If told someone i would give them a print credit of lets say 10 8x10's, would i make a coupon for the value of the ten 8x10's. And would this value be based before my markup on the gallery or after my markup on the gallery?
Coupon Best Practice Question
I'm new to smugmug! Loving it!
I'm looking for the best practice for giving our wedding clients their "$250 Print Credit" (we call it a print credit). I have set it up to be a '$250 dollar off' coupon in the managing coupon section. Should I create a separate coupon for each client? Rather than having one coupon with a maximum uses equaling my client number (4 couples = 4 max uses).
Have people ever 'stolen' codes? Like a mother of the bride or anything?? Just curious!!
Thanks for any and all help! I read through most of the thread - but it was pretty thick dating back to 2003 :-)
Here's why I wish we had more control over coupons:
Ok, maybe that's not so clear. This is a pricing spreadsheet I've been working on, based on a spreadsheet I downloaded on dgrin.
I input prices and it calculates my profit (or loss) with various discounts... 15-30%. I've always kept my pricing very low, but recently I decided to bump up my prices and then offer a substantial discount coupon to friends. But what I'm discovering is that I need to really significantly raise my prices on the expensive items in order to not risk losing money if someone buys one of them using this coupon. Red on the spreadsheet represents negative profit and yellow represents profit under $1.
I can easily offer a 25% off coupon and still make a small profit on regular prints. But a 25% discount on big canvases would leave me over $25 in the red... unless I significantly raise prices to what I'd consider unreasonable (non-discounted) levels.
Until I can offer coupons for specific items, I'll either have to only offer a smaller coupon or I'll take the risk that someone will use the coupon to buy a really expensive print. I already adjusted my pricing to make sure I'm in the clear with a 10% discount... but that's so small for small prints.
And I haven't even put my packages into the spreadsheet yet. If someone used a coupon on a package, I'm really in the hole.
Bottom line is that coupons can be dangerous without really taking a close look at pricing. Please give us more control over them!
Okay, my head hurts. I need to brush up on my algebra but has anyone done the math on whether a print credit or dollar off amount makes more profit when using coupons in SmugMug? Their examples are not the same so I am having a hard time figuring out if I could stand to make more money if I offer a dollar off instead of a print credit, based on how they pay their proceeds.
Right now I want to offer a $50 print credit but according to their FAQs it shows that 'print credits' charge the 15% markup, but that may not be the case if you offer a $50 dollar amount credit and the balance falls below the order? So confused!
Okay, my head hurts. I need to brush up on my algebra but has anyone done the math on whether a print credit or dollar off amount makes more profit when using coupons in SmugMug? Their examples are not the same so I am having a hard time figuring out if I could stand to make more money if I offer a dollar off instead of a print credit, based on how they pay their proceeds.
Right now I want to offer a $50 print credit but according to their FAQs it shows that 'print credits' charge the 15% markup, but that may not be the case if you offer a $50 dollar amount credit and the balance falls below the order? So confused!
The "Amount Off" coupon makes you a little more money than a "Print Credit". The example here is pretty straigtforward.
Furthermore, using an Amount Off coupon allows you to set a minimum order. For example, "take $10 off your order of $35 or more!". Can't do that with a print credit.
So if the customer puts $35 worth of stuff in their cart and then applies the coupon, they pay $25 plus shipping, and Smugmug pays you based on the $25. So if your cost for the stuff was $5, smugmug would take 15% of $20 ($3) and give you $17.
If you give someone a print credit, smugmug has to assume that you sold the credit, so they are going to charge you commission on the full amount, pre-coupon.
I was thinking of selling print credits in advance of little league baseball games in order to reward early-birds. For example, I was going to sell $35 print credits for $25. Then I realized I'd be getting charged commission on $35, so I nixed that idea! I switched to a $10-off a minimum of $35 coupon, and used the expiration date as the incentive.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Print credits, however, can be used more than once. Right?
For example, if my goal is to give a wedding customer $400 towards the cost of prints I can either do it with $400 print credit or $400 off. With print credit they can order as many times as necessary to use up the full $400 (say the only spend $100 the first time, they can come back and spend the rest of the $300 the second time to finish up the coupon.
On the other hand, if I give them $400 off and they only spend $100 the first time and I've set the max uses to 1 - then they are stuck and I've got a support issue. So I can't set max uses to 1 without creating difficulty for the customer. But if I set it to 2 or more ... then they could use the $400 off coupon twice. Woohoo.
