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The coupon feedback thread

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    bandgeekndbbandgeekndb Registered Users Posts: 284 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    mbellot wrote:
    Really? I don't recall seeing a dedicated thread about it. Let alone one started ten months ago by one of the SM co-founders.

    My thoughts exactly, but I'm not going to complain. At least something has emerged from the dark lairs of Smugmug HQ!
    mbellot wrote:
    ...another product/dev team I really have a love/hate relationship with these days.

    After ten months of development don't you think its time to give BWG some help to get it done?

    HERE HERE! clap.gif Maybe it's just not feasible with a small staff, but when something has become this much of a priority for a large portion of your customer base, it might be time to put something else on the back burner!

    Again, thanks for dealing with all of us Andy, and the rest of the coding team at Smugmug. I know we're all impatient, me being one of the worst, but we still love you guys and gals...we just want new Smug-ness!
    Nikon D7000, D90

    Sigma 18-50 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8
    Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6, 50mm f/1.8
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    mbellot wrote:
    Really? I don't recall seeing a dedicated thread about it. Let alone one started ten months ago by one of the SM co-founders.
    Dgrin is not the only place we get info from. We get nearly 5,000 emails a week also. And we meet with hundreds of pros at SMUGs meetings. And we talk to PROs all the time. Lots of input.

    After ten months of development don't you think its time to give BWG some help to get it done?
    Lee's not been fulltime and #1 important on Coupons for 10 months. He made the new cart, then we Launched Bay Photo which took a huge effort and we launched it in January 2009. Then Lee went full-time on Coupons late winter/spring.
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    HERE HERE! clap.gif Maybe it's just not feasible with a small staff
    We're up to 47 SmugMug folks here and 10 are in Sorcery.

    We have a ginormous list of things that you and all of our other customers are asking for (coupons, packages, new stats, 'virtual' galleries, better SEO, less Smuggy Branding on certain areas of the site, and a whole lot more :) Good thing we have a lot of Sorcerers.

    Coupons clap.gif
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    I feel many here would rather know "sorta" when it was going to happen.
    In some ways we blew it last year by asking for your (pros) input in this thread, because some priorities shifted, and here we are much much later than we want to be.

    But I won't trade the input this thread has provided.

    When is it "sorta" gonna happen? It's in active, aggressive development right now and nothing is more important for this sorcerer and us, than to get these done and soon. But we're not gonna sacrifice good code and a functional feature for a hasty release.

    Soon. Back to work! :whip :andy :whip :bwg
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    termina3termina3 Registered Users Posts: 158 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    Andy wrote:
    We have a ginormous list of things that you and all of our other customers are asking for (coupons, packages, new stats, 'virtual' galleries, better SEO, less Smuggy Branding on certain areas of the site, and a whole lot more :) Good thing we have a lot of Sorcerers.

    A lack of coupons has a large impact on the sales of many photographers, ergo a hit on the subscription base of Smugmug.

    A lack of packages has a large impact on the sales of many photographers, ergo a hit on the subscription base of Smugmug.

    I don't know what a 'virtual' gallery is.

    SEO can help sales (a lot), but is not as critical to most as coupons and packages.

    Less Smuggy branding is, fittingly, at the end of this list. Because you are probably not going to lose any clients to that. They knew about it when they signed up.

    Accepting these priorities, maybe more than 1 "sorcerer" should be on coupons or packages? (I know you have one per--but maybe double those numbers.)

    I have no clue how difficult it is to code. But by comparing Smug's progress with that of other companies', I know this is much too long.

    I don't want to disparage people I don't know. I don't want to insult the sorcerers without actually talking to them and asking how hard they're working. I don't want to talk to them, because that would mean distracting them from a job long overdue. I'm not qualified to say they don't know their stuff.

    But this is what's running through my head: someone's not working hard enough, someone's not managing their personnel well, or someone (or multiple people) just flat suck at what they're trying to do. If this were a public company, someone would be held accountable for this kind of BS. At least one person would have lost his job long ago. And please don't quote me the fact that this is a family-run business. It'll just make me angrier. I know that, and the great customer service is probably at least partially attributable to that.

