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DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> Where do you sell your prints?
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 01/09/2006 07:47:41 PM · #1
As some of you know my membership is up in a month(I renewed for one month today). This will give me one month to decide if I want to continue to be involved in this site by membership ways.

If I don't renew I will need a place to sell my prints. I am already a smumgmug user and not sure if I want to spend the extra money to sell my prints. I am a poweruser there now and the price will go up $50 a year. I don't sell many prints now but I have many friends interested in me doing family portraits for them then selling them the photos. I want to use a website. I have heard of //www.photoreflect.com and am considering that option.

Please if anyone here uses another site or photoreflect to sell their photos post your opinions and links here.
 01/09/2006 08:24:38 PM · #2
Nobody wants to offer up any suggestion?
 01/09/2006 08:35:21 PM · #3
I'm not a personal fan of selling things online, but have you considered the local flea market? Or does the rent space cost too much? In Bangkok, I see lots of people sell their works at the weekend market and they're quite impressive.
 01/09/2006 08:38:28 PM · #4
I was hoping to do this all online. This way my friend and neighbors can just go online and selecdt the shots they want.
 01/09/2006 09:21:49 PM · #5
Originally posted by rex:
I was hoping to do this all online. This way my friend and neighbors can just go online and selecdt the shots they want.


You can do it all online from a various host of sources, but you can't come close to maximizing your profit that way. Any way you slice it online, someone else is gonna get at least 50% of your profit above cost. It would be in your best interest to handle the printing and distribution of those prints.
 01/10/2006 05:45:46 PM · #6
Just looking for a few more options. I will eventually move to selling and distributing mysaelf but for now. I need an online setup.
 01/10/2006 05:50:12 PM · #7
I have to be honest and say that I no longer think DPC Prints is worth spending money for if there are no other motivations for you to pay for membership.

Any sales you get there will be of your own making as random traffic there is so limited - I have made a handful of non-referral sales there and none for a very long time indeed. The site just doesn't get the traffic and it's probably not financially worthwhile to Drew and Langdon to invest more in trying to change that. Also, whilst upgrades to DPCP interface were originally promised a REALLY REALLY REALLY long time ago, they have not materialised. Whilst I fully appreciate that Drew and Langdon have full time jobs that take precedence, I notice how many other changes have been made to DPC during the time and realise that DPCP has been put on the back burner.

For that reason I'm in the same boat as you - when my membership expires - which won't be for a while as I took advantage of a discount renewal rate not too long ago - I won't be renewing either (unless there have been some serious changes to DPCP by then).

As for other avenues, I haven't seriously looked but I have come across references to a few - I think it would be worth your pursuing or at least researching other options over DPCP.
 01/10/2006 05:52:32 PM · #8
Kavey have you tried the //www.photoreflect.com or any other sites?

Message edited by author 2006-01-10 17:52:42.
 01/10/2006 05:54:36 PM · #9
have you tried ebay.. seriously?
Alot of people say they arent having much luck with it but I am finding it very good.. Just a thought.
 01/10/2006 05:55:23 PM · #10
I haven't tried anywhere else as my plan is to create my own website. I don't imagine I'll sell enough that I'll be overwhelmed so this way I can get them printed cheaply and post them out myself, having been able to sign and title the mounting card.

IF sales ever seem to be high enough for this to become a problem I'll reconsider at that stage.

I'm hoping to start working on creating the site myself later this month, depending on how much paying work I manage to get.

But I would certainly be interested in links to any potential sales avenues you uncover during research!
 01/10/2006 05:56:02 PM · #11
Why not just create your own on-line store. Many web-hosts have easy to setup store fronts and would host your own domain. When a customer places the order, you would be e-mailed the order and could fill it appropriately and maximize profit. Web hosts are cheap these days.
-Jeff
 01/10/2006 05:58:57 PM · #12
I have looked at DPCPrints and deviatART for selling work that is not specific to a client. I've also looked at smugmug and photoreflect for galleries that can be specific to a customer.

I'm not overly impressed with smugmug or photogreflect for use with clients because the look and feel of those services doesn't provide the experience I would want to offer customers. In the end I'll probably leave public prints at dpcprints and deviantART because I like want to support those communities and everything else will go to a new site specific to my needs. I'm sure I can link into a printer, such as mpix.com, from my own site.

This may not help, but I wanted you to at least know that others are stuck on the same decision point.

Message edited by author 2006-01-10 19:51:39.
 01/10/2006 07:14:11 PM · #13
I would like to support DPC prints but as Kavey has pointed out that not much traffic is there and improvments need to be made. Not that is is D&L's fault. Like she said they probably just aren't making any money at that. The problem I have with deviant Art is the damn website times out a lot. Mpix I will check out. Can you set the price there? Why were you not happy with photoreflect.com?
 01/10/2006 07:35:30 PM · #14
I dont believe you can set prices at MPix, but I just completed a large (for me) order throught them and was very happy.
 01/10/2006 07:40:42 PM · #15
Originally posted by rex:


I have heard of //www.photoreflect.com and am considering that option.

Please if anyone here uses another site or photoreflect to sell their photos post your opinions and links here.


I saw on another thread somebody mentioned their website. When I explored their site, I saw that it was integrated somehow with photoreflect.