At least ... that is my understanding. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
(I do wish print credits worked like dollar off coupons because sometimes I end up sending my orders directly through Bay Photo because it costs too much to let the customer order through Smugmug)
For example, if my goal is to give a wedding customer $400 towards the cost of prints I can either do it with $400 print credit or $400 off. With print credit they can order as many times as necessary to use up the full $400 (say the only spend $100 the first time, they can come back and spend the rest of the $300 the second time to finish up the coupon.
Right. Do this.
On the other hand, if I give them $400 off and they only spend $100 the first time and I've set the max uses to 1 - then they are stuck and I've got a support issue.
Right. Don't do this.
So I can't set max uses to 1 without creating difficulty for the customer. But if I set it to 2 or more ... then they could use the $400 off coupon twice. Woohoo.
Well, you've already established that you shouldn't use an amount-off coupon for this purpose, so discussing max uses is moot. But if you were silly enough to do this, they'd be able to get $800 worth of stuff for free.
(I do wish print credits worked like dollar off coupons because sometimes I end up sending my orders directly through Bay Photo because it costs too much to let the customer order through Smugmug)
What, are you one of those neo-communists who thinks everything online and/or digital should be free? Smugmug provides you with a valuable service, I suggest you support it.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I think that by reading my message you can tell that I did ...
My message was really only to 1) confirm my understanding, and 2) warn others about the potential abuse of multiple uses of the dollar off coupon.
And I do use the print credit coupons and smugmug does get my money (and has done for 6 years, thank you). But in some cases where the profit margins are slim it makes more sense for me to send the order straight to Bay Photo (which I've also used and supported for years). Plus, Bay Photo lets me mount my prints (important to me for 11x14 and up) which Smugmug does not.
Multiple Coupon Use?
I was just wondering if it's possible for customers to apply multiple coupons to an order. For example, could someone use "ATCOST" to receive their prints at-cost -- and then use "50PERCENTOFF" to receive an additional 50% off their order total on the same order? I hope not!
Print credit for customers?
Hi, I'm just beginning to offer print credits for the customers of my pet photo business. For $xxx dollars, they receive an hour of shooting and $30 towards prints ordered through smugmug. I assume I should create a coupon, which I have started to do, and I have it restricted to the customers private password protected gallery.
My question is this: Will the customer be able to use this coupon more than once? Or will it disappear after the $30 has been used?
Also, is there a way to make a template coupon, so I don't have to re-create one for every photoshoot I do? I would like to just apply the same coupon to every private customers gallery I upload in the future...
...and sorry if this has been answered already, but I wasn't able to find it.
Thanks for your help...
Adam www.AdamOpetphotos.com
Is there any way to generate large numbers of uniquely coded coupons? That would be a nice feature, especially if there was a good way to export the codes into a database.
Is there any way to generate large numbers of uniquely coded coupons? That would be a nice feature, especially if there was a good way to export the codes into a database.
If you use the API to generate the coupons, I bet you could do this.
I was thinking of creating a coupon "reward" for filling out my on-line SURVEY. I am a portrait photog -- but have photographed landscapes from all over the world. Perhaps creating a file (Gallery) that is sized for effective Screen-saver images -- fill it with these "gift" landscapes and offer a COUPON code for a low rez download of their choice from this gallery. Is it possible to offer a low-rez download on a coupon ?? I am open to anyone's thoughts on this -- and how I might construct it effectively. Thank you. GY
Is there a way to delete an unwanted coupon that we've setup? Expiring them and/or changing the code is really only a workaround.
I am thinking of keeping expired coupons around so I can reuse them later. However, it would be nice to delete (completely remove) one that I don't need.
Johnny J. Chin ~ J. Chin Photography Facebook ♦ Flickr ♦ SmugMug
SmugMug referral coupon code: ix3uDyfBU6xXs
(use this for a discount off your SmugMug subscription)
E-mailing Coupons
Hello,
I read through some of the forum about coupons and am still unclear if you can e-mail the nice looking version of the coupon that is created when we make them. Right now I am just e-mailing folks their coupon code password to use when ordering, but I'd really like to be able to e-mail them the image that we see when we make the coupons. It would look a lot nicer and more professional, I think. Is there any way to do this?
Thanks.
Help With Print Credits!!
