Best way to handle offline sales?
nobody
Registered Users Posts: 94 Big grins
Starting next month, I am going to be shooting several kid's cross country meets over a period of roughly 6 weeks. I will be about 100 kids and I will be there 2 or 3 times. Online sales is no problem -- I have been invited by the event orginizer and she will send out my info to the parents, but inevitably, some small fraction will not have internet access. One option is to get maybe a dozen or so proof sheets printed (not sure what that would cost). Another is selling by letting them view directly on my camera or laptop, order the prints they want, but have SM send it directly to them instead of me. The problem is that I won't have time to do that for more than a few people, since cross country meets start and finish quickly and then everyone goes home. Speculative printing of 4" x 6" is also a possibility (would cost about $25 for 100 kids). Any suggestions?
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Secondly, if you offer offline sales thru showing the pics on your camera panel, or by proof sheet, or by speculative printing, EVERYONE will want to do it that way rather than go home and look you up on the internet. You have no way to restrict offline sales to only those without internet access. It will be an absolute nightmare.
You'll be doing more paperwork than photography before very long. Mistakes are bound to creep in with people crowding around handing or telling you orders. No way! Memorize the following: "I apologize. I only sell through my online site. Perhaps you have a friend with internet access or a public library nearby."
My best to you in your effort, and if you decide to go with the offline sales, please let us know how it went. I may be completely wrong, and we'll all learn a lesson.
http://www.joviphotography.com
True some folks still don't have computers but many folks who have internet access still won't buy things online for fear of idenity theft or for who knows what other reasons. We have a note on our website for those customers to contact us so we can process their orders for them.
But the big advantage to onsite sales has little to do with those folks. It comes from the impulse buys from excited parents when they see the pictures.
Which brings us to your question. The best way to sell offline.
Having folks look at the pictures in your camera will be cumbersome and time consuming. How many times have you seen what you thought was a good shot on your LCD only to find out it is blurry once you look at it on your computer?
Proof sheets are ok but when are you going to show them to people? the next meet? What about the photos of the last meet of the season? What about the visiting team?
Same with preprinted 4x6's. Plus, unless you plan to have only one shot of each of the 100 kids you are looking at more like 400+ 4x6's to print.
The best way is to set up your laptop as a view station with an assistant (wife/child/freind) to take orders. If you try it and think it will catch on you can find event/view station software to streamline your workflow.
We do decent business online but the majority of our sales come from offline sales.
Give it a try. I think you will be pleasantly suprised!
Marty
My wife will be available for several of those dates, so there is a possibility I could utilize her help to take orders by showing pics on my laptop or digital frame.
Amen to that, Xris. My partner has walked into a client's home and seen one of his pictures framed and sitting in a place of pride - with his watermark plastered across the front of it. Thank goodness for right click protection!
http://www.joviphotography.com
What I was thinking was just put a reduced size version of everything on a CD or flash drive, take it to walmart, or where ever, and get them to print out maybe 5 sets of thumbnails of everything (it would be multiple pages per set). When I show up at the 2nd meet, what I would do is let everyone look, but charge a buck per sheet, or whatever the printing cost is to those who wish to take a thumbnail sheet home. I could then create order forms, they send me a check and tell me which file and what print, I cash the check, it clears, then I put the order in to SM and have it shipped to their address. That's a lot of trouble to go through in order to keep the extra 15% for myself, but at least it keeps everyone in the loop.
Are you thinking that people will actually scan the thumbnails and use them for themselves? That would just look absolutely ugly if they expand them up to even a 4" x 6". If someone is that hard up, then I doubt there's a chance of me selling them anything. I suppose dealing with them is like trying to get blood out of a turnip. On my photos for sale, I protect utilizing the ugly watermark, limiting the sizes which can be seen, and/or right-click protection. If I am allowing larger sizes to be viewed, I always use both watermarks and right-click protection.
When Mom and Dad see a shot of Johnny, most do not even consider the quality from a technical standpoint. If there's a smile and the pic flips some soft switch in their mind, it's a "great" shot. They don't care if it's 1x2 or 2400X5600. They scan it and post it for grandma and uncle Ned to see.
You're only chance is to make them easily available at a reasonable cost.
So my suggestion is to consider a policy of NO free hard copy access. Not even with watermarks.
And whatever you do. No photocopies!!
I knew there are people out there with very low expectations of image quality, but it is pretty jaw-dropping to hear stories like yours. I certainly wouldn't want some grainy photo of myself with a big ugly "PROOF" stretched across it uploaded on a flickr or myspace account in my name. I suppose that too often, I make the mistake of thinking that because I regard something as having little or no value, others do the same. Sometimes when my wife sees me working, she wonders what's so wrong with a set of photos that I'm deleting so many. She honestly doesn't understand sometimes. My kids are still very young though, so when they see me deleting stuff, they know why and are beginning see things more like I do.