I wanted to respond to you right away. I'll be back in a few minutes after I research who it was.
 01/10/2006 07:42:30 PM · #16
Express Digital maybe?
 01/10/2006 07:44:12 PM · #17
Originally posted by yakatme:
Originally posted by rex:


I have heard of //www.photoreflect.com and am considering that option.

Please if anyone here uses another site or photoreflect to sell their photos post your opinions and links here.


I saw on another thread somebody mentioned their website. When I explored their site, I saw that it was integrated somehow with photoreflect.

I wanted to respond to you right away. I'll be back in a few minutes after I research who it was.


I found the URL, but I haven't yet figured out who on DPC it belongs to. Their website is //www.pictureinfinity.com . I think the thread was
"Business of Photography Group 1" . If not, then it was Group 2.
 01/10/2006 07:45:40 PM · #18
The DPC member is mavrik.
 01/10/2006 07:55:57 PM · #19
I use a combination of Paypal buttons on my PBase site and then send my digital files and ordering info to MyPhotoPipe

Check it out in action here: MyPBase
 01/10/2006 08:05:37 PM · #20
Originally posted by rex:
The problem I have with deviant Art is the damn website times out a lot.

They seem to be doing some investing, so I hope that improves.

Originally posted by rex:
Mpix I will check out. Can you set the price there?

You can use mpix as a backend service so your customer's never see it. This allow you to set your prices, mpix just has their based price. The advantage here is that you don't turn 50% of the profit over to an intermediate.

Originally posted by rex:
Why were you not happy with photoreflect.com?

photoreflect didn't support the workflow I wanted. I typically post a digital contact sheet with basic level adjustments and color correction, but I want the option to do additional editing on selected images before the photo is sent to the printer. With photoreflect the image either goes to the printer or to me. I just want another step in the flow. Overall their UI wasn't bad, but I would like something a little less generic. I tossed some images onto my account just to give it a try.

01/10/2006 08:33:08 PM · #21
Originally posted by lentil:
have you tried ebay.. seriously?
Alot of people say they arent having much luck with it but I am finding it very good.. Just a thought.


I second this, heh seems like most of my posts lately are to encourage giving eBay selling a try.

I use DPC to get my prints at what I think is a good price and then sell them on eBay.

You have to (of course) pay attention to the various fees you're charged by eBay/Paypal, but I have managed to find my middle ground.

For some numerical examples, I make about $2.50 profit on the first 11x14 photo sale and then approximately $20 profit on each subsequent sale in a listing - I typically do multiple quantity listings rather than multiple listings at one time, its been more economical fee-wise for me.

I'm currently trying out a 5x7 tri-photo package to see how it goes and have sold one set which has net me $5.00+ in profit (when all expenses are tallied). Any other sales from that listing will simply increase the profit margin.

Its not going to make me rich but as long as I sell one photograph I am still making a profit. If I manage to sell more photos per listing, all the better.

I've had my share of no-sale listings but over the long-term I've definitely come out on the positive side financially. That's been my experience, your mileage may vary.

- Sia

PS: For those interested, I'm offering a simple, signed photograph. I do not mat or frame it as I don't know how to mat and I find that it would likely increase my shipping costs (which I do NOT charge my customers) and limit my profit. If I ever learn how to mat and find I am able to increase my price significantly enough to justify the added shipping costs (while still keeping the price attractive to buyers), I will likely look into that option. For now however, I'm doing just fine.
 01/10/2006 08:43:14 PM · #22
Originally posted by Nusbaum:
I typically post a digital contact sheet with basic level adjustments and color correction, but I want the option to do additional editing on selected images before the photo is sent to the printer. With photoreflect the image either goes to the printer or to me.


You can do a lot to an image when someone places their order. You can change brightness, contrast, color, saturation, crop - everything AFTER the order is placed. If you have MAJOR changes, then you can also change the file they ordered to be the new file you create. PR is pretty much unlimited that way. I love it because if they order something and I notice it's a bit dark, I just bump the brightness a touch and print it then.

And yes, it's me that uses Photoreflect. I use All American Photo as the back end printer and I guarantee they are up on the same quality level as Mpix. I've used both and All American is one of the few PR printers that give professional results. MPix is great but doesn't work with PR so it doesn't work for me.

Anyone who has specific PR questions can ask away and I'll do my best to answer - granting that I don't know EVERYTHING about the express digital software or PR itself.

M
 01/10/2006 09:06:11 PM · #23
Matt,

Thanks for the pm. Also thanks for posting in here for everyone else to see.
 01/11/2006 11:02:27 AM · #24
Originally posted by mavrik:


Anyone who has specific PR questions can ask away and I'll do my best to answer - granting that I don't know EVERYTHING about the express digital software or PR itself.

M

I'll have to look at this again and maybe even walk through a test to see how it works. Is it possible you need their windows client to do some of this? It seemed that they used a downloadable client which was primarily targeted at windows.

Message edited by author 2006-01-11 11:03:01.
 01/11/2006 08:28:26 PM · #25
Photoreflect just seems to damn hard to figure out. I might just go with smugmug.

Message edited by author 2006-01-12 18:51:51.
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