Does Smugmug take a cut of sales made with an "at cost" coupon?
I want to have my family be able to order from any of my galleries without me ordering the prints for them. Would the "at cost" coupon serve this purpose? Or would I be charge 15% of my default price for everything they order?
Johnny J. Chin ~ J. Chin Photography Facebook ♦ Flickr ♦ SmugMug
SmugMug referral coupon code: ix3uDyfBU6xXs
(use this for a discount off your SmugMug subscription)
I am thankful coupons have been made available. But I am just wondering why SmugMug has not done more to get the message out. If I had not actively watched the old thread daily, I would have not known myself.
There has been nothing in the news on the Control Panel. Nor was any announcement made in the RSS SmugBlog Pro Corner feed which I joined to waiting for any word about coupons. In fact, I have not seen anything in this since 5/8/2009.
I am sure you have your reason such as not wanting to get hit with mass questions all at once. I am just curious.
Also, I think most users, including me, would like to limit a coupon to a set gallery. Is this something SmugMug is going to start working on in the early part of 2010 or is Coupon new features taking a back seat to some other projects people have requested? Personally, I would rather have gallery coupons before packages but I know others may disagree. Not asking for a release date, just wanting to which one is taking priority.
Does Smugmug take a cut of sales made with an "at cost" coupon?
I want to have my family be able to order from any of my galleries without me ordering the prints for them. Would the "at cost" coupon serve this purpose? Or would I be charge 15% of my default price for everything they order?
Why not just set your family galleries to default pricing? I set mine to .01
profit so I can check using proof delay their crops etc.
Why not just set your family galleries to default pricing? I set mine to .01
profit so I can check using proof delay their crops etc.
Allen, no need for penny over pricing anymore. All sales are now visible in your sales history, regardless of profit.
however, if there is no profit on an order you will not be able to see the full name/address of your customer. By using your default pricing and an at-cost coupon you will be able to see the customer information if that is important to you.
Allen, no need for penny over pricing anymore. All sales are now visible in your sales history, regardless of profit.
however, if there is no profit on an order you will not be able to see the full name/address of your customer. By using your default pricing and an at-cost coupon you will be able to see the customer information if that is important to you.
Can the crops, photo replace, etc. be fixed using proof delay if price is at default?
I am sure you have your reason such as not wanting to get hit with mass questions all at once. I am just curious.
We released Thursday night. Friday we get some initial feedback from folks that see release notes or just find it.
We don't put the homepage news item and the opt-in email out on Fridays, because it will make for a lot of emails over the weekend We're much better able to handle them during the week, so we'll be sending that out tonight.
This is great and thank so much for getting this done. I plan to try it out right away.
There is a feature that I was hoping would be part of the coupon release. Please consider this for the next release:
I sell mostly sports photos. I try to encourage my customers to purchase an extra copy or two of the print for friends and relatives. Figuring I make a pretty good mark-up on the first print, I want to be able to offer the 2nd and subsequent prints at a discount. I am currently doing this (quite often) through a separate transaction outside of Smugmug because it doesn't have this feature. For example, if I offer an 8X10 for $20, I want to be able to offer a second, third or tenth copy for $10 each.
Sorry for the trouble there. Are you out of the U.S. by chance? The calendar picker goes by your local date. However, the coupon effectiveness starts and ends at 12 midnight SmugMug time (pacific time zone).
That means out here in Ohio if it's 1 am, the calendar picker would show the date as the 5th, but it won't be the 5th to SmugMug for another few hours.
You can manually type in the previous day's date if you need a coupon to be effective immediately. We hope to have this resolved in a future release.
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
I indeed am outside of the US. The Netherlands to be more precise. Thanks for the clarification and the workaround.
Mandatory credit card info for free orders?
So, I've made me a 'Three for Free!' coupon (type: Amount off) that gives people the opportunity to have the first three digital downloads at no cost. The total amount as well as the minimum purchase for the coupon is three times the price of a digital download. So far, all's good.
