FlyingPylon - this is an excellent summary of what's going on in this argument.
It appears that most pros expect smugmug to be a "technology and infrastructure provider" and want smumug to get out of the way as much as possible letting the pro control as much of the customer interaction as they desire.
I can tell you that a very small percentage of our pros post here on Dgrin -- that doesn't in any way diminish the value of the suggestions and comments made here - but we listen to all of our pros - Dgrin/forum posters as well as those that have never, ever posted online (way the majority). In fact, I just spent the past weeks speaking live by phone to many many of our pros (over 100), and without question, the majority of these would disagree with your statement above - they *want* us to be there for their customers. To help them. So they can be out there, shooting more and getting more customers.
Smugmug does not have that agenda. From seeing this debate for more than a year, it feels like smugmug wants as many pros as they can attract to hang out at smugmug, but they want everyone to know that the pros are hanging out at smugmug and they don't want to be "transparent" in any way. I understand that the customer needs to understand that support on print issues comes from smugmug and that the credit card statement will say smugmug on it, but those problems could be solved without denying the pros much of the experience they are asking for (like a branding presence in the cart, for example).
If there's a way to acheive this, we'd love to do it. For now, the cart is the way it is. Not co-branded.
That leads to unfullfilled expectations for things like branding in the shopping cart, custom backprinting, discount coupons, print packages, retouch-on-demand, selling digital files, full HTML control of the page, better watermarks, etc... Some of those are just pro-features that smugmug hasn't gotten to yet, but several are exactly what FlyingPylon describes - a mismatch in expectation and agenda.
Many of these are in the works features we'd love to implement, and we've commented on them in other threads. Specifically, backprinting, watermarking, proof and reupload, digital downloads... But we never promise if or when, only that "we're listening" and stay tuned... I don't know how much more open we can be, without compromising anything.
This thread about the smugmug link at the bottom of the page is an exact encapsulation of such an issue. A pro didn't like that the link made it too easy for his customers to see the non-marke-up print prices (consistent with the expectations of a transparent technology provider). Smugmug's answer was that customers need to know that smugmug itself is behind the fullfillment and service aspects of the pro's site (consistent with the consignment store model). Our response to smugmug was that the current link is a marketing/advertising link that doesn't do what pros want and doesn't do what smugmug said was the reason for having the link there in the first place.
The other main thing I think is going on here is that smugmug's main business isn't serving pros. Its main business is serving the masses who aren't after most of the things being asked for here. For reasons we don't know, they decided to make a pro-offering and to offer some pro-like features that were convenient for them to implement within their main system. But, I don't get the impression that they are really going to sleep at night thinking about how they can create a giant "pro" business serving people who make serious money off photography. Rather, it feels from the outside, that they are interested in finding ways to get more of their existing users to be attracted to a higher priced service offering by putting some compelling features into a "pro package", but aren't really trying to beat the other "pro services" out there. If they were, they simply couldn't ignore the types of things that an event photographer need to really drive business that were so aptly described earlier in the thread (coupons, retouch-on-demand, print packages, etc...).
Hmm. Well, you know that I've joined the company, to take on these very issues. We love our pros, and our pro business - it's critical to our success. My role is, among other things, to specifically look after our pros - make sure we're doing right by them, help to create new features, offerings, service their clients better, and yes - to grow our presence in the pro marketplace. We've set up a Support Center in Salt Lake City - largely because of the growth in our pro business - and we'll continue to grow that, to support the needs of our pros, and their customers, as well as also standard and power users, too. How will we do that? By innovating - providing new features (how about themes -- our most popular feature ever - and yeah you'd be surprised at how many pros are using them - not everyone is a CSS/HTML). More features will come out, too. And also by providing a great interface (style!), reliable service (uptime), and world-class support.
And yeah, we do in fact lay awake at night, working out ways to serve the pro market better.
I'd add one more thing that's actually a positive for smugmug. The reason you see people griping about this is because they like a lot that smugmug has to offer and it isn't easy to find some of the nice things that smugmug has elsewhere. But, at the same time, when pros get the feeling that smugmug just doens't share their "pro agenda", they get frustrated. They want things to work out at smugmug because there's a lot to like, but they start to sense that smugmug may not be going in the right direction for them.
P.S. It also doesn't help that smugmug never shares anything about upcoming features that would be interesting to pros. That means that you can never get any credit for anything that you are planning to do or are already working on. In fact, you can only get credit with your customers for things that are already delivered. I know you don't want to make promises that you can't keep, but keeping your customers in the dark about what you do want to do is probably not the smartest business decision if you want to keep the most vocal customers with the most unmet needs (your pros) unless you really aren't planning on doing much of it at all.
Well, there's another point to consider, too: we don't really want our competitors to know exactly what we're doing, either! I think we've been extremely straight-forward about which features seem "likely" and "not-likely." But we're never going to say YES until we're absolutely certain.
John - your input is really valuable - thanks so much for taking the time.
I'll also add, that if all the pros leave to go somewhere else, smugmugs photos they are making so much money on will dry up and they won't be making the sales they do today. If all you have is aunt susie and marian showing the family their photos then you'd basically become a snapfish...
