I *think* this is already doable with a little effort on your part. If you create an event and a participant, it will automatically create a favorites gallery for that participant. So create a package and apply it only to that gallery. Then send out a link to the person. They will be able to browse the galleries, choose favorites, and then order a package from that favorites gallery.
This is interesting...but I think it's not practical.
Will I need to create an event/participant linkage for every customer? I mean, with potentially 400 customers for a dance recital (or with something like the Maccabi Games I photographed earlier this year, potentially 2500 customers), would I need to create an event/participant for each of them? It's probably not going to work out if I have to identify each client...I won't know how many clients will be interested in the packages.
Packages - Thanks!
Thanks for rolling out packages. I think my customers and I will be happy with the options available. My only nits so far are larger images for viewing when dragging and dropping. This is important when several images look very similar. The customers will have to record image numbers and then use those to drag and drop, so I am glad to see they can view the image numbers. Second nit would be to limit packages to certain galleries. I price some work less than others for various reasons and would like to be able to have my package pricing mirror those differences. From a quick read of the other posts here, I think these nits may have already been mentioned. Glad to see packages are out and now you can work on fine-tuning them.
"Buy Package from this Pro" could use better wording
I find the wording "Buy Package from this Pro" to be a little odd for someone who has a fully branded site. Wouldn't it be better to just say "Buy a Package of Prints" or "Buy Package" or "View Package Offerings" or something that doesn't have the "this Pro" in it?
"this Pro" implies that this is one of many pros in the system and takes away from the notion of a stand-alone branded web site.
I find the wording "Buy Package from this Pro" to be a little odd for someone who has a fully branded site. Wouldn't it be better to just say "Buy a Package of Prints" or "Buy Package" or "View Package Offerings" or something that doesn't have the "this Pro" in it?
"this Pro" implies that this is one of many pros in the system and takes away from the notion of a stand-alone branded web site.
+1
That was my first impression too. "Who is 'this Pro'?"
(But please to accept my sincere gratitude for getting this feature in!)
Thanks, SM, for getting this feature off the ground. Great suggestions in here for improvement. Here are a few more thoughts:
1) Sometimes I like to include coupons in my packages... so, if you buy a package, it includes a coupon for 10% off prints that the client can share with friends. Would be cool to integrate that into a package....
... which leads to....
2) Self-fulfillment! Yes, everyone's favorite topic. I would like to include items in my packages that are not fulfilled by SmugMug. Items like a CD of digital prints. Of course, I can fulfill these on my own, but I would like to be able to list them in the package.
3) I'd love to find an easy way to give the packages more visibility... the "Buy Packages from a Pro" button is a little secluded, if you know what I mean. How can we easily promote packages to the client? I think integration with the Event page would be cool... or maybe something else?
Excited to keep playing, and exploring packages. Many thanks for getting this launched.
Along those lines, would people like to have an option on Coupon and/or Package creation that disables that stacking?
ABSOLUTELY. I would like to be able to offer coupons AND packages to my Little League customers. Why? Because this town is accustomed to buying packages, so many people will be expecting them, and may prefer the simplicity. But I would like to offer coupons as well because I want to provide the flexibility of being able to pick whatever you want and get a discount.
However this market is a price war, so my packages are already pretty cheap. Like, I make $10 on a $24 package. If my customers were able to apply a coupon to a package, I think I could possibly come out in the red.
Are you making this functionality (to be able to prevent coupon/package stacking) a priority? I really hope so.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Package Problem
I created a simple one pose package of 2-5x7's as a test. Creating the package was very easy and straight forward... Nicely Done! My problem came in when I tested the ordering process. When I select the package, it takes me to the "Select Package Photos" page (as it should). After scrolling through the gallery image thumbnails, I clicked on the "Change Gallery" link and eeeeeeck! I've had the message "Fetching your galleries, one moment please" on my screen for the better part of a half hr.
Big question: when you click the "Change Gallery" link, where does it take you? My hope is that it would take you to the category your gallery was in but I suspect that it tries to load every public gallery in your account. If this is the case, packages will be completely unusable for me with 6,000+ galleries.
I created a simple one pose package of 2-5x7's as a test. Creating the package was very easy and straight forward... Nicely Done! My problem came in when I tested the ordering process. When I select the package, it takes me to the "Select Package Photos" page (as it should). After scrolling through the gallery image thumbnails, I clicked on the "Change Gallery" link and eeeeeeck! I've had the message "Fetching your galleries, one moment please" on my screen for the better part of a half hr.
