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01/07/2013 06:23:05 PM · #1
Hi All,

I just got off the phone with a fine art consultant who saw some of my large metal prints in an recent exhibition. She is working with the owners of a new 60 unit apartment complex and they want possibly dozens of 24"X36" and 24"X24" metal (aluminum) prints for the common areas of the complex.
They would buy the prints directly from me and she has already seen my pricing at the exhibition. I still don't know what the total number of prints would potentially be, but I'm thinking there is the "chance" that they might request some kind of discount if they are buying a large quantity. I don't know if volume discounts are common, and if so how much discounting is normally done? Has anybody sold in large volume with a discount and would maybe care to share how much the discount was?

Thanks for any advice offered!

-Brent
01/07/2013 06:28:38 PM · #2
I haven't sold that kind of volume, but I've given 10% or more off on multiple print/licensing orders.

A happy customer is a good, repeat customer!
01/07/2013 06:38:36 PM · #3
Originally posted by Neil:

I haven't sold that kind of volume, but I've given 10% or more off on multiple print/licensing orders.

A happy customer is a good, repeat customer!

Thanks Neil, 10% was kind of the amount that came to mind for me and I think I will offer it if a discount is asked for. This consultant seems to do work with some large corporations- so repeat business would be great! I sure hope this deal goes down... :D
01/07/2013 06:40:10 PM · #4
Congratulations - this is very cool. Keep us posted.
01/07/2013 06:46:42 PM · #5
Originally posted by nam:

Congratulations - this is very cool. Keep us posted.

Thanks Nikki :) Will do!
01/07/2013 10:41:08 PM · #6
This is the ideal type of customer, but for an order of "dozens" I think a discount of more than 10% might be in order, especially for multiple copies of the same image. Of course, this would also depend on your existing markup/net on these.

Make sure you have a (written) contract before you order all those (expensive) prints.

Congratulations!
01/07/2013 11:00:52 PM · #7
Originally posted by GeneralE:

This is the ideal type of customer, but for an order of "dozens" I think a discount of more than 10% might be in order, especially for multiple copies of the same image. Of course, this would also depend on your existing markup/net on these.

Make sure you have a (written) contract before you order all those (expensive) prints.

Congratulations!

Good points Paul. I will definitely offer a larger discount if the amount goes into the dozens. And the same if they go with multiple copies of the same print. Though I don't see that happening unless these are furnished apartments kind of like a hotel. There is a Westin hotel right across from my office and I can see with one glance 20 of the same image in their rooms and they look like nature abstracts from Ursula. In fact LevT stayed in that hotel and told me he wondered if a print in his room was Ursula's. What a great payday supplying prints to the Westin would be!

But don't congratulate me yet. I still need to get a batch of potential images prepared to go into a presentation for the end client. They may not like any even though the consultant does! :P

PS- Oh yeah, I will be certain I have a deposit before I place a huge printing order should it come do that ;)
01/08/2013 01:21:34 AM · #8
way cool!

this is an area i've been curious about, but have never investigated. i would suggest 1) finding out what their budget is, and 2) calling around to some of the more high end interior decorators and seeing if they can give you some direction.
01/11/2013 01:41:18 PM · #9
Well okay, I sent the art consultant 187 prospective images last night. She said she liked what she saw and asked for more of a certain genre. So I sent another 95 images this morning- phew!!!

I don't know what will come of all this (fingers crossed!), but if anything I now have a better grasp of just what images I have lurking within my archives :P
01/11/2013 02:35:36 PM · #10
Originally posted by Brent_S:

Well okay, I sent the art consultant 187 prospective images last night. She said she liked what she saw and asked for more of a certain genre. So I sent another 95 images this morning- phew!!!

I don't know what will come of all this ...

Hopefully not that someone just prints out those images themselves! Good luck!
01/11/2013 03:34:37 PM · #11
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Originally posted by Brent_S:

Well okay, I sent the art consultant 187 prospective images last night. She said she liked what she saw and asked for more of a certain genre. So I sent another 95 images this morning- phew!!!

I don't know what will come of all this ...

Hopefully not that someone just prints out those images themselves! Good luck!

Ha! I covered my butt there Paul; all images were reduced to 1000 pixels before submitting ;)
01/15/2013 09:17:48 PM · #12
Yikes! I might actually get this project!

I met with the consultant yesterday to discuss the project more before she presented my images to the complex designer committee (four people all with different taste). I went over my pricing with her and she said it was well within their budget (I quoted about 10% lower than my single image published price) and she actually suggested that I not offer any further discount regardless of the volume. She is pushing for me to get an exclusive which would entail approximately (gulp) thirty six 24"X36" metal prints.

So she met with the committee today, and it looks like several of the images I submitted are a go, but they would like more images shot in the specific neighborhood of the complex and the consultant would need them from me by Sunday. I just moved and half of my stuff is still in boxes. But I am going to shoot my ass off until Sunday for as much time as I can get away from my "day job" and see if I can make this fly all the way. It can't be any harder than shooting three entries per week for DPC league play, right? Lol!

I kind of feel like I went fishing with a trout pole and ended up hooking a whale with this job, But I'm pumped, and ready to start reeling in with all my might :)

And I fully know this could still all fall apart, but it's good experience for me. I hate what I mainly do for a living now and this is exactly the way I would rather make a living- eventually.
01/15/2013 09:37:46 PM · #13
wouldn't it be nice if we had a simple like button...

good luck, brent!