I don't begin to claim that I bring enough business to smugmug yet for them to care much about whether I come or go, and I'm sure they are starting to wish I'd go, but their solution looks like it was designed for ma and pa with the pro thing being an after thought. It has a lot to offer I agree, however, with the things it lacks, I am beginning to think that $150/year plus 15% on top is a little much for what I'm getting. Don't get me wrong, I like most of what is available, but I just don't see this becoming a long lasting relationship with the constant reminders that I'm not the customer type they are mostly focused on...
I hope that changes but at the moment I'm not all that comfortable with where I am sitting...
Just my 2 cents...
Cyber,
Not sure what all your problem is here, but I have to say:
You've customized the bejeebus out of your site. Doesn't look ma and pa to me. And you've gotten more customer support than I could imagine getting anywhere else. All this for $99/year. No one is paying $150 yet, and you'll be grandfather'd in at that rate for a long time. They haven't promised forever, since that's a really long time, but you will be left at that rate for a LONG time.
I know that pros have a lot of ideas and requests for improving the service, and I see smugmug working hard to implement them in a way that serves their entire customer base.
You've gotten much more than your $99 in customization help alone, not to mention all of the PS work they've done for you.
I agree with you in the long run. Maybe this isn't the place for you. It sure is for me. Great people, great service, I couldn't ask for more.
I agree that the support has been awesome which is one of the reasons I'm still here. And for the customization help, it was mostly needed due to the entire site being CSS which most other companies don't do for various reasons. But its all good. The site is updated and nice, however, the shopping cart while nice, confuses my customers. It has a few bad processes such as no back button when you clear the cart. I don't care what anyone has to say about that, I program and I know how to fix something like that and its not that difficult. I've even given advise on an easy way to pull it off. However, all I hear is that "the cart is for multiple photographer orders and can't be fixed the way you want it." which means that a customer clears their cart and they're left on a blank page. A NONO in web programming. You never leave a customer without an option...
There are many other things listed on this thread that are also issues. So while I agree that they do have a slick solution, its not for pro's that want options. Its a solution better than most at this moment, but for those wanting a slick solution that will allow you to customize it for your customers, it just doesn't work. We are piggy backing in on a different business model than I was lead to believe at the onset. Or perhaps no one realized these problems existed? yet I see other posts speaking of years which lead me to believe these problems have always existed...
Perhaps since we are paying more money for the services per year we warrant our own block of servers and our own shopping cart processes. Then you could break those away that are not interested in having our photographs in your internal galleries where we can customize our solutions the way we want... But anyway, its all just opinions and we all have them. I'm happy enough for now... but unfortunely still looking for something better...
lol, at the moment I won't... I'm hoping smugmug will start taking care of these things before I have to. Just not sure thats going to happen either...
I'll also add, that if all the pros leave to go somewhere else, smugmugs photos they are making so much money on will dry up and they won't be making the sales they do today. If all you have is aunt susie and marian showing the family their photos then you'd basically become a snapfish...
I don't begin to claim that I bring enough business to smugmug yet for them to care much about whether I come or go, and I'm sure they are starting to wish I'd go, but their solution looks like it was designed for ma and pa with the pro thing being an after thought. It has a lot to offer I agree, however, with the things it lacks, I am beginning to think that $150/year plus 15% on top is a little much for what I'm getting. Don't get me wrong, I like most of what is available, but I just don't see this becoming a long lasting relationship with the constant reminders that I'm not the customer type they are mostly focused on...
I hope that changes but at the moment I'm not all that comfortable with where I am sitting...
Just my 2 cents...
I started out with snapfish, smugmug is no snapfish. Surely you agree that there is a balance that a site like smugmug must maintain? The issue is not that they are not focusing on you, the issue is that they are focusing on a much wider spectrum than just you or any of its pros. Yes, the idea is to be a photo sharing site AND to be the best pro photography site out there. The benefits of smugmug are clear. I'm not going to say that there isn't room to grow, everyone including Baldy, OneThumb, JT, and Andy know that. They are busy every single day developing things that everyone including but certainly not limited to the pro account holders ask for. But it's clear that they're not going to jump just because we say jump, nor should they. You say you're a software engineer so you know you have to approach a project of the magnitude of smugmug intelligently and purposefully. You can't pick up project after project and try to make everyone 100% satisfied -- not even your paying customers (which I am one as well).
My opinion is that there is a way to approach these things. Believe me, I talk to these guys on a regular basis, I know they're busy as all get out. Pestering them with requests won't get you any farther than simply stating your ideas. Moreover, threatening to take your business elsewhere (IMHO) won't do anything at all. If you haven't noticed it's way too easy for you to pick up and leave. That is on purpose.
Suggestions are great. Each one is read and pondered upon, and believe me they get thousands of suggestions (dgrin only counts for a small minority of them). So far IMHO they have gone about all of this the right way. Deciding on a project, developing it, and rolling it out 100% before moving on to the next project.
I realize you're a bit frustrated that you perceive that you're being ignored or something. I guarantee you that every one of the developers knows of your concerns too. In the end it's going to be up to Smugmug to decide on the direction that Smugmug goes. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the features as they come out. Provide constructive feedback and enjoy the evolution of the best service out there to an even better service over time.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
However, all I hear is that "the cart is for multiple photographer orders and can't be fixed the way you want it." which means that a customer clears their cart and they're left on a blank page. A NONO in web programming. You never leave a customer without an option...
