This is awesome feedback - and we really appreciate it. Image Level pricing is still obtainable, even if we make this change. It would work like this:
All of your special prints (that require image level pricing) go into an unlisted gallery (Call it "Signature Gallery" maybe ) and then you go to that gallery, apply the image pricing to the image. Then you use our Smart Gallery and Collect Photos feature (easy couple or few clicks) to collect the photos from the unlisted Signature Gallery into your existing gallery where you previously had mixed gallery pricing and image pricing.
This feedback from you and everyone here is really valuable, thanks!
I think that would be a pita in each source gallery if the photos branch all
over the place. You'd have to click every photo is see where it ended up.
Unless the caption could be different, mentioning where it was collected.
My peeps, lets not get angry. It's ok to be nervous and express our desires but SmugMug has a long reputation of listening.
If there is a work around that still allows me individual print pricing in a gallery, allows for organizing all images within any customer gallery including the "collected" ones, AND is easy to understand, then I think we will be all for it. Especially if performance is improved.
BUT, please understand our concerns here. If you are going to provide a work around, then we need a well published and well explained tutorial for doing this. Including a video file showing how to do it - including organizing the gallery so collected photos appear in the gallery where we want them. You guys have great tutorials, but they are scattered around, and not easily located for the uneducated smugmug users. So if you do this anyways, please publicize the new tutorial.
Also please consider that you are not only effecting future galleries here, but past created ones as well. I will have to go back an updated over 60 gigs of past image galleries. Not cool. If you are going to do this, PLEASE grandfather in the old galleries to be untouched.
My vote based on my limited understanding of what you are doing is to add this into the new change despite the extra work.
I don't even understand why you are changing it. I already can duplicate pricing from any gallery, have a site wide pricing availability, and individual pricing. We also now have coupon options and package pricing thanks to your hard work. Please explain how these changes can help me and the people I push your direction. After all, I will only pass this down to my peeps.
In addition, I know this is a rather public place to ask this, but make those video tutorial available for me so I can post them on my site, air them on my show, and post to my forums. Please also consider coming back onto the show to help my audience understand. This helped in the past when Chris came on, and I know it would help again. These are big changes for us because they effect our bottom line. As I am sure they are big changes for you. So in the end if you decide to nix individual pricing because it is too much work to keep it in the new change, then please work with us in detail to alter out biz models. My contact information is available at my site, and you are more than welcome to call. Maybe my understanding of this is all wrong and need a better explanation of what is going on.
- if we do this, we'd of course make it as easy as possible to move to the new way. This is why we're asking all these questions.
- why we're looking at changing it: 1) we need to simplify our pricing system (it's one of the top requests we get) 2) we need to make sure our pricing, catalog, and shopping cart system can scale, performance-wise, as we are growing rapidly - we want to ensure stability.
- we'd love to be on your show again, and we'll happily make all tutes and such available to you!
PLEASE keep image level pricing. My entire business strategy is built around the concept of multi tier pricing. In fact most businesses are built that way.
In my case I have 5 to 10 "signature series" prints offered in limited sizes and excellerated pricing. This allows me to increase sales on the back end. I even do this with cd prices. One cd does not include sig series prints and one does.
If this is removed I will be forced to go elsewhere AND take all my referrals with me.
I have a weekly podcast dedicated to the beginner photographer called PhotoTips. I have 80,000 downloads of the podcast each week. In that podcast we also talk about sound business strategy. Many of them follow my advice and choose smugmug as their website solution. I even had Chris mcaskill on the show last year to put a friendly face to smugmug. In fact I am signed up as an affiliate with you guys And make $1000 a month on my referrals. So I know they listen. Without the ability to have image level pricing we will be forced to go elsewhere.
This is awesome feedback - and we really appreciate it. Image Level pricing is still obtainable, even if we make this change. It would work like this:
All of your special prints (that require image level pricing) go into an unlisted gallery (Call it "Signature Gallery" maybe ) and then you go to that gallery, apply the image pricing to the image. Then you use our Smart Gallery and Collect Photos feature (easy couple or few clicks) to collect the photos from the unlisted Signature Gallery into your existing gallery where you previously had mixed gallery pricing and image pricing.
This feedback from you and everyone here is really valuable, thanks!
Now would these "unlisted" galleries need to exist for each customer gallery?
What I mean is if the unlisted images with their pricing can appear in the single customer gallery alongside the rest of the images with there standard pricing then I can see how this can work, its a little extra work , granted, but from my visiting customer point of view im really only interested in them needing to visit one place and see all their images, sig series or not. This makes their shopping experience much simpler. This is what im worried about, If i need to give a tutorial video to each cmr to show them how to find their stuff, this is not good.
However if with a small amount of extra work with your workaround as described above i can then price my "hidden" galleries all as the sig series and still display the images fom the hidden gallery in the customer viewable gallery, this works for me.
I think the complete repercussions of the change are not clear to us all yet and would welcome another inteview on James' show to try to really get the point across.
I dont fear change but I do fear losing customers if my site becomes a nightmare to find what they want, attention spans are short and I need simple and effective, not awesome and confusing.
Im not trying to come across as angry and I hope im not but I am concerned for the larger picture as wll as customers like Jimmy with huge amounts of photos that are archived that would all need changes.
