, one of the fastest-growing photo sharing sites, hosts 32,000,000 photos from customers as diverse as grandmothers, senators, renowned photographers, and The Wall Street Journal. An unusual success story among Internet companies, Smugmug is family-owned, profitable and thriving. Smugmug was founded in 2002.

Seems to me that speaks volumes about what their service is worth and how their business model is holding up. Profitable since their first year. How may dot coms (let alone photo sites) can claim that?

[cybercrypt13]

I'm not so sure I should trust you about that. From the world-wide-webatron:


Smugmug, one of the fastest-growing photo sharing sites, hosts 32,000,000 photos from customers as diverse as grandmothers, senators, renowned photographers, and The Wall Street Journal. An unusual success story among Internet companies, Smugmug is family-owned, profitable and thriving. Smugmug was founded in 2002.




Seems to me that speaks volumes about what their service is worth and how their business model is holding up. Profitable since their first year. How may dot coms (let alone photo sites) can claim that?

Its also possible for people to jump in the middle of a conversation as well and not keep their facts straight... I never said anything about smugmug. The other person was making broad statements of which I disagreed with. I was not talking about the sucess of smugmug or any other company...