Pricelists are here!

Baldy · December 14, 2011

Hey everyone,

We've received tons of feedback over the years about what improvements you'd love to see in how you price products for sale. Many thanks!

We just went live with quite the overhaul. :ivar We'd love to get a few eyeballs on it before releasing the hounds with our blog post, so I'll point you to a help page about them:

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93345-price-and-sell-your-photos

And one about how to migrate, when you're ready:

http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/256034-migrate-your-prices-to-pricelists

And if you want to see my pretty face explaining why we did it as we did:

Let us know what you think.

All the best,
Baldy

Art Scott · December 14, 2011

that sounds like a cool upgrade...

Is there a limit to how many different price lists you can have (5, 10, 250...unlimited??)?

Baldy · December 14, 2011

Art Scott wrote: »

that sounds like a cool upgrade...

Is there a limit to how many different price lists you can have (5, 10, 250...unlimited??)?

Hi Art,

Theoretically, there's no limit. At least, we haven't been able to create enough pricelists to see a problem.

In practice, we don't think pros will create a lot of them, unless we're missing something. With the old scheme and pricing embedded in a gallery, we saw a bazillion priced galleries. But in this scheme, one pricelist should serve many galleries.

Thanks,
Baldy

Art Scott · December 14, 2011

Baldy wrote: »

Hi Art,

Theoretically, there's no limit. At least, we haven't been able to create enough pricelists to see a problem.

In practice, we don't think pros will create a lot of them, unless we're missing something. With the old scheme and pricing embedded in a gallery, we saw a bazillion priced galleries. But in this scheme, one pricelist should serve many galleries.

Thanks,
Baldy

very cool.....I think this will be fantastic especially when the foreign currency support is unleashed....

Sheaf · December 14, 2011

Art Scott wrote: »

very cool.....I think this will be fantastic especially when the foreign currency support is unleashed....

Yes. One of the big bonuses of doing this (there are many) is that it is far more flexible and will allow us to do things like foreign currency in a very slick way.

TalkieT · December 14, 2011

Pricelists look neat, but until Foreign Currency transactions are supported, they're no use to a reasonable number of non US based pros.

Just for larks I tried to find the earliest request for foreign currency transactions on here and found this from February 2006... Nearly 6 years.

http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=27233&highlight=foreign+currency

For about 4 of those years we were told it was hard and there were no plans, then we were told you wanted to do it, and about a year ago we were told it was in progress.

Do you even understand how hard it is to believe that a single feature would have been in development for over a year? You know - it may even be longer than a year.

I implemented paypal... How hard would it be to integrate paypal as a payment option to pay you instead of me? Let them do the heavy lifting.

CHeers - N

SteveM · December 14, 2011

When I was about 8 years old, Jack-in-the-box decided to high-tail it out of the Metro Detroit area. Since then, I've been wanting one to spring up on the corner. For years I waited, excited when another fast food shack began being assembled, only to be disappointed with a Hot 'n Now, or Checkers. I'm sure there are many reasons we still don't have a Jack-in-the-box. The Metro Detroit economy is a scary place. Or, maybe there just aren't enough local people as interested in a poor diet as I am. But all my wanting never guaranteed anything.

Then, there was Sonic. I heard tell of a magical nostalgic drive-in, with big portions and delicious artery-clogging treats. Other States had them. They were real. Where was mine? It was just another Jack-in-the-box, I was sure. For years, I sat hating neighboring States. Maybe I would move there! No, that was drastic. Then, slowly we started being peppered with taunts, and teasing. Sonic commercials started airing on our local blogs, er, networks! What kind of cruelty was this? Where is our Sonic?! Then, rumors came. Whispers of Sonic coming to Michigan. Could it be? No, it was just more hype! Right? Finally, they announced it! The first Sonic in Michigan, and within 2 miles of me!!

It took forever. Planning, zoning, permits, construction, hiring, staffing, training! One little zoning roadblock and the plan could be kaput! No! Then it finally happened. And it was glorious. The smell of hot grease drew people from miles around, packing the new drive-in for months straight. Teenagers gathered and rejoiced to oldies being piped in, and skate-wearing carhops delivered their tasty cholesterol.

Will we ever see Foreign Currency? I'm not sure, but this is a sign;

Baldy · December 14, 2011

Okay, things seem to be going well, so the blog post is up:

http://news.smugmug.com/2011/12/13/why-pricelists-will-change-your-life

Andy · December 14, 2011

TalkieT wrote: »

Do you even understand how hard it is to believe that a single feature would have been in development for over a year? You know - it may even be longer than a year.

Yup. There are a lot of moving parts. Pricelists is one of them.

brianb · December 14, 2011

Great work guys! I was just checking it out and I noticed a small (cosmetic?) issue with rounding.

