What Do You Use?

[Guest Tess32]

My photos are kinda everywhere and all over the place right now, and I want a main, central place to present them and sell.

However I just can't decide on anything!

Currently they are on Redbubble, but I'm concerned about the drop in quality of printing. On the plus side, it's free.

Zenfolio I've had before...they were terrible at international orders.

Photomerchant...don't know many who have it.

Smugmug - customisation was way too clunky and drove me nuts, also can't afford $150 for the year.

Also use Fine Art America, but I'm concerned it looks a bit unprofessional.

I just don't know where to put them or what to do with them! I just want a place that shows them off nicely, where it is EASY to buy from, prints well, and doesn't cost a bomb and a half.

Any ideas?

[kja]

Why not host them on your own site and use something like Photocart for the galleries & ordering then your own professional lab for printing? Many pro labs will drop ship if you don't want to deal with that.

[Guest Tess32]

I prefer something that does the printing side for me....Sometimes I can't get out to the post office etc and I'd rather orders be fulfilled by someone more organised than I am!

[kja]

Professional labs will drop ship - that means you order them and they ship directly to the client with no invoices etc.

[helen]

Well if you are considering photomerchant, they use one of the best printers areound, you would have to drive all the traffic to your sight yourself though.

Edited April 11, 2012 by helen

[Guest Tess32]

I was about to go with photomerchant but realised they only have prints, which is a real bummer. If they'd offered framed prints...

[PossumCorner]

Marketing is a huge issue, I don't think any of those sites "sell" without the photographer also doing a lot of self promotion/marketing/advertising whatever to back it up. Which takes time on its own.

We put time into personal service, never sell anything via the hosting sites, Smugmug, flickr, Pbase whatever. Just invite personal contact and take it from there, use a prolab for prints and use a local quality framer for framed orders. Put a high enough price to make doing the post-packaging worthwhile.

I'd like to see the Alain Briot DVD out of interest, I've been on their info list for years but never ordered - just curious to see if any part is relevant to our purposes.

http://beautiful-landscape.com/Learn_Marketing_DVD-SP.html

Don't know if the link works, maybe copy and paste?

I've been getting the emails and info from them for years, so there must be something useful for it to keep going - if only a lesson in self-marketing and self-confidence.

I think it promotes diversity in marketing, and that isn't what your question was. But I don't think anythings 'sells itself' without some promotion, it's a circular problem in that time has to be invested, whether it's like you say going to the PostOffice, or getting advertising of some kind organised.

[Guest Tess32]

I sell a reasonable amount on them without doing much marketing at all...Fine Art America in particular, you tend to sell large framed prints on there whereas redbubble is cards, smaller prints since they moved more into t shirts etc.

My problem isn't about marketing, it's about making it easy to buy and checkout a print while also having a good viewing experience. I don't want to just have a contact email (and I have sold a few things this way) because it misses out on the 'can't be bothered' people who just want to choose their own item and checkout with paypal. I know that even I have given up on buying something because it's too hard or not obvious.

I like FAA's options, and I prefer a customer to be able to see options, options that I don't have the time or inclination to put together, because offering brown frames, black frames, white frames, different matting, etc is too much work when there ARE sites who will do it for me.

My only issue with them is the viewing experience...it feels more shop front than portfolio. I can't find anything that does both, for Australia, very well.

At the moment I've gone with zenfolio with a link to the FAA buying site. I can't see any other real option right now.

[rubiton]

I have my own website with the email contact for any enquiries.

There are some photos on Redbubble (waste of time - I did go through and try and promote but handful of views and comments and thats it)

Some on a Mr Site website (I do get a few orders time to time of old photos through here)

Many on Cafepress (this seems to pay for itself but since they reduced everything to their marketplace pricing thats all no extra cheques over the top)

Many on a stock photo site which I do need to delete some and upload new ones when in one day have time) this gets enough interst to pay for itself but thats it.