I think it is important that the full details of how this is intended to work, including any workarounds as you describe so that with minimal effort we can all use the new system as soon as possible, is made available soon.
Im hoping that by sorting it out here or elsewhere I can better understand how this will really effect my workflow and my customer experience. My customers are too important to me to not give them the best experience possible.
Thanks to the things that you have already put in place and due to customisations by others I love how my site looks and works and so do my customers, I dont want to rock the boat and end up sinking it.
Thats my concern here.
I dont mind extra work for me if the experience for my customers stays simple, if my customer cant find what they want inside 30 seconds, then its not user friendly enough for me
I hope this clarifies my thoughts, I also need a better understanding from you guys as to how this will affect my business as im nervous right now, because of lack of understanding on my part.
I actually think setting up a gallery with your 'signature price list' and collecting photos from it into the client gallery will be less work than image level pricing within the gallery.
Workflow now: Upload all images into one gallery, set pricing for the gallery and then set a unique price list for each signature piece. I am not aware of how many of these you place into a gallery, but the way I use image level pricing is to price photos with aspect ratios different from the norm, so my customers don't have to think about cropping and aspect ratio. I may have dozens in a gallery of a hundred, so image level pricing requires many trips to the pricing page.
Workflow using Smart Galleries and Collections:
Upload to two or more galleries initially.
1. The regular client gallery, with the regular price list in place.
2. The UNLISTED pricing gallery for your 'signature' series photos, with it's special signature price list. In my example, I may have 2 such galleries, one for square prints and one for pano aspect ratio prints.
Now, depending on your situation (# of photos to collect, your keyword workflow, etc) you can use the collect tool in the UNLISTED pricing gallery to pull images into the client gallery. You can do this in bulk. Or, you may keyword with 'SmithSquare' for example, and then set your client gallery as a Smart Gallery that will pull those keyworded photos into it, and they will obey the square price list you have created.
So, while you will need to lay the ground work of creating the pricing gallery and the smart rule if you chose to use it, after that, you have way less work to do!
However if with a small amount of extra work with your workaround as described above i can then price my "hidden" galleries all as the sig series and still display the images fom the hidden gallery in the customer viewable gallery, this works for me.
can all use the new system as soon as possible, is made available soon.
I dont mind extra work for me if the experience for my customers stays simple, if my customer cant find what they want inside 30 seconds, then its not user friendly enough for me
I would be happy with no image-level pricing if I could handle "printable" at the image level. My site is full of historical photos from a long-standing university recreational sports program. In order to make the history complete, I've occasionally had to beg permission from another program to display a picture my program doesn't own--the begging worked because my organization promised not to sell prints.
I would be happy with no image-level pricing if I could handle "printable" at the image level. My site is full of historical photos from a long-standing university recreational sports program. In order to make the history complete, I've occasionally had to beg permission from another program to display a picture my program doesn't own--the begging worked because my organization promised not to sell prints.
You can do this easily right now. Put the non-printable images in their own gallery, unlisted. Set printable to 'no' in this gallery. Then collect the photo to the other gallery you want to display it in.
I'm not making any significant amount of money off print sales like I assume most of the people commenting here are, so take my comments for what they're worth.
I use print-level pricing for two reasons:
A) To avoid selling prints in a gallery for which I don't have releases, and To sell different options based on image aspect ratio.
I think I could happily deal with Reason A using the unlisted-gallery-to-collection option discussed above. AS LONG AS SmugMug give us the ability to arrange collected photos in a gallery. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a mandatory prerequisite in my opinion.
I think Reason B can be addressed with a good new pricing UI design, which seems to be what you intend. If you can make product price a function of image aspect ratio, I think I could live without image-level pricing.
I had to chuckle about Baldy's comment of a billion images, as that is probably one of the few times it can be used and not be hyperbole. I have not sold a single image yet, not even to my mother, so my voice might not be that important. What I did find confusing when I was pricing things I got confused quite a bit to be doing the right settings and can easily see how images could be mispriced. I do like the idea of using a Collection or Smart Gallery to do the pricing in logical groups. So if I created a SmartFilter that took a keyword (or other Metadata) of "High" or "300" I could create a Smart Gallery with my "High Price" set as the Gallery Default Price; same for "Medium" and "Low". Then I could either do a Collection or a Smart superset Gallery to include the "High", "Medium", and "Low" and each would have their appropriate price as long as the superset gallery did not include any pricing overrides? So if I needed a special price on one item, I could literally put it in its own gallery and then into a superset gallery and it would have its special price.
Seems to be a reasonable solution to the problem. Could even allow for pricing "offline" using the Metadata and LR/Aperature Publish Tool. Or am I thinking too rich a feature?
Well i am still pretty new here, but i have yet to find a need for image level pricing, but i would like to be able to offer an entire gallery for digital download at one set price, example: selling your client the rights to all of there wedding photos in the gallery for one set price say, $300.00, instead of 300 images at a $1.00 with no way to control what they download.
...One workaround would be to put the images you want special pricing for into an Unlisted gallery, price that gallery with its own pricelist, then Collect them or use a smartrule to put them in the gallery alongside the rest of your photos from the shoot...
