Disk With Package or On Line Print Sales

PMphoto

It has been years since I shot weddings professinally. Back then with film I had set print prices, all prints had to be bought from me. After a year or more, before throwing away the negatives, I would give them to the B &G.

With digital it seams like many photographers give a disk with all the original files to the B&G soon after the wedding. I have two concerns with that, less profit, and poorer quality end product.

What do you do?

heatherfeather

I have a lot of clients with different budgets. Some can totally afford to hire me, buy the disc & order prints... and some need to purchase the package and wait and save up for the disc. To split it up makes it sort of a payment plan for those that have less up front $.
So...
Proofs are online with option to purchase prints
If they want they can purchase the disc later as they save up... (Or in Alaska when permanent fund comes around in Oct/Nov which is often the case... I just sold 6 discs this week because of that)
I don't give either prints or the disc away for cheap.
I also offer bulk pricing to the bride and groom for 4 x 6s of the entire set.

Hopefully that helps!

Cmau

Can't speak from much experience myself, but I have been in and around these and other forums extensively in the last 6 months. Variants on this question come up a lot, with the general conclusion that the market expects at least a disc to be an option, and more likely that the package will include it.

Some only include the disc with better packages as an incentive essentially. In almost every case, however, either the disc is priced quite high (depending upon your market, probably not as high as you'd like coming from film and knowing what those files used to be worth when they were film negatives) or the entire package is priced higher upfront to make up for the lower print sales.

Unfortunately given the expectation that a disc will be an option, there doesn't seem to be much to do regarding print quality, other than to advise your clients they get what they pay for. This seems to be much more successful with higher-end clients, since they have the money to spend and know the value of paying someone to do something right.

Jeff_Milo

I include a disc with my packages. To be honest I don't make any money off of standard prints. Most of my couples don't want to buy 4x6, 5x7 or 8x10 prints. I will sell a couple of prints through my web site to guests, but even thats rare, so I don't mind giving them the JPEG's. Where I make my money is through enlargements (Canvas and Stainless Steel prints mainly) and Albums. With the coffee table book style albums we produce 90% of my clients want that and not individual prints.