Without having closely followed this and all the shopping cart options I really have to agree. I just tried it and the 'cart empty' page is just no good.
Why not simply list the links of last 5 visited sm-pages or just people the visitor had prints in the cart before purging it??
This could be at least implemented as long as somebody has a better idea!
You do a good job!!
For the money, Smugmug does a darned good job.
Some implementation tho'ts on the custom pricing/product issue.
1. There are some product combinations that you don't have, and I shouldn't expect you to have, such as some products that we sell using CafePress. Also, we do have special combo packages or prints that we print inhouse or we send to our personal pro lab. It would be WONDERFUL if I could easily extract the image filename from a page and encode it into a button using JavaScript to send to my site so that I can fulfill a customer's complex order requests more easily.
Perhaps, smugmug could expose the filename as a javascript value on the page the same as you do the album number and image ID.
PLEASE??????
2. I see the problem in the shopping cart where you allow people to select from multitudes of albums at any time.
HOWEVER.....
The pricing for a particular picture is determined from THAT picture's album. Since that is the case, could you allow us to program in tiered pricing for albums? That way, if somebody orders multiples of a particular print, they get discounts based on that print's purchases. The calculation's could come from that print's pricing guide established by the photographer.
As for me, I would be happy with discounts for multiple prints of a single print in a single size. First print $x, 2nd print $y, 3+ prints $z. Allow us to set our tiers and discounts within each pricing gallery.
3. Coupons - why not have a coupon button on the shopping cart? This would just refresh the screen with coupon blanks on the line with pictures where coupons were allowed. If a valid coupon ID for that picture (based on site, category, sub-c, album, pricing, etc.) is entered, the pricing for that picture (and all other qualified pictures) is adjusted accordigly.
4. Combo prints - You have a wide number of products that I don't price out or use.
Why not allow me to create specific packages as products. As each item is created on a product creation page, your base price would appear. That item would appear on all of my price lists and I could then adjust my retail prices for that particular class of pictures (I use different pricing for different stuff). These would not be new products, just combinations of your exisitng products. I could then make my own package discounts with package combinations.
We could even mix product types, such as an 8x10, 2-5x7, 8 wallets and a large coffee mug or a mouse pad (as long as each product doesn't need to be customized - that would be a nightmare). Now product mixes like that would be VERY HOT for us event people.
This could also be an easy answer to #1 and #2 - although I'd still like the filename attribute exposed.
If you can do #4, I will be VERY HAPPY(although I still want #1 also ).
I know that this is a lot to digest, but I hope that it gives some alternatives that can prove useful.
Doug
P.S. I found the posting with the hint about multiple hidden albums to store pricing to be VERY USEFUL!! THANKS MUCH!!
From drivng race cars to riding race horses, it's hard to keep the woman down.
The new capability to put information in the head of the document is a prime example of smugmug listening to its customers. Major league props on that one!
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
In fact, I just spent the past weeks speaking live by phone to many many of our pros (over 100), and without question, the majority of these would disagree with your statement above - they *want* us to be there for their customers.
My exact words were "let the pro control as much of the customer interaction as they desire". How much the pro wants to do themself versus have smugmug do will vary by pro. The gripes here are that smugmug asserts and inserts itself in many places with an "advertising type of flavor" that it doesn't have to (backprinting, footer links, shopping cart look and feel, etc...) and there are clearly some pros who resent that. It's a given than any pro who uses smugmug is doing so because they want smugmug to provide some infrastructure and services. Otherwise, they'd just set up their own web-site from scratch. The gripe is that you aren't offering enough control over which things the pro wants smugmug to handle and which ones not and/or how it is presented to the customer.
If there's a way to acheive this, we'd love to do it. For now, the cart is the way it is. Not co-branded.
If you wanted to do this, it's a very solvable problem. Many shopping cart providers/credit-card processors offer a branded or co-branded experience. I haven't seen any engagement on HOW to solve this. It doesn't appear that anyone is trying to solve it. Yes, you probably should separate out a pro's branded shopping cart from pics bought from other sites, but I've seen no pros here who are bothered by that. As I've written here before, it consistenly sounds like you are using the "prints ordered from multiple sites" as a defense mechanism against trying to really offer a solution here. If you wanted to solve this problem you could. I would think you were actively engaged in solving this problem if I saw discussions on what the challenges were to be overcome before this could be done and saw some smugmug engagement in what the choices were to overcome those challenges. As it is, we just hear it's too hard for reason x, y and z. Instead, I've seen no engagement on what challenges need to be overcome (other than the orders from multiple sites) and a solicitation for ideas to solve those challenges.
Here's a hint. If you floated a message that said, "here are the challenges that would need to be solved before we could allow some co-branding in the shopping cart (presumably, you'd have some security issues and some support issues)" and then challenged us to come up with creative ways to solve those challenges and had some knowledgable people from smugmug to participate in the proposed solutions, then we'd feel like you were actually trying to find a solution.
Many of these are in the works features we'd love to implement, and we've commented on them in other threads. Specifically, backprinting, watermarking, proof and reupload, digital downloads... But we never promise if or when, only that "we're listening" and stay tuned... I don't know how much more open we can be, without compromising anything.