Here's an example:

My original price for an item was $29.99. Base price is $7.16. Profit got auto calculated to $19.41 ( (29.99 - 7.16)*.85 = 19.4055, which rounded up during the conversion process). In the calculated price column with the new pricelists, it shows up rounded as $30.00, which is correct when rounding to 2 decimal places.

So far, so good.

If I change the profit field to 19.40, and click off, price changes to 29.98, which is correct. I wanted to see if it was possible to get the price back to 29.99, which seems impossible using only 2 decimal places; but, if I enter the profit as 19.405 (or anything >19.405 and <19.41), the price field will change to 29.99, but then the profit field will get rounded to 2 decimal places (to 19.41 in this example).

So by doing that, my question is, is the javascript that's calculating the price wrong, by using the value before it's rounded (instead of after), and the price would actually show up as $30.00? Actually, I just tested this, and the price that shows up IS 29.99. So I guess whatever the PRICE is on the price lists edit page is, is what is used. Maybe more than 2 decimal places should be allowed in the profit field? Otherwise, after I save and and go back to edit the price list, 2 identical items, with the same base price, can show the same profit, but with different sale prices (it's only ever be off by a penny, though).

And silly me, of course the "round up prices" options (set to .99) fix this, so never mind, but I'll post this anyway in case anyone else runs into the same thing

Reuel · December 14, 2011

The new pricelists seem to be pretty good overall. I like having a default pricelist and the ability to customize. I set the default list to be 10-20% higher and have all my older galleries using the default. The newest gallery gets lower prices on everything to encourage purchases before the prices go up (my work is seasonal and usually the same customers). Then I use a coupon with a very short life to encourage purchases now.

One issue: I don't set prices based on a markup from your base cost. I'd have to use 2000% or more for the really inexpensive small prints, and that would make the expensive canvas and mounted prints be ridiculous. I figure I need to make at least a few bucks on each print no matter what the size, and larger prints should make a little more. So there needs to be some more flexibility in the calculation -- somewhat like you used to have in the gallery pricing. Maybe "x% markup + $n"?

bwg · December 14, 2011

Reuel wrote: »

The new pricelists seem to be pretty good overall. I like having a default pricelist and the ability to customize. I set the default list to be 10-20% higher and have all my older galleries using the default. The newest gallery gets lower prices on everything to encourage purchases before the prices go up (my work is seasonal and usually the same customers). Then I use a coupon with a very short life to encourage purchases now.

One issue: I don't set prices based on a markup from your base cost. I'd have to use 2000% or more for the really inexpensive small prints, and that would make the expensive canvas and mounted prints be ridiculous. I figure I need to make at least a few bucks on each print no matter what the size, and larger prints should make a little more. So there needs to be some more flexibility in the calculation -- somewhat like you used to have in the gallery pricing. Maybe "x% markup + $n"?

You can override the pricelist % profit at the group level. So if you want most things to have a 2000% profit, set that as your pricelist default, then open up the canvas group and type in a different % there.

flyingpoint · December 14, 2011

Pricelist Issue?
Trying out the new pricelist.

Conversion of the old pricelist was fast and easy. Literally took just a couple of minutes.

But the application of my new "default" list to all my galleries is taking a very, very, very long time. It's literally just giving me the spinning wheel of death.

Does it take a while? Or have we broken something?

Thanks.

denisegoldberg · December 14, 2011

Very nice change, thanks!

I'd love to see a way to jump from the price lists to the galleries using that price list. I had a couple of add price lists that I wanted to remove but I wanted to reset the few galleries using the the to-be-deleted price lists to something else. I was able to see the galleries using the price list in the pricing tool, but they were only shown with their nice name, no category, and no obvious way to specify a new price list. Luckily there were only a few of these - but did I miss something?

Thanks again!

--- Denise

bwg · December 14, 2011

flyingpoint wrote: »

Trying out the new pricelist.

Conversion of the old pricelist was fast and easy. Literally took just a couple of minutes.

But the application of my new "default" list to all my galleries is taking a very, very, very long time. It's literally just giving me the spinning wheel of death.

Does it take a while? Or have we broken something?

Thanks.

Your default pricelist (the one marked with the star badge) cannot be applied to galleries and photos directly. It automatically takes over when a gallery or photo does not have a pricelist assigned to it. Sounds like you might be mistaken about which pricelist is your default. If you write our Support Heroes at help@smugmug.com we can get you up and selling in no time.

smurfy · December 14, 2011

I wish there had been a way to know about this before creating the gallery and uploading this evening...

