Team Sports Business

r9jackson

I notice that several people on Smugmug use it to sell team sports photos. I also notice that the way it works on Smugmug is not as slick as those on dedicated sports sites.
It would seem that regular photos in standard sizes (like 5x7, 8x10,etc.) will work well. But, how does one sell a "Memory Mate" type photo that is a composite of maybe an individual shot and team shot packaged in a nice page with the name of the team, etc. So, how does a photographer get paid for the extra cost of developing the template and compositing the photos. Right now, it looks like you would sell it at the same price as a single 8 x 10 for instance.
I guess you could charge a little extra for all 8 x 10's and then you will get a little extra money for those two photo pages.
I think there is a way to do this (maybe place the composites in a separate gallery). That would just not be very clean.
If we could specify a special price for one photo that would solve the problem too, but I don't think that is possible.

Mark Dickinson

yep you answered it pretty much. Or, set up a template for the layout. and request that they be shipped to you on the one that they want. It is a little more dificult for specialty items

r9jackson

Smugmug Hero's found the answer
Thanks for your response. I had also contacted Smugmug support in hopes that they had some super secret way of pricing for a single item.
Well, it turns out that there is a way, and its not even a secret. Each images can be priced with "image level pricing". That means an individual photo (or memory mate or poster) can be priced differently that the rest of your photos in your gallery. For instance, I can charge $2 extra for a composite image to reflect the extra time and effort it took to create.
The process goes like this:
Click on the image that you want to price different. Go to Tools > Set Prices > click Image at the top of the page. Set the price for the 8x10, and if you want, sizes like 16x20 and 4x5 since they'll match the 8x10 ratio.

I went through first and zeroed out all the prices for that image before setting the prices.
You don't have to zero it out, but then those items that would not be appropriate (like wallets or mugs) would have the original gallery price.

This opens up a whole new round of possibilities for those of us that shoot sports teams. Thanks to my favorite Smugmug Support Hero.

tebogan

Sports shots
PM sent

johng

Randy - a few thoughts:
1) If I can select "original" from your photos - why would I bother to pay for it? Either you've got the most respectful, law-abiding families there or you're losing business.

2) Generally speaking, smugmug still isn't a very good solution for sports - some of the best selling items are: trading cards, magazine covers, posters. Smugmug doesn't really help you out there. I also found the shipping charges from smugmug were a big turn-off to potential customers. Don't get me wrong - the people at smugmug are top notch. But for core business I think you're better off with something else as the primary revenue generator (either selling image disks or self-fulfilling package orders with more sports-centric products than smugmug offers) and using smugmug as a secondary revenue stream.

Regardless of whether you want to use smugmug or not - get rid of allowing them to view large images and start using watermarks.

r9jackson

Thanks John

johng wrote: »

Randy - a few thoughts:
1) If I can select "original" from your photos - why would I bother to pay for it? Either you've got the most respectful, law-abiding families there or you're losing business.

2) Generally speaking, smugmug still isn't a very good solution for sports - some of the best selling items are: trading cards, magazine covers, posters. Smugmug doesn't really help you out there. I also found the shipping charges from smugmug were a big turn-off to potential customers. Don't get me wrong - the people at smugmug are top notch. But for core business I think you're better off with something else as the primary revenue generator (either selling image disks or self-fulfilling package orders with more sports-centric products than smugmug offers) and using smugmug as a secondary revenue stream.

Regardless of whether you want to use smugmug or not - get rid of allowing them to view large images and start using watermarks.

John, thanks for noticing that, I must have missed it, I have gone back and taken out the original size prints in several of my galleries. I think I had to use that when I was trying to debug an Animoto issue. But it should not have allowed an original size. I have also made sure I had watermarks on every image.

Thanks for the other advice. I am looking at some other software to fulfill my orders, but I think I will see how much volume I have in the first couple of football games. I am really happy with the Smugmug fulfillment process to my customer so far. This is my first entry into team shots. Do you have any recommendation of what software or system to use for team sports?