SmugMug vs PrintRoom

[Miro-Foto]

Hi All! - Great forum here ... glad I stumbled upon it.

Anyways, I typically hang out at a Sports Photographers site called Sportsshooters. There is an interesting thread going on regarding SmugMug vs PrintRoom. Smug is getting decent probs - which is good as these folks are working professionals shooting mainly sports and pj.

Figure this info might be useful to the "Chief Smuggers" ... so here is the thread:

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=13466

One thing I agree with is a suggestion for Smug allow thumbnail uploads and when an actual order is placed, supply the full-res file - basically it really helps the work flow for event photog.

[Nikolai]

One thing I agree with is a suggestion for Smug allow thumbnail uploads and when an actual order is placed, supply the full-res file - basically it really helps the work flow for event photog.
The feature you're asking for was there since, I think, day one (at least defineitely since the monent I subscribed last spring:-).
You upload you pictures, disable originals (and if you have PRO subscription, you can also disable large, request the proofing and disable "Save As" feature), but when customer orders the prin, the request print is made off the original.

Is this not enough?

Cheers!:1drink

[truelightstudio]

The feature you're asking for was there since, I think, day one (at least defineitely since the monent I subscribed last spring:-).
You upload you pictures, disable originals (and if you have PRO subscription, you can also disable large, request the proofing and disable "Save As" feature), but when customer orders the prin, the request print is made off the original.

Is this not enough?

Cheers!:1drink
Nikolai,

Sportshooters usually shoot 100+ pictures per event. So in order to upload originals ready for print they have to take countless hours of postprocessing to get their images look best. Then you never know how many will be ordered from that event. What Miro-Foto is talking about is this kind of workflow, if I understand correctly:

1. go to event and shoot 500 images
2. make small thumbnail using some sort of batch
3. upload those to smug or other service and specify print sized available for print.
4. customer orders a 2 pictures for example
5. photographer gets email which pictures are ordered and what size
6. postprocess only ordered images and upload them
7. customer gets print of the highest quality

Well its kind of rough outline, I think a few Pro oriented sites do that, in order to satisfy event photographers. I think its a good idea, but at the same time order may be delayed since photographer needs to provide originals for printing ASAP after order is placed.

[Nikolai]

We're talking about "postprocessing and uploading after the order has been made". I understand now.
And I agree, that's a really sweet feature for the event photography. I would definitely not mind to have it for myself.
Let's see what Baldy, Don and other head honchos have to say:-)

I'm only thinking it would be pretty confusing. If the owner/photographer is non-responsive (for whatever reason - dead, drunk, hit by a bus, plain lazy, etc.), buyers would hold the smugmug (not the owner) liable for the delay. Currently, once a picture is uploaded - it's availalbe for print.

Cheers!:1drink

[bham]

If you could have the customer enter the info but not charge the credit card until the upload by the photographer is supplied in full res or original form. But I am not sure how much work that would require.

[onethumb]

Nikolai,

Sportshooters usually shoot 100+ pictures per event. So in order to upload originals ready for print they have to take countless hours of postprocessing to get their images look best. Then you never know how many will be ordered from that event. What Miro-Foto is talking about is this kind of workflow, if I understand correctly:

1. go to event and shoot 500 images
2. make small thumbnail using some sort of batch
3. upload those to smug or other service and specify print sized available for print.
4. customer orders a 2 pictures for example
5. photographer gets email which pictures are ordered and what size
6. postprocess only ordered images and upload them
7. customer gets print of the highest quality

Well its kind of rough outline, I think a few Pro oriented sites do that, in order to satisfy event photographers. I think its a good idea, but at the same time order may be delayed since photographer needs to provide originals for printing ASAP after order is placed.

I'm afraid, while I'd love to help our Pros out with this, that we probably can't. There are just too many cans of worms. I think the biggest is:

The number of people who's emails bounce, their inbox is full, their spam filter catches us, they've changed email addresses and haven't updated smugmug's account settings, etc is pretty staggering. What happens to those orders which only have thumbnails but we can't get ahold of the Pro automatically? Or even with an expensive customer support rep trying to get them on the phone?