When you create a package, you have an option to make it available in all your galleries, or in a subset of galleries, or just one gallery. I'd say you need to avoid global packages.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I created a simple one pose package of 2-5x7's as a test. Creating the package was very easy and straight forward... Nicely Done! My problem came in when I tested the ordering process. When I select the package, it takes me to the "Select Package Photos" page (as it should). After scrolling through the gallery image thumbnails, I clicked on the "Change Gallery" link and eeeeeeck! I've had the message "Fetching your galleries, one moment please" on my screen for the better part of a half hr.
Big question: when you click the "Change Gallery" link, where does it take you? My hope is that it would take you to the category your gallery was in but I suspect that it tries to load every public gallery in your account. If this is the case, packages will be completely unusable for me with 6,000+ galleries.
Uh Oh! If this is the case, I am in the same boat. SMUGMUG, SMUGMUG, SMUGMUG...Why is it so difficult to customize to a specific category and/or sub-category? This frustrates me so much when I want to apply certain customizations. You have come out with some great new features (coupons, packages, and events), but if I have to load all my galleries on both ends to apply these customizations to, then it is totally not worth the time and a major pain in the butt on both the customer and photographer ends. I have been on Smugmug since 2005 and I want to take advantage of all these new features. But, after 5 years, it is going to be hard to move things around and to apply these features to my existing galleries, if there isn't an easier way.
***UPDATE: I did a test run and the same thing as Eric experienced. Totally useless and a waste of time. I guess if you are a long time user of Smugmug and you have a big quantity of galleries, you are pretty much up the creek without a paddle.
I did and I tried both methods. Not efficient at all. It also seems like I can only select one subcategory of galleries, as well.
You can select multiple galleries, or all galleries, or one gallery. I just created more packages, and then logged out and tested a purchase. It's working great.
You are having a PIBKAC issue.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
You can select multiple galleries, or all galleries, or one gallery. I just created more packages, and then logged out and tested a purchase. It's working great.
You are having a PIBKAC issue.
You know Jack. I came here venting my frustration and asking for help or other suggestions, and I get you. If you don't have the answer or any helpful guesses or alternatives, then don't chime in. I know you can select galleries. That is not the issue.
The issue, as the other poster and I have confirmed is that if I select all galleries to apply the package to and you have a ton of galleries, then the customer will be waiting forever, when he clicks to switch gallery to add more photos to his/her package. This is a HUGE problem of functionality. This is where the category/sub-category needs to come in play, IMO. The reason it seems to be taking forever is that it seems to be loading all the galleries on the entire website, instead of just in that particular category or subcategory. This option needs to be targeted, otherwise, the customer would have to wait forever for 6,000 galleries to pop up and choose from.
I gave you the answer, and that is, don't create global packages.
I can't imagine needing to create packages that will work in every single gallery, especially when you have so many. But I don't know your business, maybe you need that. But then... why would you have been at Smumug in the first place and not somewhere else like Miller's if this was so crucial?
I agree the UI is not fully baked and your scenario brings this to light. But I'll take it, and for me it works great. It's a lot better than no packages!!
For me, I plan on only creating packages for "active" galleries, like events I have shot recently.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I gave you the answer, and that is, don't create global packages.
I can't imagine needing to create packages that will work in every single gallery, especially when you have so many. But I don't know your business, maybe you need that. But then... why would you have been at Smumug in the first place and not somewhere else like Miller's if this was so crucial?
I agree the UI is not fully baked and your scenario brings this to light. But I'll take it, and for me it works great. It's a lot better than no packages!!
For me, I plan on only creating packages for "active" galleries, like events I have shot recently.
haven't tried the packages yet, but i do almost strictly portraits...people generally want the same thing - hence the same packages...so, are you saying that if i have TONS of galleries all of portraits, i shouldn't have packages that affect or pertain to all of those?! i'm sorry, that just doesn't cut it...if i'm misunderstanding you, i apologize, but this just won't work for me in the end if i understand you correctly...
I gave you the answer, and that is, don't create global packages.