You have to at least put yourselves in our shoes for a moment. We've seen these discussed. We've seen which ones had at least a warm reception. Further we've seen lots of new things get implemented that were not on the tops of our list. So, it's not ONLY an issue of development cycles and bandwidth and time. It's also an issue of priority and desire. And, we have ZERO idea where these things are really prioritized on your list and when/if they will ever see the light of day.
You can choose to NEVER disclose any future plans if you want. The cost will be that some customers will get impatient or angry and wonder if you do actually have their best interests in your plans. They have to guess. When 3-4 releases go by and none of the things they asked for show up, how can they not wonder if any of those things will ever materialize. It's only human nature to start to question it.
Hmm. Well, you know that I've joined the company, to take on these very issues. We love our pros, and our pro business - it's critical to our success. My role is, among other things, to specifically look after our pros - make sure we're doing right by them, help to create new features, offerings, service their clients better, and yes - to grow our presence in the pro marketplace. We've set up a Support Center in Salt Lake City - largely because of the growth in our pro business - and we'll continue to grow that, to support the needs of our pros, and their customers, as well as also standard and power users, too. How will we do that? By innovating - providing new features (how about themes -- our most popular feature ever - and yeah you'd be surprised at how many pros are using them - not everyone is a CSS/HTML). More features will come out, too. And also by providing a great interface (style!), reliable service (uptime), and world-class support.
And yeah, we do in fact lay awake at night, working out ways to serve the pro market better.
I didn't know that your specific focus was more on the pro-end of things. That's good to know that someone is focused on that. I know there has been a lot of development focus lately on customizing your site with the CSS-izing of the site and themes and while used by some pros, that's also available at lower levels. While we've seen lots of other features get added to the site, I am actually unaware of any significant pro-specific features that have been added to the site in the last few months (please enlighten me if I'm missing some significant ones). With such a long list of pro-requested things getting no visible attention, it's easy to start wondering if those things are getting worked on or not. How could we possibly know?
Well, there's another point to consider, too: we don't really want our competitors to know exactly what we're doing, either! I think we've been extremely straight-forward about which features seem "likely" and "not-likely." But we're never going to say YES until we're absolutely certain.
Every business has to decide for itself how to draw this trade-off. If you never tell anyone anything in advance you can never miss their expectations and you will not tip off your competitors. At the same time, you will often not be able to sell to or retain a customer who needs things that are in your future plans. It is a balance. I'm expressing an opinion that telling your pro customers nothing about what is coming in their future, seeing many months and many other new features go by without any news on the requested pro features is going to hurt your pro business. You have to decide how much you agree or think it matters.
I may be kicking a dead horse, however, something simple would be a screen for the pro accounts that would create an athorization number that we could apply say a 10% discount for that number. It's a one time use number and when the customer orders they type in that number. They get the 10% and the number is no longer valid. That would be a pretty cool feature.
I may be kicking a dead horse, however, something simple would be a screen for the pro accounts that would create an athorization number that we could apply say a 10% discount for that number. It's a one time use number and when the customer orders they type in that number. They get the 10% and the number is no longer valid. That would be a pretty cool feature.
I may be kicking a dead horse, however, something simple would be a screen for the pro accounts that would create an athorization number that we could apply say a 10% discount for that number. It's a one time use number and when the customer orders they type in that number. They get the 10% and the number is no longer valid. That would be a pretty cool feature.
kc7dji
kc7:
I love that idea! I would also suggest a settable valid time period. Also that Smugmug needs to check that the number goes with the photographer that set it up to take care of the cross-gallery problem.
Andy, maybe you could explain why something like this would be difficult. On the surface it doesn't seem that hard to do but maybe there's something we're missing?
Count your blessings
Speaking as a pro who is very picky and wants everything to be a certain way, I must say you are going about things all wrong.
It sounds like you want the world, which in itself is not a bad thing, but, you also want it on a dime. That just is not possible. If you want the world, then you have to pay the piper for it, or, bust your rump and build one yourself.
You have probably heard the phrase, you can have two of the following three things:
Fast
Good
Cheap
I would probably alter it to read:
Cheap to run
Easy to set up
Just the way you like it
You can have a website cheap and easy, but it likely won't be just the way you like it (read: existing gallery software or websites).
You can have a website just the way you like and easy to set up, but it isn't going to be cheap (read: paying someone else to do it for you).
You can have a website cheap to run and just the way you like it, but it isn't going to be easy to set up (read: build it yourself)
Now the reason I am even responding here is that you caught me just after spending the night and into the morning (5:30am) installing new server software on my own webserver and making sure all the services and websites were working properly. I paid hundreds of dollars for the server software. I buy all the hardware and pay for the monthly business class DSL service. The website that runs on it is hand coded by me which has taken hundreds of hours of labor over the course of many years. I have plans to add some features to the website that will take even more time and effort to design, build, test, and maintain. It is expensive, difficult, and time consuming, but it ensures that I get exactly what I want. I control everything.