Email is horribly unreliable these days, and getting worse. The spam problem makes everything 10X as bad as it had to be.

But the Pro wouldn't get blamed for the order being slow, delayed, canceled or mis-printed. smugmug would. It would destroy the brand and image we've worked so hard to build, and for no good reason: an email didn't get delivered.

This is glossing over the enormous amount of work it would require to make our systems behave this way, but I think the problems are just too large to even make the attempt.

Correct me if I'm wrong, cuz we do love to help our Pros out, but honestly, I feel sorry for the Printroom guys. That must be hell on their customer service.

Don

[truelightstudio]

I do agree that there is no easy solution, and if Pro account holder doesn't provide originals for ordered prints then customer who ordered print will be screaming and yelling at smugmug service and customer support. Its a big can of worms! I wasn't asking for this feature, I was trying to explain the process to Nikolai. Me and my business partner looked at and evaluated different options with online hosting and print selling. And we are settled with smugmug at this point. We would rather work on images and make them ready for print once and for all at this point (based on volume of images that we have to deal with right now). We simply would like to have everything available for our client after inital upload.

One OT question, is there any plans to make custom watermarking available? I know it was brought up in a different thread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=4199) but I don't think that we had any reply from smugmug crew.

Thanks.


I'm afraid, while I'd love to help our Pros out with this, that we probably can't. There are just too many cans of worms. I think the biggest is:

The number of people who's emails bounce, their inbox is full, their spam filter catches us, they've changed email addresses and haven't updated smugmug's account settings, etc is pretty staggering. What happens to those orders which only have thumbnails but we can't get ahold of the Pro automatically? Or even with an expensive customer support rep trying to get them on the phone?

Email is horribly unreliable these days, and getting worse. The spam problem makes everything 10X as bad as it had to be.

But the Pro wouldn't get blamed for the order being slow, delayed, canceled or mis-printed. smugmug would. It would destroy the brand and image we've worked so hard to build, and for no good reason: an email didn't get delivered.

This is glossing over the enormous amount of work it would require to make our systems behave this way, but I think the problems are just too large to even make the attempt.

Correct me if I'm wrong, cuz we do love to help our Pros out, but honestly, I feel sorry for the Printroom guys. That must be hell on their customer service.

Don

[Nikolai]

It kinda makes it a bit cumbersome, but it might work anyways..

Pro uploads a bulk of non-ready pictures to the gallery Event. All images are made non-orderable (on image by image basis)
Pro opens (or already has) an alternative selling account. For instance, just yesterday I subscribed for PayPal Busines account. Signup was a breeze, there is no monthly fees and they charge some very small amount per transaction.They accept all major credit cards, paypal (naturally:-) and some other stuff.
In the gallery description a Pro makes it clear that images are "for display only" purpose and if somebody wants to order them they would have to prepay (maybe not the 100%) the order via this additional account, not via smugmug. Pro also describes, that once images are ready, the display-only version would be replaced with a "for sale one" and customer will be able to purchase them via smugmug.
Customer makes a pre-order via aforementioned PayPal account.
Pro recieves the money and customer info, makes the post processing, uploads the printable version, updates the pricing (it's image based!) and notifies the customer.
I'm not saying this is an ideal solution. You can also go with a Display gallery for preorders and then private galleries for preordering customers containing images they wanted.

All I'm saying it's not a very straigforward, but I'm totally agree with Don - liability for email-based preodering would totally ruin otherwise a very nice, sleek and reliable site image.

Just my $.02

Cheers:1drink

[Miro-Foto]

Thanks for all the replies ... don't get me wrong, I love :lust SmugMug ... just ran across the info and thought I'd pass it along as food for thought and to make 1Thumb aware of discussions on other boards.

[Nikolai]

Thanks for all the replies ... don't get me wrong, I love :lust SmugMug ... just ran across the info and thought I'd pass it along as food for thought and to make 1Thumb aware of discussions on other boards.
Don't get me wrong, too, I was only trying to help:-):thumb

[Baldy]

Hi Everyone,

It's really hard for us to say no to this for quite a number of reasons. One is I shoot events now and then and feel the pain.

http://cmac.smugmug.com/photos/3735-L-1.jpg

And I answer email to potential customers about why we don't have this feature.