Now if someone decides to download exactly three photos using this coupon his total order value will be $ 0. I'd rather have them order more, but I have no real problem with this. If this customer wants to check this order out his credit card info is still mandatory. This I cannot explain to customers. Maybe it's because I'm in Europe, but people don't like to give their credit card information, especially not when it's free and there's no exchange of money at all. Besides not all people have credit cards, but that's another discussion.
We released Thursday night. Friday we get some initial feedback from folks that see release notes or just find it.
We don't put the homepage news item and the opt-in email out on Fridays, because it will make for a lot of emails over the weekend We're much better able to handle them during the week, so we'll be sending that out tonight.
For those following this, we sent out news emails today.
This is great and thank so much for getting this done. I plan to try it out right away.
There is a feature that I was hoping would be part of the coupon release. Please consider this for the next release:
I sell mostly sports photos. I try to encourage my customers to purchase an extra copy or two of the print for friends and relatives. Figuring I make a pretty good mark-up on the first print, I want to be able to offer the 2nd and subsequent prints at a discount. I am currently doing this (quite often) through a separate transaction outside of Smugmug because it doesn't have this feature. For example, if I offer an 8X10 for $20, I want to be able to offer a second, third or tenth copy for $10 each.
Any ideas?
I think what you're referring to is something Smugmug calls "packages" rather than coupons and it is rumored to be in development.
This is great and thank so much for getting this done. I plan to try it out right away.
There is a feature that I was hoping would be part of the coupon release. Please consider this for the next release:
I sell mostly sports photos. I try to encourage my customers to purchase an extra copy or two of the print for friends and relatives. Figuring I make a pretty good mark-up on the first print, I want to be able to offer the 2nd and subsequent prints at a discount. I am currently doing this (quite often) through a separate transaction outside of Smugmug because it doesn't have this feature. For example, if I offer an 8X10 for $20, I want to be able to offer a second, third or tenth copy for $10 each.
Any ideas?
Maybe just a percentage off above a fairly low limit would work? Let us know if you figure out a good way.
No other ideas to help, just a related thought:
The coupons so far are a great step in the right direction. I also shoot some sports images and my quandary is that I want to have diminishing costs as a customer orders more. There is only so much I think anyone should/would pay for images at an event, and after they reach that amount I'd want to allow them to order more 'at cost'.
The trouble is that I want each participant on their own diminishing cost scale. Once one can order at cost, they can just order prints for the whole team.
So for a future feature, I'd like to be able to group photos (maybe by player, which I would have to set up) for the coupons. "Coupons Silos": a selection of images that a coupon works for.
And just to keep things challenging for the developers , I'd like to allow the coupon to work on one player's images (a silo) one way, and then on another player's images (another silo) another way. This is like a buy your images, then get a discount on images you can gift to your teammate.
Maybe that's a bit confusing, but the situation I see is that someone on the team can't afford images (and feels left out). I can set up a buy-one, get one of somebody else at cost/for free/etc. This way everyone can get a print, feel like a team, and save face.
Maybe implementation could be as simple (ha!) as a keyword based coupon.
We've finally unveiled a fantastic, beautiful coupons feature for our pros. Our help pages are the first line of defense against confusion, so check there for lots of great info.
Got questions or problems that we didn't cover? Post right here in this thread.
Andy let me say I appreciate the work. But I have to echo that the feature is pretty dangerious. I have little option to protect my account from being drained by an accident etc. If I have very different pricing between galleries or items. You have all the protection of MY Credit card.
So I would focus on things that let the user control risk:
$ OFF needs a Minium. EXAMPLE: $10 on $50 or more in photos
(right now that coupon is pretty much useless if you were to lower cost items if I don't have a minium" And since I can only expire it not delete it the exposure to a mistake lasts for a day. Unless I start removing low cost options if a coupon starts being missused.