I can't imagine needing to create packages that will work in every single gallery, especially when you have so many. But I don't know your business, maybe you need that. But then... why would you have been at Smumug in the first place and not somewhere else like Miller's if this was so crucial?
I agree the UI is not fully baked and your scenario brings this to light. But I'll take it, and for me it works great. It's a lot better than no packages!!
For me, I plan on only creating packages for "active" galleries, like events I have shot recently.
I can see both points - and depending on your business, this could be a huge issue or nothing at all.
Perhaps, rather than trying to tackle the performance issue - which is technically quite a challenge - Smug should provide the ability to 'Clone' the package structure to a new set of galleries. That is, you create the package set once for a set of galleries and then, with one or two clicks, you identify another set of galleries and say, 'I want the same packages to apply here'.
I would think that would be easy enough to do for the folks with thousands of galleries (since you have to upload them sometime and this is just one small step more)...and it won't force Smug to redesign the whole catalogue access methodology.
I can see both points - and depending on your business, this could be a huge issue or nothing at all.
Perhaps, rather than trying to tackle the performance issue - which is technically quite a challenge - Smug should provide the ability to 'Clone' the package structure to a new set of galleries. That is, you create the package set once for a set of galleries and then, with one or two clicks, you identify another set of galleries and say, 'I want the same packages to apply here'.
I would think that would be easy enough to do for the folks with thousands of galleries (since you have to upload them sometime and this is just one small step more)...and it won't force Smug to redesign the whole catalogue access methodology.
What do you think?
- Gary.
I was going back-n-forth with Steve C.(A Smugmug Hero) last night, via email. I set up a 4X6 glossy package and I let him try the ordering process, as if he was the customer. He had the same thing happen, which was when he went to change gallery, it was stuck on the "fetching your galleries..." screen. He waited 10 minutes and gave up. He said it should not take that long at all. He said when you click on the "switch gallery," it should take you to where you can select the category. That way, you do not have to load all the galleires on the website. He believe there is indeed an issue with this and he passed it on to the developer last night.
would someone please be willing to share their packages. I'm having a devil of a time coming up with some package options, ie 1-8x10, 2-5x7s and a sheet of wallets, for $XXX
I gave you the answer, and that is, don't create global packages.
I can't imagine needing to create packages that will work in every single gallery, especially when you have so many. But I don't know your business, maybe you need that. But then... why would you have been at Smumug in the first place and not somewhere else like Miller's if this was so crucial?
I agree the UI is not fully baked and your scenario brings this to light. But I'll take it, and for me it works great. It's a lot better than no packages!!
For me, I plan on only creating packages for "active" galleries, like events I have shot recently.
I was going back-n-forth with Steve C.(A Smugmug Hero) last night, via email. I set up a 4X6 glossy package and I let him try the ordering process, as if he was the customer. He had the same thing happen, which was when he went to change gallery, it was stuck on the "fetching your galleries..." screen. He waited 10 minutes and gave up. He said it should not take that long at all. He said when you click on the "switch gallery," it should take you to where you can select the category. That way, you do not have to load all the galleires on the website. He believe there is indeed an issue with this and he passed it on to the developer last night.
Let's see what the developer comes up with today.
By day I am a mild-mannered software engineer. It can be hard or impossible to test software without reams of test data, and it is only when a program gets deployed to production when you realize that oops, this isn't going to work for 5000+ galleries. Sounds like this may be the case here, and I would think SM will be able to fix it.
However I still say the work-around is to only define packages that apply to a subset of galleries.
I like the cloning idea, so that if you had a package that worked in galleries A, B, C, that you could clone it to galleries D, E, F. That way if someone was in gallery E and they hit "Change Gallery", it would only query info from D and F.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Gallery chooser in regards to packages
First I want to apologize for taking so long to respond to your issue. Life for me has been a bit crazy lately. Performance of the gallery chooser for pros who don't limit their packages to a few galleries and who have an large number of galleries to choose from is a known issue and I am working on it. I promise.
I have some alternative approaches that I am testing in order to handle this data that should improve loading and viewing times on the current version of the gallery chooser. Please be patient. I'll try to get this out to you all as soon as I can.
Note that in the mean time, it would be a good idea to create packages that are limited to a smaller number of galleries as is recommended above. This will allow your customers to choose from those chosen galleries very quickly.
We have a lot planned with packages and I hope to keep improving on them and bringing you all new features in the near future.