Hey, can someone please help me with print credits?!?!?! I have a customer who has used her print credit and we have yet to be charged so i am concerned that her pictures will not be here for Christmas! Please someone advise me on what i should do!
Multiple coupons
I haven't used the coupon feature yet, but it could be very handy for a new project I'm working on. With a few changes. If I understand correctly, a customer cannot use more than one coupon at a time. Ideally, I'd like to be able to send a potential customer a coupon for a free 8x10 in a selected gallery, plus free shipping. If I have to make a coupon for what I charge for an 8x10, I'll have to do it that way. When I promise someone a free 8x10, I don't want to charge them for shipping. Then it's not really free, is it?
Is there an easy way for me to accomplish what I'm trying to do?
Product specific coupon
Hello! I know right now, SM's coupons are not product specific, and I've been trying to figure out if that is a feature that is even on the radar screen. I've been reading this coupon thread, and there seem to be alot of discussion around the print credit being an issue when it comes to how the pro can control their profit level, and I think that making the print credits and/or coupons product specific will help with this issue.
e.g., a $400 print credit, when used the way that they are issued now, can be used on ANYTHING. We know that markup for a 4x6 could be 100% of the cost, whereas markup on a canvas could be only 20%. They could spend $400 on 100 4x6 (which would only cost me $40 if the prints are $0.40 each), OR they could spend $200 on a really large canvas, which could cost me $150. So depending on how the customer spends the $200, the pro's profit could be significantly different. (NOTE, these calculations exclude the smugmug 15% charge just for simplicity sake)
I like giving out credits that have HIGH value, but low cost, so for example, I would give out 100 4x6 prints with a wedding booking, among other things. It's predictable, I know how much the cost is. It's high value to a customer, low cost to me. (And I'll be HAPPY to have it fulfilled through smugmug and pay the 15% for their efforts)
So that's why I feel that a product specific coupon is an important feature. I'm interested in hearing other people's interest in this feature. I feel like there is a lot of talk in this thread that indirectly points to a product specific coupon feature, but no one has directly raised the need for it (or if its been raised, it wasn't heard).
If you support this feature, there is a post on smugmug.uservoice.com for this feature, but unfortunately, there is only 8 supporter and 18 votes. Is it really that low on the priority for everyone? I'm just interested in garnering more support for this, and maybe hear what smugmug has to say about whether its possible to have this feature from a programming standpoint.
Is there any way to email the coupons to our customers? For example I want to send out an email to people that have already bought our photos and allow them to take 20% off reprints.
Hi everyone. Just wondering why my client is still being asked for credit card info despite the total coming to zero after use of a coupon. Any ideas? Apologies if someone has asked the same question before... Thanks!!
Hi everyone. Just wondering why my client is still being asked for credit card info despite the total coming to zero after use of a coupon. Any ideas? Apologies if someone has asked the same question before... Thanks!!
I'm wondering the same thing - I thought I read somewhere that if the order total was $0 a credit card would not be needed. Is this not the case?
I'm wondering the same thing - I thought I read somewhere that if the order total was $0 a credit card would not be needed. Is this not the case?
I read through this thread and the coupon help thread - this question is asked several times, but I never saw an answer. For anyone else interested in this, the answer from support is below.
It is disappointing that this flaw is being treated as a feature request rather than the flaw that it is. It is embarrassing to have to tell the customer that even though the order total is $0 and their card will not be charged, they are still required to enter their credit card info.
Thanks for emailing SmugMug. A credit card is required for every order, even if a coupon code used will bring the cost of the order down to $0.00. At this time this is simply the way our ordering system works. The customer's card would of course not be charged anything for a $0.00 order. A number of Pro users have asked that we change this so orders that cost nothing do not require a credit card so it is on our radar. We do our best to use customer input to improve the site and our service so please feel free to let us know what you want. We have a forum dedicated specifically for feature requests: http://feedback.smugmug.com/pages/17723-smugmug If you do have any additional questions or concerns please feel free to contact us at anytime.
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It would be very very nice to be able to link the fancy coupon icon and attach it to a gallery, then..........post that link onto say facebook to show your friends. Right now its basically useless.
Comments
I'm new to smugmug! Loving it!
I'm looking for the best practice for giving our wedding clients their "$250 Print Credit" (we call it a print credit). I have set it up to be a '$250 dollar off' coupon in the managing coupon section. Should I create a separate coupon for each client? Rather than having one coupon with a maximum uses equaling my client number (4 couples = 4 max uses).
