Getting set up to sell, but art, not photos

Beryl

hello,

I am so happy with smugmug and thank you for all your help so I can have a beautiful web site. I found smugmug in 2003 and used it for years just to upload photos so I could post them on my livejournal blog. Recently I upgraded to pro because my art business is starting to grow and I wanted a professional looking web site. I work in copper and make sculpture. People are visiting my site. I'm selling through my studio, but not online yet. So far, my web site bio just says to contact me by email. My question is, can I set up my site so people can order a piece from the site and pay with a credit card? Is it the same as if I were selling prints except smugmug doesn't make the prints? Is it possible to do this? Thanks again, and take care,
Beryl

www.copperwaterfall.com

jfriend

This type of arrangement is what is typically called "self fulfillment", where somebody else would process the order and the payment, but you would handle the actual goods. This type of arrangement is not directly supported by Smugmug (it is by some other pro sites).

There are some people here who customize their site in order to do something like this. It is most typically done by using PayPal to process the payment (you set yourself up as a PayPal vendor) and then you add various PayPal HTML to your site in order to allow a customer to buy something from you via PayPal payments. You would get an email from PayPal after the customer bought something, the payment would go into your account and you would then have to deliver the goods to them.

All of this completely bypasses the Smugmug shopping cart and Smugmug payment handling and Smugmug support.

Beryl

Thank you!:D

jfriend wrote:

This type of arrangement is what is typically called "self fulfillment", where somebody else would process the order and the payment, but you would handle the actual goods. This type of arrangement is not directly supported by Smugmug (it is by some other pro sites).

There are some people here who customize their site in order to do something like this. It is most typically done by using PayPal to process the payment (you set yourself up as a PayPal vendor) and then you add various PayPal HTML to your site in order to allow a customer to buy something from you via PayPal payments. You would get an email from PayPal after the customer bought something, the payment would go into your account and you would then have to deliver the goods to them.

All of this completely bypasses the Smugmug shopping cart and Smugmug payment handling and Smugmug support.

Beryl

Beryl wrote:

Thank you!:D

Hello, and thanks for your reply. It just occurred to me that I also have pages of "flat art," Celtic art and pastels that could be made into prints and sold through smugmug. Just thought of that. Can I set up two different systems, one with paypal on the pages for my sculptures, and one with smugmug for my pastels and Celtic art? Huh? Huh? Can I? Thanks again, smugmug. Five years and counting with you guys.

Beryl

www.copperwaterfall.com

jfriend

Beryl wrote:

Hello, and thanks for your reply. It just occurred to me that I also have pages of "flat art," Celtic art and pastels that could be made into prints and sold through smugmug. Just thought of that. Can I set up two different systems, one with paypal on the pages for my sculptures, and one with smugmug for my pastels and Celtic art? Huh? Huh? Can I? Thanks again, smugmug. Five years and counting with you guys.

Beryl

www.copperwaterfall.com

Sure. To sell stuff through Smugmug, all you have to do is set your print prices and bring likely customers to your site. That you can do anytime. The Smugmug setup takes minutes (just settings prices and enabled print orders).

The self fulfillment using PayPal is more involved and you may want to do some searches here on dgin to hopefully find some sites that are doing it and see how it all works.

pics-ell

jfriend wrote:

Sure. To sell stuff through Smugmug, all you have to do is set your print prices and bring likely customers to your site. That you can do anytime. The Smugmug setup takes minutes (just settings prices and enabled print orders).

The self fulfillment using PayPal is more involved and you may want to do some searches here on dgin to hopefully find some sites that are doing it and see how it all works.

i set up a site for a friend/client who is a jeweler using the paypal "self-fulfillment" model. you can take a look at it here: lisaronay.smugmug.com

let me know if you have any further questions...

ellen