Uh Oh! If this is the case, I am in the same boat. SMUGMUG, SMUGMUG, SMUGMUG...Why is it so difficult to customize to a specific category and/or sub-category? This frustrates me so much when I want to apply certain customizations. You have come out with some great new features (coupons, packages, and events), but if I have to load all my galleries on both ends to apply these customizations to, then it is totally not worth the time and a major pain in the butt on both the customer and photographer ends. I have been on Smugmug since 2005 and I want to take advantage of all these new features. But, after 5 years, it is going to be hard to move things around and to apply these features to my existing galleries, if there isn't an easier way.
***UPDATE: I did a test run and the same thing as Eric experienced. Totally useless and a waste of time. I guess if you are a long time user of Smugmug and you have a big quantity of galleries, you are pretty much up the creek without a paddle.
On cloning...
Cloning is one of the features I alluded to when I said we have a lot planned for packages. You can expect to see this feature sooner than some of the others I'd suspect.
Fixing the performance of the gallery chooser is of high importance for users with a very large number of galleries. Therefore I am focusing on that first.
By day I am a mild-mannered software engineer. It can be hard or impossible to test software without reams of test data, and it is only when a program gets deployed to production when you realize that oops, this isn't going to work for 5000+ galleries. Sounds like this may be the case here, and I would think SM will be able to fix it.
However I still say the work-around is to only define packages that apply to a subset of galleries.
I like the cloning idea, so that if you had a package that worked in galleries A, B, C, that you could clone it to galleries D, E, F. That way if someone was in gallery E and they hit "Change Gallery", it would only query info from D and F.
Packages I am still fairly new to this and so am a bit confused on the packages option. Since people are used to packages that have 1 8x10 2 5x7's 8 wallets etc. that is what I would like to set up. So how do I do that for my Senior galleries? But then if they want to order extra individual ones too how do I work it together? Thanks
First I want to apologize for taking so long to respond to your issue. Life for me has been a bit crazy lately. Performance of the gallery chooser for pros who don't limit their packages to a few galleries and who have an large number of galleries to choose from is a known issue and I am working on it. I promise.
I have some alternative approaches that I am testing in order to handle this data that should improve loading and viewing times on the current version of the gallery chooser. Please be patient. I'll try to get this out to you all as soon as I can.
Note that in the mean time, it would be a good idea to create packages that are limited to a smaller number of galleries as is recommended above. This will allow your customers to choose from those chosen galleries very quickly.
We have a lot planned with packages and I hope to keep improving on them and bringing you all new features in the near future.
Thanks for the response. As you work on solutions for large photographers, may I suggest having a option to load the galleries from the Category the customer was last in? My account is structured like this: I have a Category for each school (100+ schools). Inside each category I have galleries of each event for the current year and sub-categories for past years. Each day, we use Star Explorer to upload anywhere from 5-30 new galleries. Presently, we have some 6000+ galleries site wide. In my case, if a customer wanted to select images from another gallery, they would want to see more galleries from the Category (school) they were in. As you can see, it's really not feasible for me to select a small pool of galleries to apply a package too. Hope all that made sense!
ABSOLUTELY. I would like to be able to offer coupons AND packages to my Little League customers. Why? Because this town is accustomed to buying packages, so many people will be expecting them, and may prefer the simplicity. But I would like to offer coupons as well because I want to provide the flexibility of being able to pick whatever you want and get a discount.
However this market is a price war, so my packages are already pretty cheap. Like, I make $10 on a $24 package. If my customers were able to apply a coupon to a package, I think I could possibly come out in the red.
Are you making this functionality (to be able to prevent coupon/package stacking) a priority? I really hope so.
Can we get an answer to this question? I and surely many others would like to be able to offer coupons and packages in the same galleries, but we need to prevent the coupons from being applied to packages.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Can we get an answer to this question? I and surely many others would like to be able to offer coupons and packages in the same galleries, but we need to prevent the coupons from being applied to packages.
This is the first request we've seen for this. No decision at this point - but for now, coupons are applicable to packages. Would love to hear from others and you should also add your voice:
Post #5, 6, 38 request this. And post #2 kind of implies it by raising it as a concern.
I suppose I could simply make my $24 package cost $34 and then issue a $10 off coupon with a minimum purchase of $34, and so on. Then people could put that coupon towards the package or any other combination of items.