Gallerly tying would lets us "hack" lots of protections.
Product Tying would also be great to allow us to prmote higher margin items
Really nice would be the single use coupon.. that we can issue as leader to sales for new customers. but i know that is a whole different coding can of worms)
I assume only one coupon at a time can be used? If not this is even more risk for me.
We know you did the work and are listening But the risk in the version 1 implentation is pretty high. One coupon sent to a bride who shares it and then people return and buy $5 in 5x7s with a $10 off meant for a customer looking at $200 and WHAM 20 guests cost the site owner $100+
Please let me know if I missed a way to prevent losses without removing all low priced items or only issuing $1 off coupons?
$ OFF needs a Minium. EXAMPLE: $10 on $50 or more in photos
(right now that coupon is pretty much useless if you were to lower cost items if I don't have a minium" And since I can only expire it not delete it the exposure to a mistake lasts for a day. Unless I start removing low cost options if a coupon starts being missused
I assume you mean "minimum". That capability already exists. Its the "Minimum Purchase" requirement.
Really nice would be the single use coupon.. that we can issue as leader to sales for new customers. but i know that is a whole different coding can of worms)
That also exists. Just put 1 in the maximum use field. Its right there under Minimum Purchase.
Coupons With all the harassment given to smugmug about coupons, I'd like to say thanks for implementing these. It's been a long time waiting for them, and I have not tried them yet, but since I complained about not having them, I thought I'd say thanks for getting this done
Just put 1 in the maximum use field. Its right there under Minimum Purchase.
I'm not sure what was intended from this particular request, but it sure feels like people want a single coupon code they can send to tons of people but only allow each person to take advantage of it a single time. Maybe tie each use to a unique email address?
Randomizing coupon code
If we want to create a bunch of gift cards to give to different people, it seems we have to come up with a different code for each one. And for the less creative among us, it can be hard to think up codes that are different and not guessable for each one. It would be nice to have a "randomize" button on the coupon code field, to create a code at random and spare us the trouble of coming up with one.
So, I've made me a 'Three for Free!' coupon (type: Amount off) that gives people the opportunity to have the first three digital downloads at no cost. The total amount as well as the minimum purchase for the coupon is three times the price of a digital download. So far, all's good.
Now if someone decides to download exactly three photos using this coupon his total order value will be $ 0. I'd rather have them order more, but I have no real problem with this. If this customer wants to check this order out his credit card info is still mandatory. This I cannot explain to customers. Maybe it's because I'm in Europe, but people don't like to give their credit card information, especially not when it's free and there's no exchange of money at all. Besides not all people have credit cards, but that's another discussion.
Any thoughts on this?
Yeah, that's a really good point. My feeling is that if the order total comes to $0 for the customer, which it would in the case of an order comprised of only at-cost digital downloads, they shouldn't need to provide credit card information.
Thanks for the feedback! This may well be something we can change for a future release.
I'm not sure what was intended from this particular request, but it sure feels like people want a single coupon code they can send to tons of people but only allow each person to take advantage of it a single time. Maybe tie each use to a unique email address?
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
I agree with what you are saying here. This is something that would be extremely helpful for sending out (for example) $10 in free print cards and not running the risk of one person having a stack of them (when really it is more of a loss-leader type of tool for the pro).
As with other, I want to say THANKS and I'm really excited about the ease and options of these coupons.
I have been hoping that this would come before I begin next years wedding season!!!!
Just out of curiosity (I only got to page 4/8 so this might have been answered).... will you be able to set up a coupon to apply to shipping if we give an amount off?
Also, I would like to be able to deposit an amount into a "credit fund" for my coupons which customers could draw from rather than it trickling out of a checking account/credit card....
I'm not sure what was intended from this particular request, but it sure feels like people want a single coupon code they can send to tons of people but only allow each person to take advantage of it a single time. Maybe tie each use to a unique email address?