But I also handle any significant "not happy with my prints" issue and it almost always involves contacting the photographer to make adjustments. Many of our pros are super-responsive and I love dealing with them. But you'd be surprised how many times I swallow hard and make the judgement to roll up my sleeves, adjust skin tones and replace the order. I just finished one where the customer is getting my adjustments because they needed the order for Christmas and I can't reach the photographer.

I just think it's an understandable part of event photography; they get booked during the playoffs, or whatever.

What we have seen photographers do with success is label a gallery as proofs, place their contact info online, and you notify the photographer on what items you like, then they upload finished versions and point you to them.

I'd love it if someone thinks up a clean solution to this.

Thanks,
Baldy

[Nikolai]

What we have seen photographers do with success is label a gallery as proofs, place their contact info online, and you notify the photographer on what items you like, then they upload finished versions and point you to them.
.. is that in this version sellers (pros) are not secured against a frivolous "buyer", who might to drop an email saying "Love your stuff, will buy all of it, can you make it printable, pleeeeeez" and then dissapear from the horizon...

I would dare to suggest the following (it a very rough sketch, so please bear with me): PREORDER (or WISH LIST, or I WANT THIS) button. It should act like a backup order, which is ubiquitous online, especialy around national holidays:-)
This will secure customer's credit card info for a certain period of time, which can be owner or smugmug specified, but in any case very clearly displayed. Owner will be notified via his registered email about preorder event.
If owner fails to deliver pictures - nothing happens.
Customer can also cancel the order at any time, in which case owner is also notified.
Once order is complete, owner marks the newly uploaded images as "ready for sale". Any outstanding order will be automatically processed.

I do understand that this sketch is missing a lot of very important details, but I think it's kinda doable. There is certain level of protection for both sides, and any frequent online shopper is very much familiar witht the "backup order", so you don't have to explain much.

Tell me what you think...

Cheers!:1drink

[BenV]

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but I have been mulling over this issue for a while and wanted to present my idea...

The only real reservation I had about signing up with SM vs. Printroom is this exact problem. Ultimately, the sum of SM's advatages ruled the day and I got a pro account, but since most of the work I will be posting for sale on SM is event photography, where having 200+ photos per event is the norm, the fact that I have to post process EVERYTHING is quite burdensome.

MY IDEA:

What if, on a per gallery basis, you (as the pro account holder) had the option to turn on a smugmug-defined fulfillment delay (e.g. 24 hrs) before an order is sent for print processing?

IOW, here's the workflow:



Photog uploads originals just like we've always done
when an order is placed, it is authorized (not captured, just authorized) just like a regular CC purchase. Nothing changes for the user.
an email is sent to the photographer notifying them of the sale
the photog can [optionally] do further post processing and upload a new original -- but it is the responsibility of the photogs to either make sure they get the emails or to check SM every day for orders.
24hrs after the original order was placed, the order is sent for processing. If the photog failed to upload a new original, that's their fault, and if the customer gets a mediocre print, the photog will lose future business in the end, but smugmug did their part.
This solves a number of issues with what's been discussed thus far:


The SM implementation is relatively minor, compared to a complete hold on an order, since nothing else about the process changes.
The photog still has to upload an original but at least has the opportunity to post-process only what they need to.
If SM is processing CCs in batches at the end of the night already, this change is "relatively" minor. Most CC authorizations will be valid for at least 3 days. Implementation would require 3 peices of information: (1) does the order contain prints from a gallery that specifies a delay?, (2) a flag to delay the order, and (3) a date beyond which the order can be safely fulfilled (e.g. now() + 24hrs).
At most the customer only sees a 24hr delay in fulfillment, if they notice anything at all.
It protects against the frivolous buyer since the sale has already taken place.
It protects against delays due to unresponsive photogs since the existing original will get sent after 24hrs.
Your thoughts...