So you have to ask yourself, just how much are you willing to spend to get things just the way you want them? Ask yourself just how much you are spending now on smugmug to get what sounds like 99% of what you want, and how much that would cost if you wanted to ensure you got the last 1% of what you are looking for, and believe me, that last 1% is going to cost you
Besides just the website, smugmug also provides customer support for printing issues, they deal with your customers for returns, they may even help you with getting better results in the future. You know how much that would cost? I don't have anyone to help me with that, I must do it myself and at my own expense for the reprinting if necessary. If there is a color issue with my prints, I must figure out the problem, fix it, and have a test print to verify the problem is fixed before I resubmit the order for reprinting. That takes time and effort. But I want that level of control, so I pay the price for it.
So it boils down to this. What are your priorities? What is your business need? What are you willing to pay for it? Answer those questions honestly to yourself, and then act on it.
I'm sorry but I could not disagree more. We pay the fees they request which are not the cheapest. We also pay a 15% on top of that fee to cover their support and other things you mention. Its their business to provide the best product. If that means later that they raise their rates then that is their deal, however, you can not compare your situation of having all these problems and writing your own code to a company that is in business to provide this service.
I am a software engineer and manage a much more complex setup and program install than what Smugmug is doing here. If we operated our business by not adding new features because we didn't feel our customer's had paid enough to warrant the change, we'd be out of business. Our prices do go up over the years, but its a result of all the new features that were added. However, to say you can't have it all is just rediculous. The price dictates how many customers you have. The services and support dictate how long those customers stay.
You could have the cheapest software on earth that does the least amount. YOu will become nothing more than a stepping stone for people to step on, on their way up. Trust me, this is not a good business model...
The services and support dictate how long those customers stay.
Hi Glenn, and we hope you do stay! But as Onethumb has stated in his Smug Blog, we know that if we don't continue to innovate, and provide high quality, high value services, and support, that you will look elsewhere.
Funnily enough, today, we were discussing at length one of your suggestions that you've made many times in numerous threads and - we hope to have some news on it for you!
My opinion? Shay's right on the money, especially about how NOT to go about getting what you want. Seems to me you've gotten $99 worth of patience alone. You're not paying me, and mine's run out...
Hi Glenn, and we hope you do stay! But as Onethumb has stated in his Smug Blog, we know that if we don't continue to innovate, and provide high quality, high value services, and support, that you will look elsewhere.
Funnily enough, today, we were discussing at length one of your suggestions that you've made many times in numerous threads and - we hope to have some news on it for you!
All the best,
Thanks Andy, I am not planning a move, my last response was only directed at the comments. I know they didn't come from smugmug...
I'm sorry but I could not disagree more. We pay the fees they request which are not the cheapest. We also pay a 15% on top of that fee to cover their support and other things you mention. Its their business to provide the best product. If that means later that they raise their rates then that is their deal, however, you can not compare your situation of having all these problems and writing your own code to a company that is in business to provide this service.
I didn't say it was a problem. I want full control, and what I listed is what it takes to have that control. You want the world, you have to pay for it. And I don't consider $99 a year *in the slightest* expensive if you are a pro with paying customers. It is a drop in the bucket of expenses for running a professional photography business.
I am a software engineer and manage a much more complex setup and program install than what Smugmug is doing here.
And here is the crux of the problem. You are used to having full control over your web app. I used to be a web developer. And thus, I also desire and want full control. So I pony up to have and exercise that control. You should do the same and stop whining because unless you have full control, you will never be happy with a pre-made web app that you subscribe to no matter how much they bend over backward for you.
Creator of Dgrin's "Last Photographer Standing" contest
"Failure is feedback. And feedback is the breakfast of champions." - fortune cookie
Actually I disagree again... I don't look at any of the requests that have been made as being some give me the world type requests. They are quite reasonable from a professional photographers point of view. They are also, despite what has been stated, not requirements for a total rewrite of the system.
I don't want nor require total input and decisions on smugmug. The very few requests I've made have seemed to be reasonable from the perspective of clients. I prefer to keep my clients on a consistent interface/experience and prefer to keep My name in front of them as long as possible. While saying this I understand why it hasn't been done to date, but there are ways to handle it.
But its ok for us to disagree on this as its what makes things change... :-)
I'm not so sure I should trust you about that. From the world-wide-webatron:
Smugmug, one of the fastest-growing photo sharing sites, hosts 32,000,000 photos from customers as diverse as grandmothers, senators, renowned photographers, and The Wall Street Journal. An unusual success story among Internet companies, Smugmug is family-owned, profitable and thriving. Smugmug was founded in 2002.
Seems to me that speaks volumes about what their service is worth and how their business model is holding up. Profitable since their first year. How may dot coms (let alone photo sites) can claim that?
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
I'm not so sure I should trust you about that. From the world-wide-webatron:
Smugmug, one of the fastest-growing photo sharing sites, hosts 32,000,000 photos from customers as diverse as grandmothers, senators, renowned photographers, and The Wall Street Journal. An unusual success story among Internet companies, Smugmug is family-owned, profitable and thriving. Smugmug was founded in 2002.
Seems to me that speaks volumes about what their service is worth and how their business model is holding up. Profitable since their first year. How may dot coms (let alone photo sites) can claim that?
Its also possible for people to jump in the middle of a conversation as well and not keep their facts straight... I never said anything about smugmug. The other person was making broad statements of which I disagreed with. I was not talking about the sucess of smugmug or any other company...