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
Yes, that is right. As I understand it, and correct me if I am wrong, if I set the coupon to be used once, that does not mean everyone who gets it can only use it once. It means that that coupon can only be used once. If I want to reward all my clients, then I will have to put in a number equal to my total clients (hoping none of them will use it more than once) or just check the unlimited box.
Ideally, as you have noted, it would be great to set the coupons so each client can only use it once. This could be tied to their email or name or whatever. Another idea is for SmugMug to assign a customer code at the point of purchase which could be used for this and other future needs.
awesome feature. A bit of work needed, but really great to see this.
R. Leonardo www.RobArtPhoto.com Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. -Walker Evans
Copy coupon details to easily make duplicates
I needed to make 16 coupons for a group of people, so they could each have 1 use.
It was tedious to repeatedly fill in all the information when only the code needed to be changed.
A way to make new coupon from an existing one would be awesome.
Thanks,
Dave
tumbleweedphotos.smugmug.com
Great job, guys!
Appreciate the coupon! I'm starting to deploy now. I see some of the suggestions, which are very good. It shows how much we need and appreciate the work!
I needed to make 16 coupons for a group of people, so they could each have 1 use.
It was tedious to repeatedly fill in all the information when only the code needed to be changed.
A way to make new coupon from an existing one would be awesome.
A way to generate a number of coupons using a standard prefix would also be helpful. I'm in conversation with a prospect where I'd like to charge it's membership up front, and then allow each of their members to use that charge as a one-time credit on a purchase.
I'm seeing the possibility of having to do this for 300 people, so if SM has a way to auto-generate coupons with a randomized, unique suffix to the coupon name (ie coupon-ztywmer), that would be very helpful.
Save $5 off your first year's SmugMug image hosting with coupon code hccesQbqNBJbc
Sorry, but I haven't had time to read the entire thread. Any future development planned for:
-Product specific coupons (ex: 50% off 8x10s or 20% off prints but nothing off gift items?)
-Limited use coupons (code only works one time or x times--to be given to specific customers)
-Vouchers (pre-paid by customer for future use)?
I want to come back to you guys, but what I'm seeing thus far is very limited compared to the offering of Exposure Manager and others.
Product specific coupons are not yet out (but we are looking at them closely), but we already offer the ability to set a max uses for coupons, and vouchers (we call them print credits) are already live as well.
Any word on how to send the coupon to customers (preferably, the graphic?). I know we can email everyone with a message that says "hey, 10% off your purchases at mydomain.com with coupon code "abcdefg," but have we figured out how to send the graphic coupon? Screen grab only?
Product specific coupons are not yet out (but we are looking at them closely), but we already offer the ability to set a max uses for coupons, and vouchers (we call them print credits) are already live as well.
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
Thanks, Anne. EM has this wonderful feature (Product specific coupons) and it allows me to have a sale on specific items. One reason this is very useful is that I don't mark up the gift items as much as I do the prints. If I ordered 50% off a mug, I'd lose money, but that same discount on prints would be a profitable offering.
Comments
I want to have my family be able to order from any of my galleries without me ordering the prints for them. Would the "at cost" coupon serve this purpose? Or would I be charge 15% of my default price for everything they order?
Facebook ♦ Flickr ♦ SmugMug
SmugMug referral coupon code: ix3uDyfBU6xXs
(use this for a discount off your SmugMug subscription)
I am thankful coupons have been made available. But I am just wondering why SmugMug has not done more to get the message out. If I had not actively watched the old thread daily, I would have not known myself.
There has been nothing in the news on the Control Panel. Nor was any announcement made in the RSS SmugBlog Pro Corner feed which I joined to waiting for any word about coupons. In fact, I have not seen anything in this since 5/8/2009.
I am sure you have your reason such as not wanting to get hit with mass questions all at once. I am just curious.