BenV

[onethumb]

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread, but I have been mulling over this issue for a while and wanted to present my idea...

The only real reservation I had about signing up with SM vs. Printroom is this exact problem. Ultimately, the sum of SM's advatages ruled the day and I got a pro account, but since most of the work I will be posting for sale on SM is event photography, where having 200+ photos per event is the norm, the fact that I have to post process EVERYTHING is quite burdensome.

MY IDEA:

What if, on a per gallery basis, you (as the pro account holder) had the option to turn on a smugmug-defined fulfillment delay (e.g. 24 hrs) before an order is sent for print processing?

IOW, here's the workflow:



Photog uploads originals just like we've always done
when an order is placed, it is authorized (not captured, just authorized) just like a regular CC purchase. Nothing changes for the user.
an email is sent to the photographer notifying them of the sale
the photog can [optionally] do further post processing and upload a new original -- but it is the responsibility of the photogs to either make sure they get the emails or to check SM every day for orders.
24hrs after the original order was placed, the order is sent for processing. If the photog failed to upload a new original, that's their fault, and if the customer gets a mediocre print, the photog will lose future business in the end, but smugmug did their part.
This solves a number of issues with what's been discussed thus far:


The SM implementation is relatively minor, compared to a complete hold on an order, since nothing else about the process changes.
The photog still has to upload an original but at least has the opportunity to post-process only what they need to.
If SM is processing CCs in batches at the end of the night already, this change is "relatively" minor. Most CC authorizations will be valid for at least 3 days. Implementation would require 3 peices of information: (1) does the order contain prints from a gallery that specifies a delay?, (2) a flag to delay the order, and (3) a date beyond which the order can be safely fulfilled (e.g. now() + 24hrs).
At most the customer only sees a 24hr delay in fulfillment, if they notice anything at all.
It protects against the frivolous buyer since the sale has already taken place.
It protects against delays due to unresponsive photogs since the existing original will get sent after 24hrs.
Your thoughts...

BenV

This is extremely well thought-out. We'll need some time to discuss it and mull it over, but it's easily the most compelling pitch for this feature I've seen to date. We'll give it the thought it deserves.

Don

[onethumb]

This is extremely well thought-out. We'll need some time to discuss it and mull it over, but it's easily the most compelling pitch for this feature I've seen to date. We'll give it the thought it deserves.

Don

My initial thoughts only come up with one big negative:

- When a person receives a bad print, they blame smugmug. Not the photographer or the printer, but smugmug.

- If the photog misses his window, a bad print is delivered. We get the blame.

One possible solution might be to "dock" photographers pay a fixed rate for every complaint we get when this feature is used. If we have to take the time to deal with the customer, tweak the photos, and order reprints, the photographer should compensate smugmug for that time and energy. There would be a fixed per-print fee, so it wouldn't be like we would be gouging the photographers, but it does cost us real money.

To be clear, we're not satisfied with saying "sorry, your pro screwed up". Our mantra is "make sure the customer is happy" so we'll do what it takes to make them happy.

Does that sound viable? Would photographers agree to such terms in order to get this neat feature?

Anyway, I'll keep thinking. I'm sure there might be other landmines I'm not yet thinking about...

Don

[onethumb]

This is extremely well thought-out. We'll need some time to discuss it and mull it over, but it's easily the most compelling pitch for this feature I've seen to date. We'll give it the thought it deserves.

Don

Also, what about orders which span multiple galleries and they don't all have this setting. I realize that for something like a sporting event, this is probably rare, but it's the rare things that bite us in the butt the most often.

Is the whole order held up? Split up into pieces?

Don

[Baldy]

I'm getting more sympathetic to this request every day.

I just shot a wedding (Ben's) and it makes me crazy that every photo I upload could get bought by some relative and I'm going to walk in their house and see it on a wall. So I fuss over every stupid shot just in case and it takes me forever.

I'm dying for a feature that tells me what they just bought and I get a chance to adjust the ones that get purchased. We already have a replace photo functiion.