    Andy, if you're going to say anything along the lines of "we're still working hard," "it's a top priority," or "give us some more time," just, please, don't. A lack of response to this admitted vent would be better than that.
    Please don't mistake my blunt, pointed posts as my being "angry," "short," or "rude."

    I'm generally happy, tall, and fuzzy on the inside.www.NickensPhotography.com
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    bandgeekndbbandgeekndb Registered Users Posts: 284 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    Termina, that's a bit harsh in my opinion. Although, you did disclaim it at the end, and I'm not one to get in the way of free speech!

    Andy, by the joys of subscriptions, I can tell both you and bigwebguy posted here and now they're gone? Regardless of that...

    I don't agree with termina in his/her above rant, as I'm taking your word for it that you all are running at full choke to make this happen ASAP.

    I'm not going to say a reason wouldn't be nice though. Is there a reason you can give us? If not, no big deal, we'll all keep waiting, but I thought I'd ask.

    Thanks,
    Nick
    Nikon D7000, D90

    Sigma 18-50 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8
    Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6, 50mm f/1.8
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    DanoDano Registered Users Posts: 125 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    Well Smug is down so....... maaayyyybeeeee...........
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    bandgeekndbbandgeekndb Registered Users Posts: 284 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    Andy wrote:
    15524779-Ti.gif

    If it's not soon we'll all be disappointed.

    Combined with a down Smug, let's pray they're pulling out the big guns...:rambo

    Man, I've been waiting forever to use that smiley!
    Nikon D7000, D90

    Sigma 18-50 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8
    Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6, 50mm f/1.8
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    BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited May 4, 2009
    Hey termina3,

    If that was a vent, it was a fair one because we've been promising coupons and packages for way longer than we should have. If I were a pro who depended on them like you do, I might've vented harder than you. I love Apple and use their products, but I did a public venting about their default gamma of 1.8 in a blog post that wasn't much different than yours here.

    Unfortunately, I'm the guy to vent to for two reasons. I hired the engineer who lost his job... And I'm the one who prioritized Bay Photo over coupons at the last minute, not realizing how long a trek Bay integrataion was going to be.

    I can only say we have two of our best guys on the code and a really talented guy on the UI. We have a few UI problems to sort still wrt UI and the consumer selecting products for packages, but some people have seen me demoing them at user group meetings and their main feedback was, "Ship. It."

    If it's any comfort, we have doubled the development team over the last year, with 3 of the 6 new guys coming over the last 4 months (one did the easy customizer).

    If it's not any comfort, my tires are the ones to slash, not Andy's.
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    SloJoeSloJoe Registered Users Posts: 4 Beginner grinner
    edited May 4, 2009
    It is times like these that I wish Smug was open source.

    I would have pitched in to help long ago were it possible.. :cry

    I really want coupons...
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    davisphotosdavisphotos Registered Users Posts: 21 Big grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    I've waited long enough for coupons & packages, and I just signed up with Pictage a couple weeks ago (although I do still have my SmugMug account). I just spent an hour ordering prints for a wedding client that bought a print voucher-with coupons from Pictage, I can sell print credits ahead of time, and they just enter their coupon code-no effort on my part. I'm shooting a graduation for 300+ graduates next month, and being able to offer print packages will undoubtably drive my sales up-very important since my earnings from that event will be just in print sales. The pre-registration feature of Pictage is also great for driving traffic. I will keep my eyes open to see what happens with SmugMug Pro, but I can't stick around and wait to see when 'soon' is, and watch potential income slip away.