Have people ever 'stolen' codes? Like a mother of the bride or anything?? Just curious!!
Thanks for any and all help! I read through most of the thread - but it was pretty thick dating back to 2003 :-)
Meg
Ok, maybe that's not so clear. This is a pricing spreadsheet I've been working on, based on a spreadsheet I downloaded on dgrin.
I input prices and it calculates my profit (or loss) with various discounts... 15-30%. I've always kept my pricing very low, but recently I decided to bump up my prices and then offer a substantial discount coupon to friends. But what I'm discovering is that I need to really significantly raise my prices on the expensive items in order to not risk losing money if someone buys one of them using this coupon. Red on the spreadsheet represents negative profit and yellow represents profit under $1.
I can easily offer a 25% off coupon and still make a small profit on regular prints. But a 25% discount on big canvases would leave me over $25 in the red... unless I significantly raise prices to what I'd consider unreasonable (non-discounted) levels.
Until I can offer coupons for specific items, I'll either have to only offer a smaller coupon or I'll take the risk that someone will use the coupon to buy a really expensive print. I already adjusted my pricing to make sure I'm in the clear with a 10% discount... but that's so small for small prints.
And I haven't even put my packages into the spreadsheet yet. If someone used a coupon on a package, I'm really in the hole.
Bottom line is that coupons can be dangerous without really taking a close look at pricing. Please give us more control over them!
Dave
Right now I want to offer a $50 print credit but according to their FAQs it shows that 'print credits' charge the 15% markup, but that may not be the case if you offer a $50 dollar amount credit and the balance falls below the order? So confused!
The "Amount Off" coupon makes you a little more money than a "Print Credit". The example here is pretty straigtforward.
Furthermore, using an Amount Off coupon allows you to set a minimum order. For example, "take $10 off your order of $35 or more!". Can't do that with a print credit.
So if the customer puts $35 worth of stuff in their cart and then applies the coupon, they pay $25 plus shipping, and Smugmug pays you based on the $25. So if your cost for the stuff was $5, smugmug would take 15% of $20 ($3) and give you $17.
If you give someone a print credit, smugmug has to assume that you sold the credit, so they are going to charge you commission on the full amount, pre-coupon.
I was thinking of selling print credits in advance of little league baseball games in order to reward early-birds. For example, I was going to sell $35 print credits for $25. Then I realized I'd be getting charged commission on $35, so I nixed that idea! I switched to a $10-off a minimum of $35 coupon, and used the expiration date as the incentive.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
For example, if my goal is to give a wedding customer $400 towards the cost of prints I can either do it with $400 print credit or $400 off. With print credit they can order as many times as necessary to use up the full $400 (say the only spend $100 the first time, they can come back and spend the rest of the $300 the second time to finish up the coupon.
On the other hand, if I give them $400 off and they only spend $100 the first time and I've set the max uses to 1 - then they are stuck and I've got a support issue. So I can't set max uses to 1 without creating difficulty for the customer. But if I set it to 2 or more ... then they could use the $400 off coupon twice. Woohoo.
At least ... that is my understanding. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
(I do wish print credits worked like dollar off coupons because sometimes I end up sending my orders directly through Bay Photo because it costs too much to let the customer order through Smugmug)
RTFM
Right. Do this.
Right. Don't do this.
Well, you've already established that you shouldn't use an amount-off coupon for this purpose, so discussing max uses is moot. But if you were silly enough to do this, they'd be able to get $800 worth of stuff for free.
What, are you one of those neo-communists who thinks everything online and/or digital should be free? Smugmug provides you with a valuable service, I suggest you support it.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I was just wondering if it's possible for customers to apply multiple coupons to an order. For example, could someone use "ATCOST" to receive their prints at-cost -- and then use "50PERCENTOFF" to receive an additional 50% off their order total on the same order? I hope not!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Hi, I'm just beginning to offer print credits for the customers of my pet photo business. For $xxx dollars, they receive an hour of shooting and $30 towards prints ordered through smugmug. I assume I should create a coupon, which I have started to do, and I have it restricted to the customers private password protected gallery.
My question is this: Will the customer be able to use this coupon more than once? Or will it disappear after the $30 has been used?
Also, is there a way to make a template coupon, so I don't have to re-create one for every photoshoot I do? I would like to just apply the same coupon to every private customers gallery I upload in the future...