Chris,
If I could set up a single "Panorama" gallery, keep just those 'odd size' images there, and send them out to the various other galleries, I can see that working. As long as they show up there with no other size options attached (to avoid the dreaded 'crop at checkout') that would be a cool solution. Of course, being the 'nottageek' that I am, I'd need explicit instructions on how to make that work.
I do have per image pricing within the same gallery, its purely base on aspect ratio. Right now it’s a huge pain because there's no bulk operation for this (when will the API have full pricing capabilities?). I set the gallery to whatever matches the most images (usually 3:2), then have to do this for each image that doesn't match the gallery aspect ratio:
* browse to image, click image
* click Set Prices
* click Image at top
* figure out the aspect ratio of image, and select a template gallery to use for pricing that matches that aspect ratio
* click Apply all
* click Save
I would love for some way to automatically allow certain sizes via aspect ratio. I created a spreadsheet that converted them all to decimals, compared that to the decimal ratio for all the print sizes, and set up ranges (example: square prints 1:1 = 1.0, so an image whose ratio was between 1.0 and 1.14 would get only 1:1 print sizes). If this could be handled automatically (either directly via smugmug or via the API w/ 3rd party app), I wouldn't have any desire to change prices per image otherwise. Heck, if you allowed it via the API and took it off the site I could deal with that too (I can image wanting to change prices, update the template price galleries, then go and apply them to ALL images (across multiple categories) that match that aspect ratio.)
Some of the earlier posts about setting up galleries containing all images with the same aspect ratio, and then using collections/smart galleries to group them together sounds like an organizational nightmare. I currently upload galleries by date, and may then further add select photos into other galleries. Doing what was mentioned would requiring upload to multiple galleries, then collecting those photos into destination galleries, manually sorting in those smart galleries (which isn't possible currently?), etc.
Don (and all) - thanks for the passionate posts! Please know that we don't take this lightly at all, and it's not being considered on a whim. There are performance reasons why we need to look at this - please re-read Baldy's post here: http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1453436&postcount=20 and my post just below, as we feel like we can all have our cake and eat it too - it would just be done a bit differently, that's all. Thanks!
Hey Andy!
Thanks for writing. Let me explain to everyone a little about myself... I became unemployed by the richest man in the world in January; Warren Buffet~ All because, everyone thought a good idea and a bad idea can work side/side. They wanted to recoup 500 million by laying off 500 pilots and another 300 employees w/o changing business thought or practice. Even with training and nomarl salary 800 employees do even reach pasty a 5 million mark. It seems lately "people" are an acceptable form of margin your profits amongst big business. Not sure why because it creates the "spin" effect I was rambling on about in my previous post. I never EVER got that feeling from Smugmug!! Hence, my passion flowed above a little since I am against a wall and trying to create income to provide for my family...there are NO flying jobs available as there are too many of us walking around. I have a "knack" for photos so I am chasing this venue.
That being said, I have a knack for business and learned enough over the years that as a consumer I generally don't say anything. But, I have learned that not saying anything can often mean you are a part of the problem and not providing or helping a solution. Now, that I have read everything and relaxed, I am thankful you guys asked before you leaped. I actually got this link from the help desk and I copied and pasted my email to the help desk without reading any of the above post. I had no idea what was said already. I am all for changing something that can provide Smugmug a way to bounce that saving back to me. My understanding was the tier pricing was going away unless something was said. Based on my background yes, I panic. I felt it was another "strong -arm-business tactic" and afterward would cause a tremendous amount of re-work on my part. I know of several websites that have over 20,000 photographs and 72gb of photographs that are under this pier pricing. I think if anything happens it will create a great extra work on your consumers part. Smugmug has a good thing going~don't change it. I thought about solutions as I know computer programming and internet; any of my ideas would require probably more expense on your part and my part... I re-read my note and still stand by what I said. Maybe just not with so much passion. :crazy
I don't use per-image pricing and wouldn't miss it if it disappeared.
Why? You are missing out on a great business practice because the consumer (your client) is not "sales pressured" into spending more money as they see a benefit to themselves as a consumer spending more money. You are happy the consumer spent more money. They are happy because they got more for what the purchased.
SmuMug Example:
When I first heard of Smugmug I signed up as a regular Smug. But I was reading and learning, I really liked the benefits of a SmugMug Pro account. But I was willing to spend more because I got more for less. Andy and the rest of the Smugmug gang are happy because I spent more money....multi-tier pricing is a win-win scenerio and many businesses/sales departments practice this today if not everyone.
Why? You are missing out on a great business practice because the consumer (your client) is not "sales pressured" into spending more money as they see a benefit to themselves as a consumer spending more money. You are happy the consumer spent more money. They are happy because they got more for what the purchased.
What practice am I missing out on? What you've said above is missing the reason. You say there is a great opportunity I'm missing and tell me why it's great, but never mention what the opportunity is. With the exception of only offering panoramic/specialty sizes for fine art prints (I don't do fine art. I do events/portraits.), what use is there for pricing per image? And even for specialty size art prints, there are workaround using hidden galleries and the ability to collect photos. Sure it may be a little less convenient for the .0001% there that frequently make images in varying non-standard sizes, but for the average person ordering 8x10s and 8x12s or even making only a couple of aspect ratios of images, we would be fine without the feature bloat that is the per-image pricing option.