    SmugMug offers a great user interface, absolutely stellar customer service and some of the best print quality around, but I do feel they are not the best solution for a busy event photographer. Part of this is due to having a broader range of customers, from the casual snapshooter, to a scenic photographer selling prints, as well as Wedding shooters. Catering to all these various photographers is bound to be hard. However, from a business standpoint, event photographers have the capability of bringing in a lot of cash for the Smug enterprise, so providing tools to allow them to maximize their sales would seem like a good business move. From my standpoint, there seems to be some pretty major problems with prioritizing projects-Bay Photo, customizer tool, cards, an iPhone app (? sorry guys, I downloaded the app, and I promptly deleted it-I found it very clunky to use), video-the news feed is full of features that in my honest, uneducated opinion, could have easily waited until after coupons and packages.

    That's my rant-I am well aware I am not running the company, and there are most likely reasons for the way things are run, but as a pro waiting for promised features, I am starting to feel frustrated.
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    Bay Photo, customizer tool, cards, an iPhone app (? sorry guys, I downloaded the app, and I promptly deleted it-I found it very clunky to use), video- the news feed is full of features that in my honest, uneducated opinion, could have easily waited until after coupons and packages.

    Yeah, good thing we have 10 Sorcerers, all with different skill sets. And so we're able to work on a lot of things simultaneously. We have the right guy assigned to Coupons.
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    SledhedSledhed Registered Users Posts: 79 Big grins
    edited May 4, 2009
    Baldy - My Pro account is up for renewal at the end of the month. For three years now I have asked for coupons and packages and I'm always told the same thing, we're working on them. I'm honestly getting tired of that answer. When it came time for renewal last year I once again sent Smugmug an e-mail asking what is up with coupons and packages and I was once again told, were working on them. At that point I signed up for the free trial of EM, didn't like it nearly as much and decided to wait. Well here we are a year later and I'm in the same situation, I sent an e-mail to Smugmug this morning asking about coupons and packages and within thirty minutes I got an e-mail back, saying were working on them. You have to understand our frustration over this. I could care less about Bay Photo, the new customizer and a couple other things you rolled out first. Those are are not as important to event photogs.

    So once again I'm back looking at alternatives, if we could just get an idea like a week, a month or even 6 months it would make my decision easier. I hate making business decisions like this without all of the information.
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    BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited May 5, 2009
    Sledhed wrote:
    You have to understand our frustration over this. I could care less about Bay Photo, the new customizer and a couple other things you rolled out first. Those are are not as important to event photogs.
    I do understand, yes, and can't blame you for your frustration.

    Had I understood back then what I know now I would've hired more engineers sooner, but so many sharing sites have faded away over the years which seemed so strong, and the economy seemed so perilous, I played it conservatively.

    If someone had told me this was in our future, I would have beefed up (a) to handle scaling (a very big job), and (b) because we had the revenue to safely hire more:

    smugmug-compared.jpg

    One thing that's different about this year over those others, you didn't see me out demoing coupons and packages in public then.
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    mercphotomercphoto Registered Users Posts: 4,550 Major grins
    edited May 5, 2009
    Baldy wrote:
    Had I understood back then what I know now I would've hired more engineers sooner, but so many sharing sites have faded away over the years which seemed so strong, and the economy seemed so perilous, I played it conservatively.
    Now that's an answer. :)
    Bill Jurasz - Mercury Photography - Cedar Park, TX
    A former sports shooter
    Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
    My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
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    bendruckerphotobendruckerphoto Registered Users Posts: 579 Major grins
    edited May 5, 2009
    Baldy wrote:
    smugmug-compared.jpg

    Very impressive. Glad to hear SmugMug is having so much success. That being said, I am starting to get a little frustrated about coupons. My SmugMug membership doesn't expire for another 3 years or so, so its not like I'll be leaving any time soon. The main thing I need right now is the ability to offer print credit. That will enable me to guarantee print sales and therefore guarantee additional income on all events I shoot.

    I know you've demoed the new features live at SMUGs, but is there any chance that you might post a brief screencast doing a similar demo? I am looking forward to the New York SMUG in late July, but it would be nice to see something sooner. Two and a half months is a long time to wait.
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    timganglofftimgangloff Registered Users Posts: 60 Big grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    Now I see the problem
    "We have the right guy assigned to Coupons."