[Baldy]

When this option is set in the gallery, we could generate the message to the customer that the photographer has requested x days to make final adjustments in preparation for printing. I would think they'd be sympathetic to that.

[BenV]

My initial thoughts only come up with one big negative:

- When a person receives a bad print, they blame smugmug. Not the photographer or the printer, but smugmug.

- If the photog misses his window, a bad print is delivered. We get the blame. The answer to this is partially education and partically your suggestion below.

One possible solution might be to "dock" photographers pay a fixed rate for every complaint we get when this feature is used. If we have to take the time to deal with the customer, tweak the photos, and order reprints, the photographer should compensate smugmug for that time and energy. There would be a fixed per-print fee, so it wouldn't be like we would be gouging the photographers, but it does cost us real money. I'd go for that.

To be clear, we're not satisfied with saying "sorry, your pro screwed up". Our mantra is "make sure the customer is happy" so we'll do what it takes to make them happy. I completely understand this mantra, but I think this is an important enough feature that doing nothing is not a real practical option either.

Thanks for the consideration...

BenV

[BenV]

Also, what about orders which span multiple galleries and they don't all have this setting. I realize that for something like a sporting event, this is probably rare, but it's the rare things that bite us in the butt the most often.

Is the whole order held up? Split up into pieces?

Don Two things to note.

First, in order to simplify the implementation for you, yes the whole order should be held up. That way, only the order itself (not individual items) are flagged for delay.

Second, SM should set the delay, not the photog. This way, the delay of the photog doesn't start messing with your CC auths expiring and such. This is a favor for the photog and satisfying the customer would have to trump the lazy photog.

BenV

[BenV]

When this option is set in the gallery, we could generate the message to the customer that the photographer has requested x days to make final adjustments in preparation for printing. I would think they'd be sympathetic to that. Especially for significant events, I'd think most customers would be very sympathetic to the photog wanting to generate as best as possible a print.

That said, if the delay is controlled by SM and is relatively small (say 24hrs) I wouldn't even bother mentioning it to the customer.

BenV

[Bodley]

When this option is set in the gallery, we could generate the message to the customer that the photographer has requested x days to make final adjustments in preparation for printing. I would think they'd be sympathetic to that.I too really need this service as I shoot about 800 photos a week outside of my other job.

Plain 24hr delay may cause more unprocessed photos to be send and hurt the pro and Smugmugs reps. A vacation or service being down could make the 24hr window an easy thing to miss.

Put the monkey on the photogs back.

Let pro upload photos to a proof view gallery (other standard gallery orders would function as they do now) customizable by the pro as to size and layout
When an order is placed, tell the customer that the the photog will be notified to complete and process the order and they, the customer, will be notified when the order is processed. This would encourage the pro to respond quickly and lets the customer know the ball is in the pros court.
Then Smugmug will send and email to the Photog and also have a notice, viewable to the pro, on the website relating to orders waiting to be completed. This way the pro could check the account daily thereby eliminating the risk and excuse of lost emails.
After each 48 hr. period (pro selectable with limits) in which the order has not been completed an automatic email is sent to the purchaser relating that the order is still waiting on the photog. No need for Smugmug personnel to deal directly with this matter. If the photog doesn't care enough to complete orders he will not be around long enough to worry about.
This should get the monkey off Smugmug and back to the photog and could be handled automatically in the order system.

Just some thoughts.
Greg

[dashphotography]

I too would really benefit from this service. I batch edit everything now...but it still takes computer time for it to run for 2 hours or so. I agree that 24 hours does not work if the photog is on vacation. It should not be a problem most times but something selectable by the photographer would be neat. Usually 24 to 48 hours...but kind of like my Outlook when I leave on vacation here at work...where I can set my out of office message myself.

It would be neat to have an on off feature, selectable time frame 1 day, 2days, etc. and maybe a small line box to type in a message that goes out on an auto email. Maybe the whole this is just templated and the email pulls from those fields. The back end looks at what the Pro has set and runs things accordingly.

shawn.