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I can tell you that a very small percentage of our pros post here on Dgrin -- that doesn't in any way diminish the value of the suggestions and comments made here - but we listen to all of our pros - Dgrin/forum posters as well as those that have never, ever posted online (way the majority). In fact, I just spent the past weeks speaking live by phone to many many of our pros (over 100), and without question, the majority of these would disagree with your statement above - they *want* us to be there for their customers. To help them. So they can be out there, shooting more and getting more customers.
If there's a way to acheive this, we'd love to do it. For now, the cart is the way it is. Not co-branded.
Many of these are in the works features we'd love to implement, and we've commented on them in other threads. Specifically, backprinting, watermarking, proof and reupload, digital downloads... But we never promise if or when, only that "we're listening" and stay tuned... I don't know how much more open we can be, without compromising anything.
Hmm. Well, you know that I've joined the company, to take on these very issues. We love our pros, and our pro business - it's critical to our success. My role is, among other things, to specifically look after our pros - make sure we're doing right by them, help to create new features, offerings, service their clients better, and yes - to grow our presence in the pro marketplace. We've set up a Support Center in Salt Lake City - largely because of the growth in our pro business - and we'll continue to grow that, to support the needs of our pros, and their customers, as well as also standard and power users, too. How will we do that? By innovating - providing new features (how about themes -- our most popular feature ever - and yeah you'd be surprised at how many pros are using them - not everyone is a CSS/HTML). More features will come out, too. And also by providing a great interface (style!), reliable service (uptime), and world-class support.
And yeah, we do in fact lay awake at night, working out ways to serve the pro market better.
Well, there's another point to consider, too: we don't really want our competitors to know exactly what we're doing, either! I think we've been extremely straight-forward about which features seem "likely" and "not-likely." But we're never going to say YES until we're absolutely certain.
John - your input is really valuable - thanks so much for taking the time.
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Cyber,
Not sure what all your problem is here, but I have to say:
You've customized the bejeebus out of your site. Doesn't look ma and pa to me. And you've gotten more customer support than I could imagine getting anywhere else. All this for $99/year. No one is paying $150 yet, and you'll be grandfather'd in at that rate for a long time. They haven't promised forever, since that's a really long time, but you will be left at that rate for a LONG time.
I know that pros have a lot of ideas and requests for improving the service, and I see smugmug working hard to implement them in a way that serves their entire customer base.
You've gotten much more than your $99 in customization help alone, not to mention all of the PS work they've done for you.
I agree with you in the long run. Maybe this isn't the place for you. It sure is for me. Great people, great service, I couldn't ask for more.
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There are many other things listed on this thread that are also issues. So while I agree that they do have a slick solution, its not for pro's that want options. Its a solution better than most at this moment, but for those wanting a slick solution that will allow you to customize it for your customers, it just doesn't work. We are piggy backing in on a different business model than I was lead to believe at the onset. Or perhaps no one realized these problems existed? yet I see other posts speaking of years which lead me to believe these problems have always existed...
Perhaps since we are paying more money for the services per year we warrant our own block of servers and our own shopping cart processes. Then you could break those away that are not interested in having our photographs in your internal galleries where we can customize our solutions the way we want... But anyway, its all just opinions and we all have them. I'm happy enough for now... but unfortunely still looking for something better...
thanks,
glenn hancock
http://www.gshutter.com
Good luck finding it.
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glenn hancock
http://www.gshutter.com
My opinion is that there is a way to approach these things. Believe me, I talk to these guys on a regular basis, I know they're busy as all get out. Pestering them with requests won't get you any farther than simply stating your ideas. Moreover, threatening to take your business elsewhere (IMHO) won't do anything at all. If you haven't noticed it's way too easy for you to pick up and leave. That is on purpose.
Suggestions are great. Each one is read and pondered upon, and believe me they get thousands of suggestions (dgrin only counts for a small minority of them). So far IMHO they have gone about all of this the right way. Deciding on a project, developing it, and rolling it out 100% before moving on to the next project.
I realize you're a bit frustrated that you perceive that you're being ignored or something. I guarantee you that every one of the developers knows of your concerns too. In the end it's going to be up to Smugmug to decide on the direction that Smugmug goes. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the features as they come out. Provide constructive feedback and enjoy the evolution of the best service out there to an even better service over time.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
Why not simply list the links of last 5 visited sm-pages or just people the visitor had prints in the cart before purging it??
This could be at least implemented as long as somebody has a better idea!
Andy?? What about that?
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
Thanks for the suggestion, it's certainly a good one..Sebastian - I can promise you that it will be discussed amongst the team!
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For the money, Smugmug does a darned good job.
Some implementation tho'ts on the custom pricing/product issue.
1. There are some product combinations that you don't have, and I shouldn't expect you to have, such as some products that we sell using CafePress. Also, we do have special combo packages or prints that we print inhouse or we send to our personal pro lab. It would be WONDERFUL if I could easily extract the image filename from a page and encode it into a button using JavaScript to send to my site so that I can fulfill a customer's complex order requests more easily.
Perhaps, smugmug could expose the filename as a javascript value on the page the same as you do the album number and image ID.
PLEASE??????
2. I see the problem in the shopping cart where you allow people to select from multitudes of albums at any time.
HOWEVER.....