    Perhaps he is very talented and hard working guy, but he is only one guy and that has not shown to be productive for you or us. Also, it is not good business sense to have a important project being worked on by one person. I wonder what happens if he gets sick, or has to attend to a personal matter, or gets a better offer from some other company. If you can't do it in house, hire a contractor to help get it done. There a lot of other companies who do have coupons and packages so it's not like you've got to re-invent the wheel.

    Look at the other companies that failed. Why did they fail. I would bet that it was for a variety of reasons, but I bet customer service and features played a role. Continuing to fail to meet your customers requests in a timely manner does not bode well for long term success.
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    "We have the right guy assigned to Coupons."


    Perhaps he is very talented and hard working guy, but he is only one guy and that has not shown to be productive for you or us. Also, it is not good business sense to have a important project being worked on by one person. I wonder what happens if he gets sick, or has to attend to a personal matter, or gets a better offer from some other company. If you can't do it in house, hire a contractor to help get it done. There a lot of other companies who do have coupons and packages so it's not like you've got to re-invent the wheel.

    Look at the other companies that failed. Why did they fail. I would bet that it was for a variety of reasons, but I bet customer service and features played a role. Continuing to fail to meet your customers requests in a timely manner does not bode well for long term success.
    So this thread started with good intentions a long time ago then key engineering resources got put on some other just-as-important stuff. And now the right guy is on the job, and making progress, and not getting distracted, and not being trumped by any other projects. Oh and in the meantime we've gone from 4 to 10 Sorcers and from 22 to 48 employees. We'll get there, promise. Thanks for your patience, we know we've been testing it!

    Thanks for your insight and comments, both are very much appreciated.
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    TorgadoTorgado Registered Users Posts: 45 Big grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    What I really want to know is if the Smugmug cart will honor Grocery Store coupon doublers! C'mon! :D
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    arpboyarpboy Registered Users Posts: 42 Big grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    Andy wrote:
    So this thread started with good intentions a long time ago then key engineering resources got put on some other just-as-important stuff. And now the right guy is on the job, and making progress, and not getting distracted, and not being trumped by any other projects. Oh and in the meantime we've gone from 4 to 10 Sorcers and from 22 to 48 employees. We'll get there, promise. Thanks for your patience, we know we've been testing it!

    Thanks for your insight and comments, both are very much appreciated.

    Andy, I appreciate your comments and grace under fire (and I know there's a lot of it). For a lightning rod, you show remarkably little scorching!:D

    For those of us in the midwest, there's not a lot of SMUG sessions within reasonable distance.

    For that reason, a lot of us are lot more in the dark than you may perceive. We've had several years of "it's coming" and even now, have no evidence of any progress.

    With that said, could we see maybe some screenshots of what was demoed in the SMUGs? I know it's your policy not to pre-announce features, but to balance that, most features don't take 3 years to come to fruition, especially not something as important to the pro's in your customer base. I wouldn't consider it a pre-announcement; more like a work-in-progress.

    As Baldy said, you guys have to manage your business, and I respect that. I think that you would generate a lot of good will and lower customer blood pressures even if it's only through a screenshot that says, "Progress!"

    I don't yet do a lot of volume, but I'm gearing up for this summer; the coupons are becoming increasingly important, especially as my customer base is covering a wider geographic area.

    I'm sure that I'm not unusual in getting numerous emails every few days from competitors. I'm not planning to change, since Smugmug fits me so well in every other way; on the other hand, some of my gigs reach several hundred people. If I were shooting gigs every weekend or so, I'd have to think about it just to survive. I'm sure that pressure is why so many of us are hammering you all:beatwax.

    So what do you say? How about a quickie screen shot, plastered with disclaimers?naughty.gif

    -Richard
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    LCKatMPNLCKatMPN Registered Users Posts: 72 Big grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    Very impressive. Glad to hear SmugMug is having so much success. That being said, I am starting to get a little frustrated about coupons. My SmugMug membership doesn't expire for another 3 years or so, so its not like I'll be leaving any time soon. The main thing I need right now is the ability to offer print credit. That will enable me to guarantee print sales and therefore guarantee additional income on all events I shoot.

