I want to set a price and it be MY PRICE for MY PRODUCT, set in stone until I change it. The rest of the Profit List stuff does not bother me. I am not hard to get along with..
I'm sorry if you felt that way. We have been watching the thread closely, but we didn't have a definitive answer to your question as I explained above.
That would have been enough of an answer. And I also read the response before you edited it. If my question had been answered the FIRST time, I wouldn't have "vented" and you also wouldn't have other customers noticing the lack of response.
One of the biggest problems with the old system was that you couldn't get a clear idea of your overall pricing. Volume Pros, the ones who want us to handle the dirty work and have a nice scalable system, were a big factor in driving us to do this feature. And most of the ones we have talked to are very happy about it. They want to set a pricelist for a type of shoot, apply galleries to it as they see fit, and then edit that pricelist if they want to change their profits/prices. By editing just that pricelist, the change can go out to all the galleries applied to it. That was incredibly cumbersome with the old system.
I feel like Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi and smugmug is trying to use the Jedi Mind Trick on me. I have agreed with you using the pricelist is way better than the old system. I have been a proponent of a pricelist, and I remember Andy telling me over a year ago it was low on the list of priorities after I was telling how it would benefit the end user. I have a problem we can't set the price without jumping through hoops to get the price we want and those prices can be changed by smugmug, not us. I don't have a problem with pricelists.
I brought up volume customers as in you are losing or not going to get any with the 15% take as an automatic deduction from the retail price. For small orders, 15% is great, for orders that get into the $500 or more, money is left on the table for the pro. I gave you suggestion of how to get MORE customers who deal in volume and letting you KNOW how those pros view smugmug's automatic 15% deduction. A handling fee is appropriate, but 15% on even a 1K order? I am just passing on info about the perception smugmug has with some pros I know. I tried to sell one of my friends on how smugmug can handle taking the order and prints, but the 15% was too much when his retail pricing can get into the thousands.
I'm not sure how that is just helping us. We build the features for our customers. Foreign currency, lab sales, and increased catalog offerings are all frequently requested features by our own customers.
I am going to request we be able to set our prices the normal, intuitive way by inputting the retail price.
This is my first post to the dgrin forums (I just joined smugmug as a pro as well and have been spending time uploading photos and trying my hand at customization - www.korinekphotography.smugmug.com - still under construction).
I recently upgraded to the new pricing system, whereby you enter a % markup and rounding (which in an of themselves are a good upgrade). However, I can't seem to be able to manually change the cost of a specific item. The reason I'd like to do this is because the way I'm currently pricing is to mark up the little things more than the big things so that people are enticed to buy larger prints, so I don't have a specific percentage across the board. Can you switch back to the old way? Or is there a way to integrate the two? I have lots of ideas on how I would set up a pricing system based on what I'm trying to do! :P
Actually, with pricelists, you can set up a percentage for an individual category to supersede your pricelist percentage over base cost. Check out this screenshot:
As you can see the base profit for the pricelist is set to 400%. On the left, I opened up the standard prints category and priced that at 600% over cost (red arrow). Furthermore, I did enter a manual profit for the 4x6 lustre size at $5. Those manually entered profits are highlighted green. To revert a manually entered profit, just click on the arrow right to the profit column.
If you want to tidy up the retail prices for your customers, use the "round up prices" feature. While this may earn you slightly higher profits, we'll keep displaying your minimum profit in the profit column.
Wow - I am really shocked here - this change to a percentage based price list is a MAJOR FAIL on the part of smugmug and I implore you to change this and allow us to manually and easily change the selling price amount.
A little background on me for perspective. I have been a full-time photography pro for over 20 years. I currently am a fine art photographer selling open and limited edition prints. I am new to smugmug, having just purchased a pro account 3 weeks ago after figuring out the old price system and making it work for me - and now you change it to a terribly thought out percentage price list.
I have been with Photoshelter for years prior to smugmug, even being featured in one of their many popular free ebooks - I was featured in their ebook "Selling Fine Art Photography". Photoshelter knows how to handle pricing - they leave it up to THE PHOTOGRAPHER to choose their own selling price. They have price lists as well, and even have a self-fulfillment price list where photoshelter collects the money and the photographer prints the photo themselves. They understand that business owners what to control what is important to them - their prices!