The pricing for a particular picture is determined from THAT picture's album. Since that is the case, could you allow us to program in tiered pricing for albums? That way, if somebody orders multiples of a particular print, they get discounts based on that print's purchases. The calculation's could come from that print's pricing guide established by the photographer.
As for me, I would be happy with discounts for multiple prints of a single print in a single size. First print $x, 2nd print $y, 3+ prints $z. Allow us to set our tiers and discounts within each pricing gallery.
3. Coupons - why not have a coupon button on the shopping cart? This would just refresh the screen with coupon blanks on the line with pictures where coupons were allowed. If a valid coupon ID for that picture (based on site, category, sub-c, album, pricing, etc.) is entered, the pricing for that picture (and all other qualified pictures) is adjusted accordigly.
4. Combo prints - You have a wide number of products that I don't price out or use.
Why not allow me to create specific packages as products. As each item is created on a product creation page, your base price would appear. That item would appear on all of my price lists and I could then adjust my retail prices for that particular class of pictures (I use different pricing for different stuff). These would not be new products, just combinations of your exisitng products. I could then make my own package discounts with package combinations.
We could even mix product types, such as an 8x10, 2-5x7, 8 wallets and a large coffee mug or a mouse pad (as long as each product doesn't need to be customized - that would be a nightmare). Now product mixes like that would be VERY HOT for us event people.
This could also be an easy answer to #1 and #2 - although I'd still like the filename attribute exposed.
If you can do #4, I will be VERY HAPPY
I know that this is a lot to digest, but I hope that it gives some alternatives that can prove useful.
Doug
P.S. I found the posting with the hint about multiple hidden albums to store pricing to be VERY USEFUL!! THANKS MUCH!!
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
Hi Doug- thanks so much for taking the time to post this great feedback. We really appreciate it!
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My exact words were "let the pro control as much of the customer interaction as they desire". How much the pro wants to do themself versus have smugmug do will vary by pro. The gripes here are that smugmug asserts and inserts itself in many places with an "advertising type of flavor" that it doesn't have to (backprinting, footer links, shopping cart look and feel, etc...) and there are clearly some pros who resent that. It's a given than any pro who uses smugmug is doing so because they want smugmug to provide some infrastructure and services. Otherwise, they'd just set up their own web-site from scratch. The gripe is that you aren't offering enough control over which things the pro wants smugmug to handle and which ones not and/or how it is presented to the customer.
If you wanted to do this, it's a very solvable problem. Many shopping cart providers/credit-card processors offer a branded or co-branded experience. I haven't seen any engagement on HOW to solve this. It doesn't appear that anyone is trying to solve it. Yes, you probably should separate out a pro's branded shopping cart from pics bought from other sites, but I've seen no pros here who are bothered by that. As I've written here before, it consistenly sounds like you are using the "prints ordered from multiple sites" as a defense mechanism against trying to really offer a solution here. If you wanted to solve this problem you could. I would think you were actively engaged in solving this problem if I saw discussions on what the challenges were to be overcome before this could be done and saw some smugmug engagement in what the choices were to overcome those challenges. As it is, we just hear it's too hard for reason x, y and z. Instead, I've seen no engagement on what challenges need to be overcome (other than the orders from multiple sites) and a solicitation for ideas to solve those challenges.
Here's a hint. If you floated a message that said, "here are the challenges that would need to be solved before we could allow some co-branding in the shopping cart (presumably, you'd have some security issues and some support issues)" and then challenged us to come up with creative ways to solve those challenges and had some knowledgable people from smugmug to participate in the proposed solutions, then we'd feel like you were actually trying to find a solution.
You have to at least put yourselves in our shoes for a moment. We've seen these discussed. We've seen which ones had at least a warm reception. Further we've seen lots of new things get implemented that were not on the tops of our list. So, it's not ONLY an issue of development cycles and bandwidth and time. It's also an issue of priority and desire. And, we have ZERO idea where these things are really prioritized on your list and when/if they will ever see the light of day.
You can choose to NEVER disclose any future plans if you want. The cost will be that some customers will get impatient or angry and wonder if you do actually have their best interests in your plans. They have to guess. When 3-4 releases go by and none of the things they asked for show up, how can they not wonder if any of those things will ever materialize. It's only human nature to start to question it.
I didn't know that your specific focus was more on the pro-end of things. That's good to know that someone is focused on that. I know there has been a lot of development focus lately on customizing your site with the CSS-izing of the site and themes and while used by some pros, that's also available at lower levels. While we've seen lots of other features get added to the site, I am actually unaware of any significant pro-specific features that have been added to the site in the last few months (please enlighten me if I'm missing some significant ones). With such a long list of pro-requested things getting no visible attention, it's easy to start wondering if those things are getting worked on or not. How could we possibly know?
Every business has to decide for itself how to draw this trade-off. If you never tell anyone anything in advance you can never miss their expectations and you will not tip off your competitors. At the same time, you will often not be able to sell to or retain a customer who needs things that are in your future plans. It is a balance. I'm expressing an opinion that telling your pro customers nothing about what is coming in their future, seeing many months and many other new features go by without any news on the requested pro features is going to hurt your pro business. You have to decide how much you agree or think it matters.
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kc7dji
Thanks kc, for the suggestion!