Also, I think most users, including me, would like to limit a coupon to a set gallery. Is this something SmugMug is going to start working on in the early part of 2010 or is Coupon new features taking a back seat to some other projects people have requested? Personally, I would rather have gallery coupons before packages but I know others may disagree. Not asking for a release date, just wanting to which one is taking priority.
Thank you,
DM
profit so I can check using proof delay their crops etc.
My Website index | My Blog
however, if there is no profit on an order you will not be able to see the full name/address of your customer. By using your default pricing and an at-cost coupon you will be able to see the customer information if that is important to you.
My Website index | My Blog
We don't put the homepage news item and the opt-in email out on Fridays, because it will make for a lot of emails over the weekend
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
There is a feature that I was hoping would be part of the coupon release. Please consider this for the next release:
I sell mostly sports photos. I try to encourage my customers to purchase an extra copy or two of the print for friends and relatives. Figuring I make a pretty good mark-up on the first print, I want to be able to offer the 2nd and subsequent prints at a discount. I am currently doing this (quite often) through a separate transaction outside of Smugmug because it doesn't have this feature. For example, if I offer an 8X10 for $20, I want to be able to offer a second, third or tenth copy for $10 each.
Any ideas?
www.marcoglasbergen.nl
So, I've made me a 'Three for Free!' coupon (type: Amount off) that gives people the opportunity to have the first three digital downloads at no cost. The total amount as well as the minimum purchase for the coupon is three times the price of a digital download. So far, all's good.
Now if someone decides to download exactly three photos using this coupon his total order value will be $ 0. I'd rather have them order more, but I have no real problem with this. If this customer wants to check this order out his credit card info is still mandatory. This I cannot explain to customers. Maybe it's because I'm in Europe, but people don't like to give their credit card information, especially not when it's free and there's no exchange of money at all. Besides not all people have credit cards, but that's another discussion.
Any thoughts on this?
www.marcoglasbergen.nl
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No other ideas to help, just a related thought:
The coupons so far are a great step in the right direction. I also shoot some sports images and my quandary is that I want to have diminishing costs as a customer orders more. There is only so much I think anyone should/would pay for images at an event, and after they reach that amount I'd want to allow them to order more 'at cost'.
The trouble is that I want each participant on their own diminishing cost scale. Once one can order at cost, they can just order prints for the whole team.
So for a future feature, I'd like to be able to group photos (maybe by player, which I would have to set up) for the coupons. "Coupons Silos": a selection of images that a coupon works for.
And just to keep things challenging for the developers
Maybe that's a bit confusing, but the situation I see is that someone on the team can't afford images (and feels left out). I can set up a buy-one, get one of somebody else at cost/for free/etc. This way everyone can get a print, feel like a team, and save face.
Maybe implementation could be as simple (ha!) as a keyword based coupon.
Andy let me say I appreciate the work. But I have to echo that the feature is pretty dangerious. I have little option to protect my account from being drained by an accident etc. If I have very different pricing between galleries or items. You have all the protection of MY Credit card.
So I would focus on things that let the user control risk:
- $ OFF needs a Minium. EXAMPLE: $10 on $50 or more in photos
- Gallerly tying would lets us "hack" lots of protections.
- Product Tying would also be great to allow us to prmote higher margin items
- Really nice would be the single use coupon.. that we can issue as leader to sales for new customers. but i know that is a whole different coding can of worms)
I assume only one coupon at a time can be used? If not this is even more risk for me.(right now that coupon is pretty much useless if you were to lower cost items if I don't have a minium" And since I can only expire it not delete it the exposure to a mistake lasts for a day. Unless I start removing low cost options if a coupon starts being missused.
We know you did the work and are listening
Please let me know if I missed a way to prevent losses without removing all low priced items or only issuing $1 off coupons?
That also exists. Just put 1 in the maximum use field. Its right there under Minimum Purchase.