In years past I was a portrait/wedding/special event photographer as well. NEVER NEVER NEVER has my print pricing been based solely as a percentage markup from what the lab charges. There are so many other costs involved in running a business - the very least of which are print prices - that factor into my final selling price. How can smugmug be so shortsighted to think that print prices alone should be the determining factor of what the customer price should be is beyond me and certainly not business friendly and definitely not the definition of a "PRO" account.
My answers to a few of the questions/statements being made here:
I'm genuinely curious, but why is it a difficult concept to adjust your profit if you want a different price?
Are you kidding me? Many business owners just like me are quite capable of figuring out our selling price!! I am quite shocked at this response. My prices are based on the square inch. A 20x30 has 600 square inches. On average I sell my work for about $1 a square inch, making a 20x30 priced out at $600. That price factors in lab costs (the smallest expense there is), it factors in experience, camera equipment, computers, software, insurance, and all of the other business expenses I and any other photographer has. It is certainly NOT confusing to me to set my final prices. What I am confused about is why smugmug thinks lab costs alone should be where final print price is based upon?!?
The way this new price list is set up, for me to sell something at $225, I have to keep inputing numbers, guessing all along, until I hit my magical selling price of $225. I should be able to adjust it with one easy number entry! Why is that a difficult concept????
The other thing I'm not clear about is whether participating in lab sales is interesting to you. It's the idea that when a lab discounts prints for a special promotion, if you price by profit, you'll be able to auto opt in to their promotions. This has long been a request from what we thought were the majority of both U.S. and foreign pros.
Thanks,
Baldy
Honestly, I could care less about lab specials and can only guess this pricing change was completely motivated by the printing labs so that they can increase their print sales by offering us specials. When I am selling a print for $1,000, a $10 lab discount is really meaningless. I am sure this is a great idea for some/many photographers - BUT NOT ALL OF US!
How can we change your prices? I'm not sure I understand this part. Can you elaborate, because I'd really like to understand this much better - thanks!
If I have my pricing set where the selling price ends up being what I want - $225 - and the lab starts charging more, say $2 more, then my final selling price would automatically be more than the $225 I wanted because the only number locked in and changeable is my profit number. If a lab runs a special saving me $2, then my price would automatically be less than $225. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I want complete control over my final prices. It is what I advertise with! I do not want smugmug or the labs in control of my final selling price.
One of the biggest problems with the old system was that you couldn't get a clear idea of your overall pricing. Volume Pros, the ones who want us to handle the dirty work and have a nice scalable system, were a big factor in driving us to do this feature... We build the features for our customers.
I am not a volume seller - my prices are too high for volume. In my case I need to be able to control my selling price and be able to easily and quickly change my selling price. This is supposed to be a PRO account. I should be free to price the way I want to price. You said you "build the features of our customers" - then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE figure out a way to make it an option to change the selling price for those of us who are just like me and want to control that.
Wow - I am really shocked here - this change to a percentage based price list is a MAJOR FAIL on the part of smugmug and I implore you to change this and allow us to manually and easily change the selling price amount.
A little background on me for perspective. I have been a full-time photography pro for over 20 years. I currently am a fine art photographer selling open and limited edition prints. I am new to smugmug, having just purchased a pro account 3 weeks ago after figuring out the old price system and making it work for me - and now you change it to a terribly thought out percentage price list.
I have been with Photoshelter for years prior to smugmug, even being featured in one of their many popular free ebooks - I was featured in their ebook "Selling Fine Art Photography". Photoshelter knows how to handle pricing - they leave it up to THE PHOTOGRAPHER to choose their own selling price. They have price lists as well, and even have a self-fulfillment price list where photoshelter collects the money and the photographer prints the photo themselves. They understand that business owners what to control what is important to them - their prices!
In years past I was a portrait/wedding/special event photographer as well. NEVER NEVER NEVER has my print pricing been based solely as a percentage markup from what the lab charges. There are so many other costs involved in running a business - the very least of which are print prices - that factor into my final selling price. How can smugmug be so shortsighted to think that print prices alone should be the determining factor of what the customer price should be is beyond me and certainly not business friendly and definitely not the definition of a "PRO" account.
My answers to a few of the questions/statements being made here:
Are you kidding me? Many business owners just like me are quite capable of figuring out our selling price!! I am quite shocked at this response. My prices are based on the square inch. A 20x30 has 600 square inches. On average I sell my work for about $1 a square inch, making a 20x30 priced out at $600. That price factors in lab costs (the smallest expense there is), it factors in experience, camera equipment, computers, software, insurance, and all of the other business expenses I and any other photographer has. It is certainly NOT confusing to me to set my final prices. What I am confused about is why smugmug thinks lab costs alone should be where final print price is based upon?!?