[BenV]

Greg and Shawn:

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade... :D

If you read way up at the start of the thread, the main reasons why this whole issue is problematic is because:



SM doesn't want to introduce steps into the workflow that create a substantial re-working of the existing process. By letting SM control the delay in fulfillment and by keeping this delay small, it allows the current process to remain essentially unchanged. As a fellow developer and IT professional, I know for sure that any change in the current SM workflow would require a HUGE change in the way SM does business on a lot of different levels, administratively and techically, which is why they have been resistant to the idea thusfar.
SM also doesn't want to introduce anything that causes a tech support headache for them. Letting the photog control the delay causes problems in two areas: (a) then the SM fulfillment process becomes beholden to the lazy or out-of-town photographer which, in the final equation, results in a bad customer experience and (b) a breakdown in the SM business workflow due to #a has a whole ton of problems associated with it -- e.g. if the CC authorization expires while the photog approves the order a week later and then SM tries a CC capture and there are insufficient funds, who do you think gets to sort out the mess? SM does, that's who.
Only SM can answer the question of what an acceptable timeframe delay would be without causing SM workflow problems.

If the photog is going to be unavailable during that time frame, it should be the responsibility of the photog to turn off ordering while they are gone and post a notice on the main page to that affect. This is the way businesses operate everyday in the real world.

That said, it would be a great option to be able to turn off ordering for the entire account in the account control panel to facilitate this.

I am not a shill for smugmug but I also know that their mantra is "keep the customer happy" and that if they try to deliver the moon in keeping with that mantra, we the photogs will never get anything.

BenV

[Bodley]

Greg and Shawn:

I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade... :D

BenVDon't worry, it's like water off a ducks back. :D

I read the whole thread - just offering another angle to approach the optimal solution. I'm not an IT professional and didn't even sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night :rofl but I do know the 24 hour delay with an auto order will create several orders being filled by unprocessed photos. Yes, the pro will be to blame, but the customer ultimately gets the inferior product. Lets say I check my site daily at 6:00 p.m. An order is placed at 6:02 p.m., the email gets lost or delayed, when I check back the following day "nature" calls :huh at 6:00 and I end up checking at 6:05 p.m. - Oops Too Late, order processed.

I can see where the CC could be an issue. When does CC authorization expire? Maybe the CC could be charged at the time of the order and the pro given X days to respond or the pros account would be charged if the CC was denied after the original authorization expired.

Guess I'll continue to process prior to upload. The cropped and processed photos are more enticing anyway. :wink

[BenV]

I can see where the CC could be an issue. When does CC authorization expire? Maybe the CC could be charged at the time of the order and the pro given X days to respond or the pros account would be charged if the CC was denied after the original authorization expired. I am not sure if all authorizations typically expire around the same time. For my bank, it's 3 days. This is why I was saying that the delay would have to be something SM is comfortable with. For me, a great middle ground would be 36 hrs if that's be possible.

But you can't charge for an item until it is shipped, defining "shipped" within reason, of course. Same day is fine. There is some leeway here but making a charge and shipping a week later is illegal.

BenV

P.S. all those retailers that say, "don't worry, your card won't be charged until we ship the item" aren't doing it out of the kindness of their heart.:wink

[dashphotography]

Good points Ben. That idea would work too!

Shawn.

[BenV]

Good points Ben. That idea would work too!

Shawn. Thanks.

BenV
-- I am just seeing if it's possible for me to post a short message.

[BenV]

Don:

Any more thoughts from the SM crew on this matter?

BenV
:nod

[Baldy]

We think there's some there there. We haven't thought through all the implementation details, but my inclination is to try and allow more than 24 hours because I know I can be out at an all-day shoot, come home exhausted, and have some hours of Photoshop work to do on an order.

For our trial accounts, we do a 7-day pre-authorization.

I'll have to talk to onethumb but it seems to me 48-72 hours may be good. Beyond that, customers are going to start wondering where their prints are. And try as we might to let them know there could be a delay while the photographer, many will miss it or forget.

[BenV]

We think there's some there there. We haven't thought through all the implementation details, but my inclination is to try and allow more than 24 hours because I know I can be out at an all-day shoot, come home exhausted, and have some hours of Photoshop work to do on an order.