    I know you've demoed the new features live at SMUGs, but is there any chance that you might post a brief screencast doing a similar demo? I am looking forward to the New York SMUG in late July, but it would be nice to see something sooner. Two and a half months is a long time to wait.

    What is "New York SMUG in late July?" Is that like a conference or something, where we can get update sand meet live people? If so, where and when?

    Thanks,
    Linda
    www.MyPaperNow.com
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    mleemlee Registered Users Posts: 104 Major grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    arpboy wrote:
    With that said, could we see maybe some screenshots of what was demoed in the SMUGs?
    I think this might be what you're looking for...

    http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/7836442_6f4qv

    Mike
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    stevewest15stevewest15 Registered Users Posts: 9 Beginner grinner
    edited May 7, 2009
    Hi, I was looking at establishing a pro account but it seems like if the coupon feature is not yet available, it might be a deal breaker. I currently offer my conference clients 100 - 500 unique coupons which can be redeemed by their attendees for a free photo (hardcopy or digital). The conference sponsor has already paid a bulk price for the 100-500 photos and the coupons allows their attendees to redeem them only once (limit 1 use only). Has anyone done something like this via smugmug? thx, SW
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    aaronbrownaaronbrown Registered Users Posts: 146 Major grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    mlee wrote:
    I think this might be what you're looking for...

    http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/7836442_6f4qv

    Mike

    This looks AWESOME!
    Thanks for sharing.
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    bendruckerphotobendruckerphoto Registered Users Posts: 579 Major grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    The screenshots look great. The only thing I'd like to see that's missing is a gift certificate/print credit option. Maybe there's a way to do it based on the way the coupons look now, but I couldn't figure it how you might do it.
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    BaldyBaldy Registered Users, Super Moderators Posts: 2,853 moderator
    edited May 7, 2009
    There are definitely some things we're still struggling through, like if you're the customer browsing photos to place in your package, how best to find them if the gallery has 2,000 images?

    Even with coupons we have some corner cases to work out, the code has to survive testing, etc. Packages and coupons are our top two priorities so they get more resources than any other projects, but I still can't tell you exactly when they'll be ready to ship because not even we know.
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    LCKatMPN wrote:
    What is "New York SMUG in late July?" Is that like a conference or something, where we can get update sand meet live people? If so, where and when?

    Thanks,
    Linda
    www.MyPaperNow.com
    http://www.smugmug.com/smugs/find/
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    AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited May 7, 2009
    arpboy wrote:
    For a lightning rod, you show remarkably little scorching!:

    .... snip ...

    So what do you say? How about a quickie screen shot, plastered with disclaimers?naughty.gif

    -Richard

    http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1106308&postcount=203

    Thanks for the kind words, Richard!
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    JoeMNIJoeMNI Registered Users Posts: 17 Big grins
    edited May 8, 2009
    I don't know how it could be done, but I wish there could be a coupon or discount for shipping on large orders. Like a buy $30 in prints and the basic shipping is free. Somehow set it so that the shipping charge comes out of my profit margin if my profit margin is some level higher than the shipping cost.

    Offering shipping discounts is BIG nowadays.

    I often buy stuff on Amazon just to get over the $25 free shipping level. It might encourage people to buy more prints.

    The easiest way to do it would be a $15 off if you buy $50 in prints, letting us choose both amounts, but you loose the free shipping sellpoint.
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    arpboyarpboy Registered Users Posts: 42 Big grins
    edited May 8, 2009
    Andy wrote:

    And thanks to you and Mike for the screen shots! That at least tells me that it's something real, and in progress. There's no way I want to leave Smugmug -- I'm too happy with y'all for that -- But I had been considering another site for event shoots with coupons, just to address the need.

    Think I'll stick around.

    -Richard
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