Didn't have time for this tonight, but I was forced to opt in since it refused to let me set prices the old way and the gallery was already up. It froze and forced me to implement it now, or have the gallery hang there with no prices at all.
Sometimes I love smugmug, and sometimes the way they implement stuff drives me nuts. This is the latter.

bwg · December 14, 2011

smurfy wrote: »

I wish there had been a way to know about this before creating the gallery and uploading this evening...

Didn't have time for this tonight, but I was forced to opt in since it refused to let me set prices the old way and the gallery was already up. It froze and forced me to implement it now, or have the gallery hang there with no prices at all.
Sometimes I love smugmug, and sometimes the way they implement stuff drives me nuts. This is the latter.

Sorry to hear this Smurfy, we aren't strong arming anyone to migrate immediately. Did you not see the 'I'll Choose Later' button when the prompt came up on your pricing screen? Email our heroes at help@smugmug.com and we'll happily get you un-pricelisted until you are ready to make the move.

flyingpoint · December 14, 2011

You're right --- I'm a bit confused. Why does the new "default pricelist" (not the one with the star) say that it has been applied to 184 galleries?

bwg wrote: »

Your default pricelist (the one marked with the star badge) cannot be applied to galleries and photos directly. It automatically takes over when a gallery or photo does not have a pricelist assigned to it. Sounds like you might be mistaken about which pricelist is your default. If you write our Support Heroes at help@smugmug.com we can get you up and selling in no time.

smurfy · December 14, 2011

"Sorry to hear this Smurfy, we aren't strong arming anyone to migrate immediately. Did you not see the 'I'll Choose Later' button when the prompt came up on your pricing screen?"

No, that wasn't an option. The box didn't let me scroll down; when I tried to, it kept jumping to the top to the "migrate my existing pricing" choice, and didn't allow me to even see the lower portion of the message, let alone click on anything else. I closed the site, reopened it, and tried again, and the box again refused to allow me to scroll down or navigate. So yes, it did feel like strong arming.

Maybe you could check that box and how it's reacting on others sites.

ETA: It was a new gallery, and I went to "set pricing" like usual when the box popped up and couldn't be scrolled down on.

CapturedCharms · December 14, 2011

Price Lists
While I'm loving the new price list options, much easier to use overall, it's only giving me the option to print from EZPrints, rather than both, am I missing something, or is this a little blip?

jonh68 · December 14, 2011

I applaud the effort to have different gallery prices, but the implementation of just increasing the percent of profit is shortsighted. Pros have to also compete with print prices. I would rather be able to set the individual price of a print directly as well. I want higher prices on 4x6 and 5x7 to discourage just buying those sizes for scanning. When I get my prices set for 4x6 and 5x7 where i want them, it affects my other sizes to a greater price than I want. I really don't want to spend time trying to price my pictures by adding and subtracting my profit to get my list price I want. If there is a way to do this, please let me know as i haven't found a way. Also, after the migration, my prices all jacked up and it is going to take me some time fix as it it didn't grab my different pricing.

Allen · December 14, 2011

Looks like they through all the families under the bus. There is no way to add .01 to each item that
I can see. We need this to check orders and fixed mistakes. I created a new gallery, picked my
family preset pricing scheme and all prices came out Smugmug default. I went into "set prices"
and set like a previous gallery and they came out +.01. But the migration will destroy all those
previous gallery prices.

bwg · December 14, 2011

jonh68 wrote: »

I applaud the effort to have different gallery prices, but the implementation of just increasing the percent of profit is shortsighted. Pros have to also compete with print prices. I would rather be able to set the individual price of a print directly as well. I want higher prices on 4x6 and 5x7 to discourage just buying those sizes for scanning. When I get my prices set for 4x6 and 5x7 where i want them, it affects my other sizes to a greater price than I want. I really don't want to spend time trying to price my pictures by adding and subtracting my profit to get my list price I want. If there is a way to do this, please let me know as i haven't found a way. Also, after the migration, my prices all jacked up and it is going to take me some time fix as it it didn't grab my different pricing.

would you be willing to explain in more detail what got jacked up?

bwg · December 14, 2011

CapturedCharms wrote: »

While I'm loving the new price list options, much easier to use overall, it's only giving me the option to print from EZPrints, rather than both, am I missing something, or is this a little blip?

currently you cant change the lab for an existing pricelist. if you would like to offer prints from bayphoto, you would create a bayphoto (or many bayphoto) pricelists.

Andy · December 14, 2011

smurfy wrote: »

"Sorry to hear this Smurfy, we aren't strong arming anyone to migrate immediately. Did you not see the 'I'll Choose Later' button when the prompt came up on your pricing screen?"

No, that wasn't an option. The box didn't let me scroll down; when I tried to, it kept jumping to the top to the "migrate my existing pricing" choice, and didn't allow me to even see the lower portion of the message, let alone click on anything else. I closed the site, reopened it, and tried again, and the box again refused to allow me to scroll down or navigate. So yes, it did feel like strong arming.