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Hi John,
Thanks so much again, for the really valuable feedback and comments. We really appreciate you taking the time.
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kc7:
I love that idea!
Andy, maybe you could explain why something like this would be difficult. On the surface it doesn't seem that hard to do but maybe there's something we're missing?
thanks, Al
Speaking as a pro who is very picky and wants everything to be a certain way, I must say you are going about things all wrong.
It sounds like you want the world, which in itself is not a bad thing, but, you also want it on a dime. That just is not possible. If you want the world, then you have to pay the piper for it, or, bust your rump and build one yourself.
You have probably heard the phrase, you can have two of the following three things:
Fast
Good
Cheap
I would probably alter it to read:
Cheap to run
Easy to set up
Just the way you like it
- You can have a website cheap and easy, but it likely won't be just the way you like it (read: existing gallery software or websites).
- You can have a website just the way you like and easy to set up, but it isn't going to be cheap (read: paying someone else to do it for you).
- You can have a website cheap to run and just the way you like it, but it isn't going to be easy to set up (read: build it yourself)
Now the reason I am even responding here is that you caught me just after spending the night and into the morning (5:30am) installing new server software on my own webserver and making sure all the services and websites were working properly. I paid hundreds of dollars for the server software. I buy all the hardware and pay for the monthly business class DSL service. The website that runs on it is hand coded by me which has taken hundreds of hours of labor over the course of many years. I have plans to add some features to the website that will take even more time and effort to design, build, test, and maintain. It is expensive, difficult, and time consuming, but it ensures that I get exactly what I want. I control everything.So you have to ask yourself, just how much are you willing to spend to get things just the way you want them? Ask yourself just how much you are spending now on smugmug to get what sounds like 99% of what you want, and how much that would cost if you wanted to ensure you got the last 1% of what you are looking for, and believe me, that last 1% is going to cost you
Besides just the website, smugmug also provides customer support for printing issues, they deal with your customers for returns, they may even help you with getting better results in the future. You know how much that would cost? I don't have anyone to help me with that, I must do it myself and at my own expense for the reprinting if necessary. If there is a color issue with my prints, I must figure out the problem, fix it, and have a test print to verify the problem is fixed before I resubmit the order for reprinting. That takes time and effort. But I want that level of control, so I pay the price for it.
So it boils down to this. What are your priorities? What is your business need? What are you willing to pay for it? Answer those questions honestly to yourself, and then act on it.
But whatever you do, stop looking at (what is essentially) a gift horse in the mouth
"Failure is feedback. And feedback is the breakfast of champions." - fortune cookie
I'm sorry but I could not disagree more. We pay the fees they request which are not the cheapest. We also pay a 15% on top of that fee to cover their support and other things you mention. Its their business to provide the best product. If that means later that they raise their rates then that is their deal, however, you can not compare your situation of having all these problems and writing your own code to a company that is in business to provide this service.
I am a software engineer and manage a much more complex setup and program install than what Smugmug is doing here. If we operated our business by not adding new features because we didn't feel our customer's had paid enough to warrant the change, we'd be out of business. Our prices do go up over the years, but its a result of all the new features that were added. However, to say you can't have it all is just rediculous. The price dictates how many customers you have. The services and support dictate how long those customers stay.
You could have the cheapest software on earth that does the least amount. YOu will become nothing more than a stepping stone for people to step on, on their way up. Trust me, this is not a good business model...
glenn hancock
http://www.gshutter.com
Hi Glenn, and we hope you do stay! But as Onethumb has stated in his Smug Blog, we know that if we don't continue to innovate, and provide high quality, high value services, and support, that you will look elsewhere.
Funnily enough, today, we were discussing at length one of your suggestions that you've made many times in numerous threads and - we hope to have some news on it for you!
All the best,
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My opinion? Shay's right on the money, especially about how NOT to go about getting what you want. Seems to me you've gotten $99 worth of patience alone. You're not paying me, and mine's run out...
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Thanks and look forward to new stuff... :-)
glenn hancock
http://www.gshutter.com
it's a joke!
I didn't say it was a problem. I want full control, and what I listed is what it takes to have that control. You want the world, you have to pay for it. And I don't consider $99 a year *in the slightest* expensive if you are a pro with paying customers. It is a drop in the bucket of expenses for running a professional photography business.
And here is the crux of the problem. You are used to having full control over your web app. I used to be a web developer. And thus, I also desire and want full control. So I pony up to have and exercise that control. You should do the same and stop whining because unless you have full control, you will never be happy with a pre-made web app that you subscribe to no matter how much they bend over backward for you.
"Failure is feedback. And feedback is the breakfast of champions." - fortune cookie
I don't want nor require total input and decisions on smugmug. The very few requests I've made have seemed to be reasonable from the perspective of clients. I prefer to keep my clients on a consistent interface/experience and prefer to keep My name in front of them as long as possible. While saying this I understand why it hasn't been done to date, but there are ways to handle it.
But its ok for us to disagree on this as its what makes things change... :-)
glenn hancock
http://www.gshutter.com
Seems to me that speaks volumes about what their service is worth and how their business model is holding up. Profitable since their first year. How may dot coms (let alone photo sites) can claim that?
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
glenn hancock
http://www.gshutter.com