I am sorry Ben you don't get it. I wish there was a different way to put the sales technique of multi tier sales into writing. So you'd understand the rewards of conducting higher profit of sales than what you are doing. Our conversation has absolutely nothing to do keeping it or leaving it an option at Smugmug. It's all the difference in your business selling 1 - 8 x 10 and 1 - 8 x12 vs $300 package on a standard portrait setting with a young brother and sister as subjects. I see you live in Jersey the cost of living is double and triple of that where I live... so demographics has nothing to do with the sales off your website.
Ok, so someone tell me in step by step terms just how to do this.
I'll make a (hidden?) gallery called Panoramas. Into it I will put all 18 of my current panorama aspect ratio originals. These will be a mixed bag of landscapes, groups portraits, airshow shots, and seascapes. I'll set them all to print with printmark and then price the sizes and print media options.
What I want is for:
1) all the landscapes to end up in my Art Print gallery,
2) two of the groups to appear in the Jones Family Gallery,
3) one of the groups available for sale in the Anytown High School Reunion gallery,
4) a couple of the airshow shots to appear in Art Prints and all eight of them for sale in the Airshow 2010 Gallery, and
5) the seascapes showing in both the Art Print and the Oregon Coast galleries.
As I said earlier, I am "nottageek" so plain English, please.
Ok, so someone tell me in step by step terms just how to do this.
I'll make a (hidden?) gallery called Panoramas. Into it I will put all 18 of my current panorama aspect ratio originals. These will be a mixed bag of landscapes, groups portraits, airshow shots, and seascapes. I'll set them all to print with printmark and then price the sizes and print media options.
What I want is for:
1) all the landscapes to end up in my Art Print gallery,
2) two of the groups to appear in the Jones Family Gallery,
3) one of the groups available for sale in the Anytown High School Reunion gallery,
4) a couple of the airshow shots to appear in Art Prints and all eight of them for sale in the Airshow 2010 Gallery, and
5) the seascapes showing in both the Art Print and the Oregon Coast galleries.
As I said earlier, I am "nottageek" so plain English, please.
Thanks,
jon
As far as I know, the way to do this is using the collect photos feature to create virtual copies in the desired galleries from your panorama gallery.
I'm having a bit of trouble getting my head around the 'performance issue' thing. Since I'm working on a similar project for a customer of mine, this is the structure I'd implement:
The user creates however many price lists that are appropriate and gives them all unique names, or tags.
When a gallery is created, the user gives the gallery a default price list tag.
Each image that's loaded to the gallery gets a price list tag that's the same as the gallery's default price list tag.
Give the user the option to change the price list tag for each image as needed. No "per-image" pricing will be allowed - if the user wants a price structure unique for each image, then they have to create corresponding price list.
Alternatively to the no "per-image" pricing restriction - allow it on the front end, and use the price list structure on the back end to store the pricing structure for that image, and use a name generator to arrive at an appropriate price list tag name.
When the purchaser goes to buy the pic, the system uses the image's price list tag to find the appropriate price list structure.
If the user changes the gallery's price list tag, then change all the image's with the old price list tags to the new price list tag.
Since the amount of data corresponding to each price list that's assigned to each image will be quite small - just the name or a pointer to the price list - where's the performance issue? It'll certainly be a lot easier to use and maintain than this kludgy 'hidden gallery / collect pics back to the main gallery' solution.
I think it would also be a good way to manage coupons - one could associate certain coupons & packages with their own set of price lists. This would fix the problem of users being able to get a package and the apply a coupon to it and get the pics for below cost.
Save $5 off your first year's SmugMug image hosting with coupon code hccesQbqNBJbc
I think you have it backwards. Image level pricing is all that we absolutely need.
Now, creating a price list is a difficult problem. (A difficult problem in user interface is anything that requires more than three mouse clicks.) Generating a price list was clearly such an onerous task that gallery pricing seemed like a great solution. But the real problem was that the prices were each attached to an image. Gallery pricing seemed like a great improvement, it did save time. It did not solve the problem: that price lists should have been an independent object and easily reusable. Now that you are fixing the problem, don't make the mistake of attaching price lists to galleries. Issues of variations in aspect ratio, quality, pricing strategy and business model drive needs for image level price list attachment. The gallery and other structures can be used as tools to apply price lists to images in groups. I think timk519 has some good suggestions on this.
I shoot panoramas with a variety of aspect ratios. I've always thought that the nature of what I see should determine the most suitable aspect ratio, not the type of camera or choice of web site. I considered building dummy galleries, named after aspect ratios, to allow me to create price lists for each image aspect ratio and recognize their labels, but that wouldn't solve the problem of having different aspect ratios in the same gallery. Now that you seem to be planning to provide an improved price list generation GUI, don't let the use of price lists be limited to the old solution (gallery pricing) to the old problem (lack of a stand alone price list object).
Smugmug was always concerned with providing a straight-forward user interface to our customers. Well, we are your customers. Please show us the same respect and make the basic design of our interface be simple and as direct as possible. Pricing through price lists does this if they can be applied at the image level. Workaround kludges like forcing overloading of the keyword function with pricing or adding required levels and types of abstraction with unlisted galleries by price may seem like cute inventions to their designers, but they would make the Smugmug based site more difficult for its users. We already juggle between organizations based on photographer workflow and based on customer orientation. Additional complexity should not be built in unless it solves a problem. The price list object solves a problem. For me it is a useful tool. The workarounds to remove price list attachment at the image level are nightmares.