For our trial accounts, we do a 7-day pre-authorization.

I'll have to talk to onethumb but it seems to me 48-72 hours may be good. Beyond that, customers are going to start wondering where their prints are. And try as we might to let them know there could be a delay while the photographer, many will miss it or forget.This is very encouraging! It would be just fantastic if you could implement it.

Just FYI, when I signed up for a pro account, the hold only remained on my bank account for 3 days. IOW, my available balance went up by $9x dollars on day 4. After 72 hours, the original money may not be there.

BenV

[FairfieldPhoto]

Hey! A bandwagon, let me jump on!

The ability to work off of thumbnails is something I have used for 18 months with another lab, but they have had reliability problems over the last 2 weeks and killed my sales stream, so I am looking for a new lab.

I can't emphasize how important the ability to upload thumbnails is for event work. I wouldn't have a problem with 100+ images, but my biggest running race last year resulted in 2000 images. This was a 20-mile race where we were set up in 3 places along the course to get pictures of nearly 700 runners. Post processing and uploading full res JPG images from the D2H/D100 cameras we used would have consumed days and many gigs of space.

I read the entire thread first before posting. I appreciate the concerns about customer service and such. Here is how I look at it:

1) When there are problems with the prints, the customer calls me, not the lab. I pay for the reprints, even if it was their mistake. Call is silly, but we are in a customer service business here and I want the customer to be 100% happy AND be their friend after the transaction. I am getting cross sales business here for other types of work and am not going to screw around arguing about the fact they cropped the image too tight themselves.

2) I check my e-mail for orders frequently, but there are times when I am traveling and (heaven forbid) take a vacation. During those times, the print request sits for a day or two, or I have someone do the necessary post processing for me while I am gone. The idea someone had about sending an e-mail to the customer stating that the order will be processed as soon as the prints are received from the photographer is fine. All of the branding on my own website and the ordering site points back to my contact information, not the lab and if there are delays, the customer rings my bell, not yours.

3) If you don't get a print request in 7 days, cancel the order and tell the photographer to get their @(*#()%# together. Dock the tardy photographer the cost of the print or a flat fee as a penalty. It will only take a few of those situations to weed out the problem childs and keep the rest of us honest.

I hope this helped put some gas on the fire :)

-Mike
Fairfield Photography

[BenV]

1) When there are problems with the prints, the customer calls me, not the lab. I pay for the reprints, even if it was their mistake. Call is silly, but we are in a customer service business here and I want the customer to be 100% happy AND be their friend after the transaction. . . . All of the branding on my own website and the ordering site points back to my contact information, not the lab and if there are delays, the customer rings my bell, not yours. I think that SM would say that the customer will typically call them, not the photog, and since SM is handling the transaction, technically, they are SM's customer.

3) If you don't get a print request in 7 days, cancel the order and tell the photographer to get their @(*#()%# together. Dock the tardy photographer the cost of the print or a flat fee as a penalty. It will only take a few of those situations to weed out the problem childs and keep the rest of us honest. Actually, I like this idea. I do think the photog needs to be held very accountable in this kind of situation. That said, I am betting that SM would say that ultimately the buyer is SM's customer and a rogue photog giving SM a black eye isn't a situation that SM is keen on bringing upon themselves.

If that's the case, then I really think that SM needs to make sure that the photog, and not SM, is visually at the fore of the transaction by changing the default branding for pro accounts that have sales enabled to something photog-centric, and not SM-centric, even at the expense of being more generic. If SM is going to allow the pros the customization they do, they need to realize that the photog is spending the $$$ to be front and center, and SM needs to take a back seat.

And frankly, if the photog wants to make some money off of this little endeavor, they need to step up to the bat and take a little responsibillity.

BenV

[BenV]

And the verdict around the smugmug offices was... ?

BenV

[HighLightPhotos]

this is great guys!
needless to say another advantage would be in control of cropping from 4:6 to 5:7 and 8:10 formats. I hope, if implemented, the notification would also include the dimentions of the prints being ordered.
Great job, as always SM crew!