With all the harassment given to smugmug about coupons, I'd like to say thanks for implementing these. It's been a long time waiting for them, and I have not tried them yet, but since I complained about not having them, I thought I'd say thanks for getting this done
I'm not sure what was intended from this particular request, but it sure feels like people want a single coupon code they can send to tons of people but only allow each person to take advantage of it a single time. Maybe tie each use to a unique email address?
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
If we want to create a bunch of gift cards to give to different people, it seems we have to come up with a different code for each one. And for the less creative among us, it can be hard to think up codes that are different and not guessable for each one. It would be nice to have a "randomize" button on the coupon code field, to create a code at random and spare us the trouble of coming up with one.
Thanks.
Moshe
Yeah, that's a really good point. My feeling is that if the order total comes to $0 for the customer, which it would in the case of an order comprised of only at-cost digital downloads, they shouldn't need to provide credit card information.
Thanks for the feedback! This may well be something we can change for a future release.
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
I agree with what you are saying here. This is something that would be extremely helpful for sending out (for example) $10 in free print cards and not running the risk of one person having a stack of them (when really it is more of a loss-leader type of tool for the pro).
As with other, I want to say THANKS and I'm really excited about the ease and options of these coupons.
I have been hoping that this would come before I begin next years wedding season!!!!
Just out of curiosity (I only got to page 4/8 so this might have been answered).... will you be able to set up a coupon to apply to shipping if we give an amount off?
Also, I would like to be able to deposit an amount into a "credit fund" for my coupons which customers could draw from rather than it trickling out of a checking account/credit card....
Thanks for setting this up!!!!
Yes, that is right. As I understand it, and correct me if I am wrong, if I set the coupon to be used once, that does not mean everyone who gets it can only use it once. It means that that coupon can only be used once. If I want to reward all my clients, then I will have to put in a number equal to my total clients (hoping none of them will use it more than once) or just check the unlimited box.
Ideally, as you have noted, it would be great to set the coupons so each client can only use it once. This could be tied to their email or name or whatever. Another idea is for SmugMug to assign a customer code at the point of purchase which could be used for this and other future needs.
Canon 7D & 20D;
www.RobArtPhoto.com
Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. -Walker Evans
Sorry, but I haven't had time to read the entire thread. Any future development planned for:
-Product specific coupons (ex: 50% off 8x10s or 20% off prints but nothing off gift items?)
-Limited use coupons (code only works one time or x times--to be given to specific customers)
-Vouchers (pre-paid by customer for future use)?
I want to come back to you guys, but what I'm seeing thus far is very limited compared to the offering of Exposure Manager and others.
I needed to make 16 coupons for a group of people, so they could each have 1 use.
It was tedious to repeatedly fill in all the information when only the code needed to be changed.
A way to make new coupon from an existing one would be awesome.
Thanks,
Dave
tumbleweedphotos.smugmug.com
Appreciate the coupon! I'm starting to deploy now. I see some of the suggestions, which are very good. It shows how much we need and appreciate the work!
Once again, well done!
-Richard
www.RichardBerryPhotography.com
I'm seeing the possibility of having to do this for 300 people, so if SM has a way to auto-generate coupons with a randomized, unique suffix to the coupon name (ie coupon-ztywmer), that would be very helpful.
Product specific coupons are not yet out (but we are looking at them closely), but we already offer the ability to set a max uses for coupons, and vouchers (we call them print credits) are already live as well.
-Anne
SmugMug Support Hero
Stephen Skoutas
http://stephenskoutas.com
sskoutas@gmail.com Certe, toto, sentio nos in kansate non iam adesse
Please feel free to retouch and repost my images. Critique, Suggestions, and Technique tips always welcomed.
Thanks, Anne. EM has this wonderful feature (Product specific coupons) and it allows me to have a sale on specific items. One reason this is very useful is that I don't mark up the gift items as much as I do the prints. If I ordered 50% off a mug, I'd lose money, but that same discount on prints would be a profitable offering.
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