I'd like to throw in my 2 cents on this . . .
I don't personally have much need for individual pricing, and I VERY much want to see named price lists as an option. For those who do want individual pricing, perhaps they could still apply a named price list to each photo?
In addition to this, I would very much like to see SmugMug improve the UI for creating price lists. For some time I have been hosting my web site through SmugMug, but then directing clients to a Zenfolio gallery for print purchases because their UI just makes so much more sense. Their formula creator allows me to set a basic formula for each price list, and then over-ride it if needed for specific print sizes or merchandise. SmugMug is worlds beyond Zenfolio when it comes to actually creating a web-page, but could learn a lot by trying out their system for pricing and selling. (Zenfolio also takes a smaller cut, but that's another issue . . .)
I'm eager to switch everything over to SmugMug if/when the selling component is made less cumbersome and more intuitive . . . I'm watching!
Finally, it sounds like some people use image-level pricing to restrict print sizes only to those that do not require cropping for the given image. Couldn't this just be an added option on the back-end? ie let us check a box for each gallery (or each picture) that either does or does not allow clients to purchase print sizes that don't fit the aspect ratio of that picture?
Thanks for all your hard work to get things just right!
This is interesting, I didn't realize that I COULD do individual pricing for specific images. Here's how I might use that now that I know- higher prices for retouched images. As a wedding and portrait photographer, I use Smugmug for proofing and the print delay for taking care of retouching images. So once I retouch an image, it's worth more, so I could charge a premium for that image for future orders.
So this is possible now???
I've never had an issue with the UI or pricing of galleries, so I'm not one who sees a need for a change there.
The question posed in this thread was "can image level pricing be eliminated?".
--- Denise
Thanks Denise. When I said "now" I meant it as in "currently available". I realize they're looking at eliminating it, but I didn't even know it was possible. Now I hope they don't get rid of it!
I try to keep up with the release notes, but I don't follow dgrin that closely to keep track of things.
For my input, even though I didn't know it was possible, I would hate to see it go. As a wedding and portrait photographer, I would use this to mark up images that are retouched.
Even though I'm new here and late to the party, I think it should be kept - I have some panoramic size photos that I've gone through and set the available sizes and prices for each one.. the option to put them in a separate gallery doesn't work for me, as each one is different. The ability to do this is one of the reason I chose Smug. In fact, I think per image pricing needs to be improved a bit. Right now in order to set individual prices I have to click on the image, go to gallery price settings, and then at the top make sure I change to "image" instead of gallery to change it, there has been more than once that I almost forgot to do this and was about to change the whole gallery. Why not from the menu a simple Tools > This Photo > Set price option, just like the current Tools > This Gallery > Set prices?
I DO NOT want to see image-level pricing eliminated. If I'm understanding the changes relating to collections and smart galleries correctly, these changes do not negate my need for the ability to price some images individually.
As someone just moving into the fine art world, I can definitely see the need for image-level pricing. If I'm running all of the images from a show in a single gallery, for example, and one of those images takes best in show, that particular image would be able to be sold at a premium. I also run some of my images as limited run prints, whereas others from the same collection are more widely available. I could rearrange galleries perhaps, but that would then start to detract from the user experience, if they had to go into multiple galleries, and could also potentially hurt sales. This is, again, talking as someone just moving into this arena, but I can certainly see the use and need for individual pricing, but if the UI would vastly improve otherwise, then it might be worth the trade-off.
Comments
over the place. You'd have to click every photo is see where it ended up.
Unless the caption could be different, mentioning where it was collected.
My Website index | My Blog
If there is a work around that still allows me individual print pricing in a gallery, allows for organizing all images within any customer gallery including the "collected" ones, AND is easy to understand, then I think we will be all for it. Especially if performance is improved.
BUT, please understand our concerns here. If you are going to provide a work around, then we need a well published and well explained tutorial for doing this. Including a video file showing how to do it - including organizing the gallery so collected photos appear in the gallery where we want them. You guys have great tutorials, but they are scattered around, and not easily located for the uneducated smugmug users. So if you do this anyways, please publicize the new tutorial.
Also please consider that you are not only effecting future galleries here, but past created ones as well. I will have to go back an updated over 60 gigs of past image galleries. Not cool. If you are going to do this, PLEASE grandfather in the old galleries to be untouched.
My vote based on my limited understanding of what you are doing is to add this into the new change despite the extra work.
I don't even understand why you are changing it. I already can duplicate pricing from any gallery, have a site wide pricing availability, and individual pricing. We also now have coupon options and package pricing thanks to your hard work. Please explain how these changes can help me and the people I push your direction. After all, I will only pass this down to my peeps.
In addition, I know this is a rather public place to ask this, but make those video tutorial available for me so I can post them on my site, air them on my show, and post to my forums. Please also consider coming back onto the show to help my audience understand. This helped in the past when Chris came on, and I know it would help again. These are big changes for us because they effect our bottom line. As I am sure they are big changes for you. So in the end if you decide to nix individual pricing because it is too much work to keep it in the new change, then please work with us in detail to alter out biz models. My contact information is available at my site, and you are more than welcome to call. Maybe my understanding of this is all wrong and need a better explanation of what is going on.