But I think that would put a lot of people off. Too many people cannot be bothered to read simple directions. If they thought my package price had suddenly jumped $10, they might just get ticked off and leave my site.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Post #5, 6, 38 request this. And post #2 kind of implies it by raising it as a concern.
I suppose I could simply make my $24 package cost $34 and then issue a $10 off coupon with a minimum purchase of $34, and so on. Then people could put that coupon towards the package or any other combination of items.
But I think that would put a lot of people off. Too many people cannot be bothered to read simple directions. If they thought my package price had suddenly jumped $10, they might just get ticked off and leave my site.
Ack my bad - and thank you! I've already requested this feature of our developer.
I find the wording "Buy Package from this Pro" to be a little odd for someone who has a fully branded site. Wouldn't it be better to just say "Buy a Package of Prints" or "Buy Package" or "View Package Offerings" or something that doesn't have the "this Pro" in it?
"this Pro" implies that this is one of many pros in the system and takes away from the notion of a stand-alone branded web site.
A very simple heading of "Packages" should suffice or "Package Prices" .
These are the 2 headings used by all the Pro Processors I have used.
would someone please be willing to share their packages. I'm having a devil of a time coming up with some package options, ie 1-8x10, 2-5x7s and a sheet of wallets, for $XXX
Thanks
Take a look at what different processors offer their clients.....the photo mags have listing of all kinds of processors........also think of what you might want to buy as a client.
Is there a way to not have a set package. ie 1-8x10 - - 2- 5x7 -- 4 -4x6...........but rather just have a declining price as multiple photos are picked. I've never had cut and dried rock solid packages but rather just gave discounts on custom bilt packages??.......That way no one was tied to what I think they should buy, but got just as great a deal and got EXACTLY what they, the client, wanted.
Most packages are picked from one pose / shot .......my custom packages allow the use of multiple shots in the same package.......for me this was a separator from the rest of the area photos especially in the wedding industry.........not included in this were prints 5x7 and smaller........after a package was paid for I asked if they would like X amount of smaller photos at no extra charge.......
Comments
This is interesting...but I think it's not practical.
Will I need to create an event/participant linkage for every customer? I mean, with potentially 400 customers for a dance recital (or with something like the Maccabi Games I photographed earlier this year, potentially 2500 customers), would I need to create an event/participant for each of them? It's probably not going to work out if I have to identify each client...I won't know how many clients will be interested in the packages.
Thanks,
- Gary.
Done. Thanks Andy.
Thanks for rolling out packages. I think my customers and I will be happy with the options available. My only nits so far are larger images for viewing when dragging and dropping. This is important when several images look very similar. The customers will have to record image numbers and then use those to drag and drop, so I am glad to see they can view the image numbers. Second nit would be to limit packages to certain galleries. I price some work less than others for various reasons and would like to be able to have my package pricing mirror those differences. From a quick read of the other posts here, I think these nits may have already been mentioned. Glad to see packages are out and now you can work on fine-tuning them.
I find the wording "Buy Package from this Pro" to be a little odd for someone who has a fully branded site. Wouldn't it be better to just say "Buy a Package of Prints" or "Buy Package" or "View Package Offerings" or something that doesn't have the "this Pro" in it?
"this Pro" implies that this is one of many pros in the system and takes away from the notion of a stand-alone branded web site.
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That was my first impression too. "Who is 'this Pro'?"
(But please to accept my sincere gratitude for getting this feature in!)
1) Sometimes I like to include coupons in my packages... so, if you buy a package, it includes a coupon for 10% off prints that the client can share with friends. Would be cool to integrate that into a package....
... which leads to....
2) Self-fulfillment! Yes, everyone's favorite topic. I would like to include items in my packages that are not fulfilled by SmugMug. Items like a CD of digital prints. Of course, I can fulfill these on my own, but I would like to be able to list them in the package.
3) I'd love to find an easy way to give the packages more visibility... the "Buy Packages from a Pro" button is a little secluded, if you know what I mean. How can we easily promote packages to the client? I think integration with the Event page would be cool... or maybe something else?
Excited to keep playing, and exploring packages. Many thanks for getting this launched.