Maybe you could check that box and how it's reacting on others sites.

ETA: It was a new gallery, and I went to "set pricing" like usual when the box popped up and couldn't be scrolled down on.

Smurfy, please do write our heroes if you want to be un-pricelisted we can do that for you.

Andy · December 14, 2011

Allen wrote: »

Looks like they through all the families under the bus. There is no way to add .01 to each item that
I can see. We need this to check orders and fixed mistakes. I created a new gallery, picked my
family preset pricing scheme and all prices came out Smugmug default. I went into "set prices"
and set like a previous gallery and they came out +.01. But the migration will destroy all those
previous gallery prices.

Hey Allen, we hope we haven't thrown anyone under the bus

We track those orders for you even if you sell 'em at cost to your family - and have for some time. Give it a try by setting a pricelist for at cost. Place an order logged out as a visitor. And then check your prosales.

jonh68 · December 14, 2011

bwg wrote: »

would you be willing to explain in more detail what got jacked up?

I had print galleries with specific prices and only certain sizes available, but now I have more sizes available, and different prices that are all over the place like 4x6 lustre at $4, and 4x6 metallic at $13. I went through a wedding gallery and it had different prices that what I originally set.

Going through more galleries, it looks like a default price has been set on most of my galleries, which I didn't set originally. It looks like the pricing was based on a percentage of profit, not what I originally had.

CapturedCharms · December 14, 2011

bwg wrote: »

currently you cant change the lab for an existing pricelist. if you would like to offer prints from bayphoto, you would create a bayphoto (or many bayphoto) pricelists.

Thanks for the info!

David Evertsen · December 14, 2011

jonh68 wrote: »

I applaud the effort to have different gallery prices, but the implementation of just increasing the percent of profit is shortsighted. Pros have to also compete with print prices. I would rather be able to set the individual price of a print directly as well. I want higher prices on 4x6 and 5x7 to discourage just buying those sizes for scanning. When I get my prices set for 4x6 and 5x7 where i want them, it affects my other sizes to a greater price than I want. I really don't want to spend time trying to price my pictures by adding and subtracting my profit to get my list price I want. If there is a way to do this, please let me know as i haven't found a way. Also, after the migration, my prices all jacked up and it is going to take me some time fix as it it didn't grab my different pricing.

While I have neither Migrated or left alone at this point this post brings to mind an interesting argument. Why is it called a price list when it is a % of Profit list. I have a very distinct clientele and have set my print Prices accordingly and am I correct in assuming that I now have to figure out how to price a 4x6 at % of Profit to equal 2.99? As well as every other price of my photos?? I want to price them at X.XX dollars plain and simple, is that still possible?? Buckets and all the ways to apply pricing look great but not sure how this works..

JimKarczewski · December 15, 2011

Expand all for the products would be nice, it's a real pain in the ass to expand each one individually. Do something more along the lines of the original pricing (full list of products, tabbed?) vs this pretty expanding crap. Sorry as an ex-developer, I see this stuff that is "supposed" to make things easier but just makes it more of a pain to have to expand every product to see it's price and not be able to do it with one button click. Makes me think the look and feel is a higher priority than the actual functioning.

Ron Ludekens · December 15, 2011

I am really excited about having price lists–something needed for a long time. Thank you!!!
I just migrated prices and now working the results.
Here are some questions or suggestions for improvement:
Under the old system I generally had about 8 price lists that I tried to copy to each new gallery (Default, Weddings–formal, Weddings–informal/fun, Portraits, Seniors, Youth Sports, Family, Church) but the migration created many more than that. Obviously it found differences.
1) Can I rename the migrated price list? The work around seem to be to duplicate it with the name I want.
2) Once I create the price list I want, I am frustrated on the managed price list page about moving a gallery found in the migrated price list to one of my new ones. My goal is to clean that up, get rid of all the migrated price lists by moving galleries from that migrated list to one of the new ones I create. It appears that the only way to put a gallery in a price list bucket is to have the new price list bucket open and select the gallery. I would like to select the gallery in the migrated price list and then be allowed to move it to a different price list.
3) The new price list function builds upon the base price from the printer (ie if they raise prices, ours will go up too–nice!). But it would be really helpful if we could print out our price lists to see what is in them and the results. Working through all the pricing screens is tedious. I would like a spreadsheet-like dump showing base price, markup or markup percentage, results and profit (profit percentage). Option to print only those items we have priced and an option to show everything so we find those new things you add that we might want to price.
4) I have maintained a few concise price lists printed for potential clients and when the prices change on out SmugMugPRO – how are we alerted to it? I would prefer not to have my printed list different from what the customer might use.
Thank you for a great start!

Pricelists are here!

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