James Beltz
www.BCphoto.biz
www.Phototips.biz
- if we do this, we'd of course make it as easy as possible to move to the new way. This is why we're asking all these questions.
- why we're looking at changing it: 1) we need to simplify our pricing system (it's one of the top requests we get) 2) we need to make sure our pricing, catalog, and shopping cart system can scale, performance-wise, as we are growing rapidly - we want to ensure stability.
- we'd love to be on your show again, and we'll happily make all tutes and such available to you!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Now would these "unlisted" galleries need to exist for each customer gallery?
What I mean is if the unlisted images with their pricing can appear in the single customer gallery alongside the rest of the images with there standard pricing then I can see how this can work, its a little extra work , granted, but from my visiting customer point of view im really only interested in them needing to visit one place and see all their images, sig series or not. This makes their shopping experience much simpler. This is what im worried about, If i need to give a tutorial video to each cmr to show them how to find their stuff, this is not good.
However if with a small amount of extra work with your workaround as described above i can then price my "hidden" galleries all as the sig series and still display the images fom the hidden gallery in the customer viewable gallery, this works for me.
I think the complete repercussions of the change are not clear to us all yet and would welcome another inteview on James' show to try to really get the point across.
I dont fear change but I do fear losing customers if my site becomes a nightmare to find what they want, attention spans are short and I need simple and effective, not awesome and confusing.
Im not trying to come across as angry and I hope im not but I am concerned for the larger picture as wll as customers like Jimmy with huge amounts of photos that are archived that would all need changes.
I think it is important that the full details of how this is intended to work, including any workarounds as you describe so that with minimal effort we can all use the new system as soon as possible, is made available soon.
Im hoping that by sorting it out here or elsewhere I can better understand how this will really effect my workflow and my customer experience. My customers are too important to me to not give them the best experience possible.
Thanks to the things that you have already put in place and due to customisations by others I love how my site looks and works and so do my customers, I dont want to rock the boat and end up sinking it.
Thats my concern here.
I dont mind extra work for me if the experience for my customers stays simple, if my customer cant find what they want inside 30 seconds, then its not user friendly enough for me
I hope this clarifies my thoughts, I also need a better understanding from you guys as to how this will affect my business as im nervous right now, because of lack of understanding on my part.
I actually think setting up a gallery with your 'signature price list' and collecting photos from it into the client gallery will be less work than image level pricing within the gallery.
Workflow now: Upload all images into one gallery, set pricing for the gallery and then set a unique price list for each signature piece. I am not aware of how many of these you place into a gallery, but the way I use image level pricing is to price photos with aspect ratios different from the norm, so my customers don't have to think about cropping and aspect ratio. I may have dozens in a gallery of a hundred, so image level pricing requires many trips to the pricing page.
Workflow using Smart Galleries and Collections:
Upload to two or more galleries initially.
1. The regular client gallery, with the regular price list in place.
2. The UNLISTED pricing gallery for your 'signature' series photos, with it's special signature price list. In my example, I may have 2 such galleries, one for square prints and one for pano aspect ratio prints.
Now, depending on your situation (# of photos to collect, your keyword workflow, etc) you can use the collect tool in the UNLISTED pricing gallery to pull images into the client gallery. You can do this in bulk. Or, you may keyword with 'SmithSquare' for example, and then set your client gallery as a Smart Gallery that will pull those keyworded photos into it, and they will obey the square price list you have created.
So, while you will need to lay the ground work of creating the pricing gallery and the smart rule if you chose to use it, after that, you have way less work to do!
ann
My Galleries My Photography BLOG
Ramblings About Me
www.utrecsportsmedia.org
You can do this easily right now. Put the non-printable images in their own gallery, unlisted. Set printable to 'no' in this gallery. Then collect the photo to the other gallery you want to display it in.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
I use print-level pricing for two reasons:
A) To avoid selling prints in a gallery for which I don't have releases, and
I think I could happily deal with Reason A using the unlisted-gallery-to-collection option discussed above. AS LONG AS SmugMug give us the ability to arrange collected photos in a gallery. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a mandatory prerequisite in my opinion.
I think Reason B can be addressed with a good new pricing UI design, which seems to be what you intend. If you can make product price a function of image aspect ratio, I think I could live without image-level pricing.
www.ackersphotography.com
Seems to be a reasonable solution to the problem. Could even allow for pricing "offline" using the Metadata and LR/Aperature Publish Tool. Or am I thinking too rich a feature?
Pictures | Website | Blog | Twitter | Contact
Chris,
If I could set up a single "Panorama" gallery, keep just those 'odd size' images there, and send them out to the various other galleries, I can see that working. As long as they show up there with no other size options attached (to avoid the dreaded 'crop at checkout') that would be a cool solution. Of course, being the 'nottageek' that I am, I'd need explicit instructions on how to make that work.