...and sorry if this has been answered already, but I wasn't able to find it.
Thanks for your help...
Adam
www.AdamOpetphotos.com
http://www.adamoneill.com
Want faster uploading? Vote for FTP!
I am thinking of keeping expired coupons around so I can reuse them later. However, it would be nice to delete (completely remove) one that I don't need.
Facebook ♦ Flickr ♦ SmugMug
SmugMug referral coupon code: ix3uDyfBU6xXs
(use this for a discount off your SmugMug subscription)
Hello,
I read through some of the forum about coupons and am still unclear if you can e-mail the nice looking version of the coupon that is created when we make them. Right now I am just e-mailing folks their coupon code password to use when ordering, but I'd really like to be able to e-mail them the image that we see when we make the coupons. It would look a lot nicer and more professional, I think. Is there any way to do this?
Thanks.
Hey, can someone please help me with print credits?!?!?! I have a customer who has used her print credit and we have yet to be charged so i am concerned that her pictures will not be here for Christmas! Please someone advise me on what i should do!
Studio L
I haven't used the coupon feature yet, but it could be very handy for a new project I'm working on. With a few changes. If I understand correctly, a customer cannot use more than one coupon at a time. Ideally, I'd like to be able to send a potential customer a coupon for a free 8x10 in a selected gallery, plus free shipping. If I have to make a coupon for what I charge for an 8x10, I'll have to do it that way. When I promise someone a free 8x10, I don't want to charge them for shipping. Then it's not really free, is it?
Is there an easy way for me to accomplish what I'm trying to do?
Hello! I know right now, SM's coupons are not product specific, and I've been trying to figure out if that is a feature that is even on the radar screen. I've been reading this coupon thread, and there seem to be alot of discussion around the print credit being an issue when it comes to how the pro can control their profit level, and I think that making the print credits and/or coupons product specific will help with this issue.
e.g., a $400 print credit, when used the way that they are issued now, can be used on ANYTHING. We know that markup for a 4x6 could be 100% of the cost, whereas markup on a canvas could be only 20%. They could spend $400 on 100 4x6 (which would only cost me $40 if the prints are $0.40 each), OR they could spend $200 on a really large canvas, which could cost me $150. So depending on how the customer spends the $200, the pro's profit could be significantly different. (NOTE, these calculations exclude the smugmug 15% charge just for simplicity sake)
I like giving out credits that have HIGH value, but low cost, so for example, I would give out 100 4x6 prints with a wedding booking, among other things. It's predictable, I know how much the cost is. It's high value to a customer, low cost to me. (And I'll be HAPPY to have it fulfilled through smugmug and pay the 15% for their efforts)
So that's why I feel that a product specific coupon is an important feature. I'm interested in hearing other people's interest in this feature. I feel like there is a lot of talk in this thread that indirectly points to a product specific coupon feature, but no one has directly raised the need for it (or if its been raised, it wasn't heard).
If you support this feature, there is a post on smugmug.uservoice.com for this feature, but unfortunately, there is only 8 supporter and 18 votes. Is it really that low on the priority for everyone? I'm just interested in garnering more support for this, and maybe hear what smugmug has to say about whether its possible to have this feature from a programming standpoint.
Here is the uservoice post. If you support this feature, PLEASE VOTE!!
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/657439-offer-specific-items-in-coupons?ref=title
How do we give the coupons to the customer anyway?
Just tell them the coupon code. Either by email or another means. I love the image of the coupon, so I've been cutting and pasting that into e-mails.
Paul Zizka Photography: zizka.smugmug.com
The Blog - Twitter - Facebook
how do i email the coupon once i create it or how do i give the coupon to my customer?
I hate to say it, but just look 2 posts up.
Other Gear: Olympus E-PL1, Pan 20 1.7, Fuji 3D Camera, Lensbaby 2.0, Tamron 28-75 2.8, Alien Bees lighting, CyberSyncs, Domke, HONL, FlipIt.
~ Gear Pictures
I'm wondering the same thing - I thought I read somewhere that if the order total was $0 a credit card would not be needed. Is this not the case?
I read through this thread and the coupon help thread - this question is asked several times, but I never saw an answer. For anyone else interested in this, the answer from support is below.
It is disappointing that this flaw is being treated as a feature request rather than the flaw that it is. It is embarrassing to have to tell the customer that even though the order total is $0 and their card will not be charged, they are still required to enter their credit card info.
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