[crayiii]

For those of you that take 300+ photo's at events...

Do you really have to tweak each photo? What would you do if the bride/groom wanted a copy of all 300 photos? Would you open each and tweak it?

What I do for weddings is slideshow all unprocessed photos on my computer and throw out the bad ones (out of focus, motion blur, bad crop, etc.)

I then pick a dozen that are wall hangers and do some creative editting (soft focus, BW convert, etc.)

I upload all of the photos making sure the tweaked ones are the first ones in the gallery. Set the price and turn the client loose. I let the client know that if they want any work done on the others to let me know. I also limit the size they can purchase on the untweaked photos to 8x10 and let them know that if they want bigger to let me know. That allows me to tweak the bigger pictures for best quality.

[kkww]

For those of you that take 300+ photo's at events...Do you really have to tweak each photo?



I shoot live dance. That means a wide variance in lighting between adjacent shots as the dancers move (rapidly) in and out of pools of light on stage. So I'm often shooting ISO 800 or even 1600, and often So I shoot RAW, but adjacent pictures can require quite different fixups in terms of exposure adjustment, color correction and.

Prints at 4x6 may be OK, but anything larger really requires:
- (batchable) noise-reduction (heavy chrominance, very light luminance)
- manual luminance noise reduction on areas of skin and other non-edge parts of image
- manual adjustment of exposure, shadow/highlight
- manual color correction
- manual fixups on faces, like targetted sharpening of eyes but not still-noisy hair

I'm happy spending 10 minutes doing this if I know I've already got revenue for it. Otherwise forget it.


[quote=crayiii]I also limit the size they can purchase on the untweaked photos to 8x10 and let them know that if they want bigger to let me know. That allows me to tweak the bigger pictures for best quality.
This would definitely lose sales. The initial impulse buy is the by far more likely than a later followup to an email.


It seems to me that the real issue is that Smugmug is purposefully not offering a completely whitebox service. As a photographer, I want the customer to credit their experience (good or bad) to me, not to the service provider I happen to be using.

I would never expect my service provider to receive customer complaints, re-color-correct files, reprint, reship .... that's my problem and my expense.
Similarly, I expect the service provider to let me dig my own grave if I want. It's up to me to set an expectation with the customer, *before* they purchase, one that I can meet. For me that means something like "prints will take 1 week to process before they ship". This must be made clear to the customer before they hit purchase, but I haven't found that to be a problem at all.

I love smugmug's interface and look&feel, but so far, this one reason is why I'm using exposureManager.com, which allows me to take orders against thumbnails, and then upload the hi-res files after orders come in.

A large event for me looks like 3000-5000 images in consecutive 2 evenings of dance performances with 120 dancers, 8 choreographers, lots of friends&family in attendance. There is NO WAY I could prepare all the potentially-sellable images for printing ahead of time. Thumbnails are the only way.

Customer service issues come to me, not exposureManager, because their name doesn't show up *anywhere* that the customer can see on my website or in emails -- it's only my name and contact info. (The only place is on the credit card statement where it just says "Photo Products" with exposureManager's phone number. I would have to set up my own merchant banking account and use an online payment gateway to avoid this last part.)

It seems to me that Smugmug's fears of a customer service nightmare might be a little misplaced.

At any rate, the reason I am in this forum at all is because I am still searching for a good way to present a large shoot to a customer who has already paid who is going to select a final set, and send me the "lightbox" with their selections that we can use to communicate back and forth. ExposureManager can't do this, and I'm hoping smugmug can. Maybe I'll be forced to use two different service providers.


Keith

[Andy]

At any rate, the reason I am in this forum at all is because I am still searching for a good way to present a large shoot to a customer who has already paid who is going to select a final set, and send me the "lightbox" with their selections that we can use to communicate back and forth. ExposureManager can't do this, and I'm hoping smugmug can. Maybe I'll be forced to use two different service providers.


Keith

Hi Keith :wave many thanks for posting, and telling us like it is :deal

If I can be of any service to you, please holler for me!