Thanks,
jon
http://www.takeflightphoto.com
http://www.usdgcphotos.com
* browse to image, click image
* click Set Prices
* click Image at top
* figure out the aspect ratio of image, and select a template gallery to use for pricing that matches that aspect ratio
* click Apply all
* click Save
I would love for some way to automatically allow certain sizes via aspect ratio. I created a spreadsheet that converted them all to decimals, compared that to the decimal ratio for all the print sizes, and set up ranges (example: square prints 1:1 = 1.0, so an image whose ratio was between 1.0 and 1.14 would get only 1:1 print sizes). If this could be handled automatically (either directly via smugmug or via the API w/ 3rd party app), I wouldn't have any desire to change prices per image otherwise. Heck, if you allowed it via the API and took it off the site I could deal with that too (I can image wanting to change prices, update the template price galleries, then go and apply them to ALL images (across multiple categories) that match that aspect ratio.)
Some of the earlier posts about setting up galleries containing all images with the same aspect ratio, and then using collections/smart galleries to group them together sounds like an organizational nightmare. I currently upload galleries by date, and may then further add select photos into other galleries. Doing what was mentioned would requiring upload to multiple galleries, then collecting those photos into destination galleries, manually sorting in those smart galleries (which isn't possible currently?), etc.
Thanks,
Brian
Save $5 on a new Smugmug Membership
Host your website for just $3.45/mo with JustHost - Rated best web host of 2010
See my profile for a gear list & more
Hey Andy!
Thanks for writing. Let me explain to everyone a little about myself... I became unemployed by the richest man in the world in January; Warren Buffet~ All because, everyone thought a good idea and a bad idea can work side/side. They wanted to recoup 500 million by laying off 500 pilots and another 300 employees w/o changing business thought or practice. Even with training and nomarl salary 800 employees do even reach pasty a 5 million mark. It seems lately "people" are an acceptable form of margin your profits amongst big business. Not sure why because it creates the "spin" effect I was rambling on about in my previous post. I never EVER got that feeling from Smugmug!!
That being said, I have a knack for business and learned enough over the years that as a consumer I generally don't say anything. But, I have learned that not saying anything can often mean you are a part of the problem and not providing or helping a solution. Now, that I have read everything and relaxed, I am thankful you guys asked before you leaped. I actually got this link from the help desk and I copied and pasted my email to the help desk without reading any of the above post. I had no idea what was said already. I am all for changing something that can provide Smugmug a way to bounce that saving back to me. My understanding was the tier pricing was going away unless something was said. Based on my background yes, I panic. I felt it was another "strong -arm-business tactic" and afterward would cause a tremendous amount of re-work on my part. I know of several websites that have over 20,000 photographs and 72gb of photographs that are under this pier pricing. I think if anything happens it will create a great extra work on your consumers part. Smugmug has a good thing going~don't change it. I thought about solutions as I know computer programming and internet; any of my ideas would require probably more expense on your part and my part... I re-read my note and still stand by what I said. Maybe just not with so much passion. :crazy
Peace Andy,
Don
Why? You are missing out on a great business practice because the consumer (your client) is not "sales pressured" into spending more money as they see a benefit to themselves as a consumer spending more money. You are happy the consumer spent more money. They are happy because they got more for what the purchased.
SmuMug Example:
When I first heard of Smugmug I signed up as a regular Smug. But I was reading and learning, I really liked the benefits of a SmugMug Pro account. But I was willing to spend more because I got more for less. Andy and the rest of the Smugmug gang are happy because I spent more money....multi-tier pricing is a win-win scenerio and many businesses/sales departments practice this today if not everyone.
Cheers,
Don
What practice am I missing out on? What you've said above is missing the reason. You say there is a great opportunity I'm missing and tell me why it's great, but never mention what the opportunity is. With the exception of only offering panoramic/specialty sizes for fine art prints (I don't do fine art. I do events/portraits.), what use is there for pricing per image? And even for specialty size art prints, there are workaround using hidden galleries and the ability to collect photos. Sure it may be a little less convenient for the .0001% there that frequently make images in varying non-standard sizes, but for the average person ordering 8x10s and 8x12s or even making only a couple of aspect ratios of images, we would be fine without the feature bloat that is the per-image pricing option.
Save $5 on a new Smugmug Membership
Host your website for just $3.45/mo with JustHost - Rated best web host of 2010
See my profile for a gear list & more
I'll make a (hidden?) gallery called Panoramas. Into it I will put all 18 of my current panorama aspect ratio originals. These will be a mixed bag of landscapes, groups portraits, airshow shots, and seascapes. I'll set them all to print with printmark and then price the sizes and print media options.
What I want is for:
1) all the landscapes to end up in my Art Print gallery,
2) two of the groups to appear in the Jones Family Gallery,
3) one of the groups available for sale in the Anytown High School Reunion gallery,
4) a couple of the airshow shots to appear in Art Prints and all eight of them for sale in the Airshow 2010 Gallery, and
5) the seascapes showing in both the Art Print and the Oregon Coast galleries.
As I said earlier, I am "nottageek" so plain English, please.
Thanks,
jon
http://www.takeflightphoto.com
http://www.usdgcphotos.com
As far as I know, the way to do this is using the collect photos feature to create virtual copies in the desired galleries from your panorama gallery.
Save $5 on a new Smugmug Membership
Host your website for just $3.45/mo with JustHost - Rated best web host of 2010
See my profile for a gear list & more
The user creates however many price lists that are appropriate and gives them all unique names, or tags.
When a gallery is created, the user gives the gallery a default price list tag.