Matt Dudley Photography
Nashville child photographer
Twitter: @mattdudleyphoto
Facebook: facebook.com/mattdudleyphotography
ABSOLUTELY. I would like to be able to offer coupons AND packages to my Little League customers. Why? Because this town is accustomed to buying packages, so many people will be expecting them, and may prefer the simplicity. But I would like to offer coupons as well because I want to provide the flexibility of being able to pick whatever you want and get a discount.
However this market is a price war, so my packages are already pretty cheap. Like, I make $10 on a $24 package. If my customers were able to apply a coupon to a package, I think I could possibly come out in the red.
Are you making this functionality (to be able to prevent coupon/package stacking) a priority? I really hope so.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I created a simple one pose package of 2-5x7's as a test. Creating the package was very easy and straight forward... Nicely Done! My problem came in when I tested the ordering process. When I select the package, it takes me to the "Select Package Photos" page (as it should). After scrolling through the gallery image thumbnails, I clicked on the "Change Gallery" link and eeeeeeck! I've had the message "Fetching your galleries, one moment please" on my screen for the better part of a half hr.
Big question: when you click the "Change Gallery" link, where does it take you? My hope is that it would take you to the category your gallery was in but I suspect that it tries to load every public gallery in your account. If this is the case, packages will be completely unusable for me with 6,000+ galleries.
Eric
When you create a package, you have an option to make it available in all your galleries, or in a subset of galleries, or just one gallery. I'd say you need to avoid global packages.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Uh Oh! If this is the case, I am in the same boat. SMUGMUG, SMUGMUG, SMUGMUG...Why is it so difficult to customize to a specific category and/or sub-category? This frustrates me so much when I want to apply certain customizations. You have come out with some great new features (coupons, packages, and events), but if I have to load all my galleries on both ends to apply these customizations to, then it is totally not worth the time and a major pain in the butt on both the customer and photographer ends. I have been on Smugmug since 2005 and I want to take advantage of all these new features. But, after 5 years, it is going to be hard to move things around and to apply these features to my existing galleries, if there isn't an easier way.
***UPDATE: I did a test run and the same thing as Eric experienced. Totally useless and a waste of time. I guess if you are a long time user of Smugmug and you have a big quantity of galleries, you are pretty much up the creek without a paddle.
read my post #40, and take a deep breath.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I did and I tried both methods. Not efficient at all. It also seems like I can only select one subcategory of galleries, as well.
You can select multiple galleries, or all galleries, or one gallery. I just created more packages, and then logged out and tested a purchase. It's working great.
You are having a PIBKAC issue.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
You know Jack. I came here venting my frustration and asking for help or other suggestions, and I get you. If you don't have the answer or any helpful guesses or alternatives, then don't chime in. I know you can select galleries. That is not the issue.
The issue, as the other poster and I have confirmed is that if I select all galleries to apply the package to and you have a ton of galleries, then the customer will be waiting forever, when he clicks to switch gallery to add more photos to his/her package. This is a HUGE problem of functionality. This is where the category/sub-category needs to come in play, IMO. The reason it seems to be taking forever is that it seems to be loading all the galleries on the entire website, instead of just in that particular category or subcategory. This option needs to be targeted, otherwise, the customer would have to wait forever for 6,000 galleries to pop up and choose from.
Andy, any word on this???
I can't imagine needing to create packages that will work in every single gallery, especially when you have so many. But I don't know your business, maybe you need that. But then... why would you have been at Smumug in the first place and not somewhere else like Miller's if this was so crucial?
I agree the UI is not fully baked and your scenario brings this to light. But I'll take it, and for me it works great. It's a lot better than no packages!!
For me, I plan on only creating packages for "active" galleries, like events I have shot recently.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I can see both points - and depending on your business, this could be a huge issue or nothing at all.
Perhaps, rather than trying to tackle the performance issue - which is technically quite a challenge - Smug should provide the ability to 'Clone' the package structure to a new set of galleries. That is, you create the package set once for a set of galleries and then, with one or two clicks, you identify another set of galleries and say, 'I want the same packages to apply here'.
I would think that would be easy enough to do for the folks with thousands of galleries (since you have to upload them sometime and this is just one small step more)...and it won't force Smug to redesign the whole catalogue access methodology.
What do you think?
- Gary.