01/15/2013 09:46:12 PM · #14
Thanks Skip! :D
01/15/2013 09:48:59 PM · #15
Good Luck Brent - hope it works out for you! :-)
01/17/2013 05:05:40 PM · #16
sounds fun, i wish the best for you.
01/17/2013 05:42:46 PM · #17
Thanks you guys :) Fun; yes- but lots of work too! :P And no guarantees yet that I'll even make a penny...
01/24/2013 04:55:56 PM · #18
Somebody pinch me and wake me up!

I just met with the art consultant and one of the designers at the venue where the images will be installed. It looks like I will be getting an exclusive for images in the five story building. All will be printed to metal. The ground floor alone will have five 40" X 60" images in the lobby (I better process them carefully!) and another five 24" X36" images scattered about that floor. Other floors will get about fourteen 24" X 36" prints in total. So in all we are talking twenty four images- I'll need a big truck to deliver them!

I can't believe this! I just came to the realization that I am likely getting stiffed on payment from a customer for five months of work with my main business. So this opportunity came at a great time!

I know better than to bank on this until at least the check for printing is in my hand, but things are looking pretty good :D

Message edited by author 2013-01-24 16:56:41.
01/24/2013 05:30:14 PM · #19
That is truly wonderful news!

See if you can get a property release from those folks so that you can take and use photos of the installation in your own promotional materials ... (and post here!)
01/24/2013 05:33:24 PM · #20
Fantastic news Brent - CONGRATULATIONS! Do they at least give you a down payment to cover your costs?
01/24/2013 05:49:29 PM · #21
Thanks you guys, I'm sure I will be able to take images of the venue for my future promotions. The women I met with today were joking that it will be like my own little museum, lol! I'll definitely post some images of the venue here when things go up.

What's kind of crazy is that only maybe four or five will be from my archives and the rest I have shot in the last week. I'm still shooting for a few more days to see if I can best images they have already said yes to. The weather has been a challenge though.

Most certainly I will get a deposit that covers all printing costs before anything gets printed. Especially for the made to order images, I don't want to get stuck with them :P
02/13/2013 07:01:04 PM · #22
As of right now all images are processed and ready to print! Yay! :D

I'm so glad to be done with this project yet grateful for it. I leaned a lot from this experience- most importantly how to not waste time!

They might add a couple more images to the want list, but as it stands I have an order for all glossy metal prints; 16- 24"X36", 3- 40"X50", and 2- 40"x60". The three 40"X50" will be a triple panel panoramic based on one image (sold as three separate images fortunately).

I just yesterday secured a local source for the metal prints that will be cheaper than Bay Photo to pad my profit by at least $800- sweet! This paid well, but not by the hour as because of the crap winter Seattle weather I had to spend many fruitless hours when the sun never came out at a lake by the venue. I could have cut my shooting time by 80% easily any other time of year! My last day of shooting I was down at that stupid lake from pre-dawn to sunset and just barely got what I needed to close the shooting with one of my last frames.

Only five images came from my archives. The rest had to be shot according to their request- and they don't even look like my work! Whatever it takes for a sale ;) And the consultant says she will have other projects for me soon...

I can post a gallery of the images soon if anyone is interested, but I just felt like shooting out that I am finally done! :)
02/13/2013 07:06:15 PM · #23
Originally posted by Brent_S:

I can post a gallery of the images soon if anyone is interested

well, DUH!!!

;-)

congrats, take a deep breath, and POST THE GALLERY :D
02/13/2013 08:13:34 PM · #24
Lol! Okay, link to gallery below Skip ;)

But be forewarned, it really isn't much to look at. Most of the shots I liked ended up on the cutting room floor. No so much the art consultant, but the interior designers for the project had bad taste and a fondness for abstracts.
It's really kind of a joke that I spent all these hours at this lake next to this new upscale apartment building the images are for shooting people doing all kinds of activities (that's what the consultant wanted) and then the bulk of the images ended up being abstracts the designers wanted. Six abstracts came from two ten minute sessions shot right across from my office, and three more of them came from a couple of short sessions shooting with a camera stuck to the top of my car. I spent countless hours at this lake fighting the bad weather and only five shots were used featuring it!

As things are now I did not end up with an exclusive for the building. I have the lobby and ground floor where the bulk of the images are, and three other floors. Another photographer got two floors (I later learned they had an exclusive before I came along and I feel bad about that).

The panoramic image was originally going to be three separate 40" X 60" lake landscapes for a lighted niche in the lobby. I got three ready for them and the designer decided she just had to have the one image done as a split instead of three different images. So... I had to use perfect resize to upsize one image to 150" X 40". It looks "painterly", and the consultant likes it and is paying me as though it were three separate images, so I just made her happy :)

Anyway, here is what they went with-
Kavela Building Project

PS- Thanks to everyone who gave me encouragement in this thread! I'll post some venue images when the images get hung.

02/13/2013 08:32:52 PM · #25
Originally posted by Brent_S:

... because of the crap winter Seattle weather I had to spend many fruitless hours when the sun never came out at a lake by the venue. I could have cut my shooting time by 80% easily any other time of year!

Now really 80%? I have a T-Shirt ...
SEATTLE RAIN FESTIVAL

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