Each image that's loaded to the gallery gets a price list tag that's the same as the gallery's default price list tag.
Give the user the option to change the price list tag for each image as needed. No "per-image" pricing will be allowed - if the user wants a price structure unique for each image, then they have to create corresponding price list.
Alternatively to the no "per-image" pricing restriction - allow it on the front end, and use the price list structure on the back end to store the pricing structure for that image, and use a name generator to arrive at an appropriate price list tag name.
When the purchaser goes to buy the pic, the system uses the image's price list tag to find the appropriate price list structure.
If the user changes the gallery's price list tag, then change all the image's with the old price list tags to the new price list tag.
Since the amount of data corresponding to each price list that's assigned to each image will be quite small - just the name or a pointer to the price list - where's the performance issue? It'll certainly be a lot easier to use and maintain than this kludgy 'hidden gallery / collect pics back to the main gallery' solution.
I think it would also be a good way to manage coupons - one could associate certain coupons & packages with their own set of price lists. This would fix the problem of users being able to get a package and the apply a coupon to it and get the pics for below cost.
Baldy
I think you have it backwards. Image level pricing is all that we absolutely need.
Now, creating a price list is a difficult problem. (A difficult problem in user interface is anything that requires more than three mouse clicks.) Generating a price list was clearly such an onerous task that gallery pricing seemed like a great solution. But the real problem was that the prices were each attached to an image. Gallery pricing seemed like a great improvement, it did save time. It did not solve the problem: that price lists should have been an independent object and easily reusable. Now that you are fixing the problem, don't make the mistake of attaching price lists to galleries. Issues of variations in aspect ratio, quality, pricing strategy and business model drive needs for image level price list attachment. The gallery and other structures can be used as tools to apply price lists to images in groups. I think timk519 has some good suggestions on this.
I shoot panoramas with a variety of aspect ratios. I've always thought that the nature of what I see should determine the most suitable aspect ratio, not the type of camera or choice of web site. I considered building dummy galleries, named after aspect ratios, to allow me to create price lists for each image aspect ratio and recognize their labels, but that wouldn't solve the problem of having different aspect ratios in the same gallery. Now that you seem to be planning to provide an improved price list generation GUI, don't let the use of price lists be limited to the old solution (gallery pricing) to the old problem (lack of a stand alone price list object).
Smugmug was always concerned with providing a straight-forward user interface to our customers. Well, we are your customers. Please show us the same respect and make the basic design of our interface be simple and as direct as possible. Pricing through price lists does this if they can be applied at the image level. Workaround kludges like forcing overloading of the keyword function with pricing or adding required levels and types of abstraction with unlisted galleries by price may seem like cute inventions to their designers, but they would make the Smugmug based site more difficult for its users. We already juggle between organizations based on photographer workflow and based on customer orientation. Additional complexity should not be built in unless it solves a problem. The price list object solves a problem. For me it is a useful tool. The workarounds to remove price list attachment at the image level are nightmares.
Dale B. Dalrymple
http://dbdimages.com
...with apology to Archimedies
I don't personally have much need for individual pricing, and I VERY much want to see named price lists as an option. For those who do want individual pricing, perhaps they could still apply a named price list to each photo?
In addition to this, I would very much like to see SmugMug improve the UI for creating price lists. For some time I have been hosting my web site through SmugMug, but then directing clients to a Zenfolio gallery for print purchases because their UI just makes so much more sense. Their formula creator allows me to set a basic formula for each price list, and then over-ride it if needed for specific print sizes or merchandise. SmugMug is worlds beyond Zenfolio when it comes to actually creating a web-page, but could learn a lot by trying out their system for pricing and selling. (Zenfolio also takes a smaller cut, but that's another issue . . .)
I'm eager to switch everything over to SmugMug if/when the selling component is made less cumbersome and more intuitive . . . I'm watching!
Finally, it sounds like some people use image-level pricing to restrict print sizes only to those that do not require cropping for the given image. Couldn't this just be an added option on the back-end? ie let us check a box for each gallery (or each picture) that either does or does not allow clients to purchase print sizes that don't fit the aspect ratio of that picture?
Thanks for all your hard work to get things just right!
www.facebook.com/manifestphoto
So this is possible now???
I've never had an issue with the UI or pricing of galleries, so I'm not one who sees a need for a change there.
Thanks,
Sam
Become a friend or fan on facebook:
www.facebook.com/samellisphotography
www.facebook.com/samellisseniors
www.facebook.com/samellisweddings
The question posed in this thread was "can image level pricing be eliminated?".
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com
Thanks Denise. When I said "now" I meant it as in "currently available". I realize they're looking at eliminating it, but I didn't even know it was possible. Now I hope they don't get rid of it!
I try to keep up with the release notes, but I don't follow dgrin that closely to keep track of things.
For my input, even though I didn't know it was possible, I would hate to see it go. As a wedding and portrait photographer, I would use this to mark up images that are retouched.
Become a friend or fan on facebook:
www.facebook.com/samellisphotography
www.facebook.com/samellisseniors
www.facebook.com/samellisweddings
_
David Ian Hale
TheDirtyLens.com
SmugMug QA
My Photos
James Croft Photography
http://www.JamesCroftPhotography.com
Photography makes life worth living, or at least makes it more attractive.