I was going back-n-forth with Steve C.(A Smugmug Hero) last night, via email. I set up a 4X6 glossy package and I let him try the ordering process, as if he was the customer. He had the same thing happen, which was when he went to change gallery, it was stuck on the "fetching your galleries..." screen. He waited 10 minutes and gave up. He said it should not take that long at all. He said when you click on the "switch gallery," it should take you to where you can select the category. That way, you do not have to load all the galleires on the website. He believe there is indeed an issue with this and he passed it on to the developer last night.
Let's see what the developer comes up with today.
Thanks
www.pictureyourworld.net
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I think it would be useful to not only apply packages to categories/subcategories but also Events.
By day I am a mild-mannered software engineer. It can be hard or impossible to test software without reams of test data, and it is only when a program gets deployed to production when you realize that oops, this isn't going to work for 5000+ galleries. Sounds like this may be the case here, and I would think SM will be able to fix it.
However I still say the work-around is to only define packages that apply to a subset of galleries.
I like the cloning idea, so that if you had a package that worked in galleries A, B, C, that you could clone it to galleries D, E, F. That way if someone was in gallery E and they hit "Change Gallery", it would only query info from D and F.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
First I want to apologize for taking so long to respond to your issue. Life for me has been a bit crazy lately. Performance of the gallery chooser for pros who don't limit their packages to a few galleries and who have an large number of galleries to choose from is a known issue and I am working on it. I promise.
I have some alternative approaches that I am testing in order to handle this data that should improve loading and viewing times on the current version of the gallery chooser. Please be patient. I'll try to get this out to you all as soon as I can.
Note that in the mean time, it would be a good idea to create packages that are limited to a smaller number of galleries as is recommended above. This will allow your customers to choose from those chosen galleries very quickly.
We have a lot planned with packages and I hope to keep improving on them and bringing you all new features in the near future.
SmugMug Sourcerer
Cloning is one of the features I alluded to when I said we have a lot planned for packages. You can expect to see this feature sooner than some of the others I'd suspect.
Fixing the performance of the gallery chooser is of high importance for users with a very large number of galleries. Therefore I am focusing on that first.
SmugMug Sourcerer
I am still fairly new to this and so am a bit confused on the packages option. Since people are used to packages that have 1 8x10 2 5x7's 8 wallets etc. that is what I would like to set up. So how do I do that for my Senior galleries? But then if they want to order extra individual ones too how do I work it together? Thanks
Thanks for the response. As you work on solutions for large photographers, may I suggest having a option to load the galleries from the Category the customer was last in? My account is structured like this: I have a Category for each school (100+ schools). Inside each category I have galleries of each event for the current year and sub-categories for past years. Each day, we use Star Explorer to upload anywhere from 5-30 new galleries. Presently, we have some 6000+ galleries site wide. In my case, if a customer wanted to select images from another gallery, they would want to see more galleries from the Category (school) they were in. As you can see, it's really not feasible for me to select a small pool of galleries to apply a package too. Hope all that made sense!
Thanks,
Eric
Can we get an answer to this question? I and surely many others would like to be able to offer coupons and packages in the same galleries, but we need to prevent the coupons from being applied to packages.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
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Post #5, 6, 38 request this. And post #2 kind of implies it by raising it as a concern.
I suppose I could simply make my $24 package cost $34 and then issue a $10 off coupon with a minimum purchase of $34, and so on. Then people could put that coupon towards the package or any other combination of items.
But I think that would put a lot of people off. Too many people cannot be bothered to read simple directions. If they thought my package price had suddenly jumped $10, they might just get ticked off and leave my site.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
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A very simple heading of "Packages" should suffice or "Package Prices" .
These are the 2 headings used by all the Pro Processors I have used.
Take a look at what different processors offer their clients.....the photo mags have listing of all kinds of processors........also think of what you might want to buy as a client.
Is there a way to not have a set package. ie 1-8x10 - - 2- 5x7 -- 4 -4x6...........but rather just have a declining price as multiple photos are picked. I've never had cut and dried rock solid packages but rather just gave discounts on custom bilt packages??.......That way no one was tied to what I think they should buy, but got just as great a deal and got EXACTLY what they, the client, wanted.
Most packages are picked from one pose / shot .......my custom packages allow the use of multiple shots in the same package.......for me this was a separator from the rest of the area photos especially in the wedding industry.........not included in this were prints 5x7 and smaller........after a package was paid for I asked if they would like X amount of smaller photos at no extra charge.......