The way this new price list is set up, for me to sell something at $225, I have to keep inputing numbers, guessing all along, until I hit my magical selling price of $225. I should be able to adjust it with one easy number entry! Why is that a difficult concept????
Honestly, I could care less about lab specials and can only guess this pricing change was completely motivated by the printing labs so that they can increase their print sales by offering us specials. When I am selling a print for $1,000, a $10 lab discount is really meaningless. I am sure this is a great idea for some/many photographers - BUT NOT ALL OF US!
If I have my pricing set where the selling price ends up being what I want - $225 - and the lab starts charging more, say $2 more, then my final selling price would automatically be more than the $225 I wanted because the only number locked in and changeable is my profit number. If a lab runs a special saving me $2, then my price would automatically be less than $225. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I want complete control over my final prices. It is what I advertise with! I do not want smugmug or the labs in control of my final selling price.
I am not a volume seller - my prices are too high for volume. In my case I need to be able to control my selling price and be able to easily and quickly change my selling price. This is supposed to be a PRO account. I should be free to price the way I want to price. You said you "build the features of our customers" - then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE figure out a way to make it an option to change the selling price for those of us who are just like me and want to control that.
TOTALLY Again...
At first i was excited about PRICE LISTS...but after delving into it and seeing everything is driven by profit %'s this sux big time...like the 2 quoted above....I need to have complete control..single entry of final price...not trying this percentage or that percentage....
PriceLists would be great if we could simply input final prices we need and not have to Muck with profit percentages....that is creating way more UNNECESSARY work for us....
Of course an OPT OUT of the new Profit Percentage PriceLists would be awesome also.
We don't know yet, to be honest. Here's what we do know:
We can't build features like lab sales, foreign currency, and certain new products in the best way possible if final prices are set in stone like the old system
The vast majority of people using pricelists, if not every single person so far, is using the same or fewer pricing schemes than before
Most have dramatically reduced the number, thus dramatically reducing the amount of time they need to spend fiddling with profits and prices
One thing we have heard loud and clear is that when they set a value, they absolutely do not want us changing it
It's highly unlikely we will lock down final prices instead of profits. There is a possibility of making the final price field editable, but we would have to make it explicitly clear that the chosen value could change, albeit very rarely if priced in the currency of the lab and opted out of lab sales.
So why not continue to implement automatic (currency or sale) price changes pegged to the locked-down profit, but allow that (to be locked-down) profit to be entered either by direct entry in the profit column or calculated from an entered price in the price column?
For Smugmug US customers selling prints to US customers, where there is no currency change involved, It will appear the same as allowing price to be set (and fixed) directly. Where there is currency change involved, it will work as already envisioned by Smugmug.
The nature of the running discourse has had Smugmug arguing an underlying implementation characteristic: profit lock-down across currency/sale changes against a user interface request for price entry. These need not be incompatible.
The hardest part, as always, is to explain what you have implemented to the Smugmug customer base. They may need help understanding that it works for them.
Dale B. Dalrymple
"Give me a lens long enough and a place to stand and I can image the earth."
...with apology to Archimedies
Migration
I just had all my previous prices nuked by hitting the migration tool, and after sending a help email three times I am upset that no one is at home. Can I have my prices restored? They all seem to be set at zero profit now.
I just had all my previous prices nuked by hitting the migration tool, and after sending a help email three times I am upset that no one is at home. Can I have my prices restored? They all seem to be set at zero profit now.
I just had all my previous prices nuked by hitting the migration tool, and after sending a help email three times I am upset that no one is at home. Can I have my prices restored? They all seem to be set at zero profit now.
Dave, looks like Hero Sean has called you and all is well for now? Let us know.
:DHe (Sean) spent a couple of HOURS! on the phone with me, and you guys have done well as usual. I have updated all my stuff, and it is crazy how well you can support your customers.
So..
If I may so humbly reply, Pro's have posted responses to many questions from Smugmug and really have not received to many answers about what is going on. Where do we stand ?
If I have my pricing set where the selling price ends up being what I want - $225 - and the lab starts charging more, say $2 more, then my final selling price would automatically be more than the $225 I wanted because the only number locked in and changeable is my profit number. If a lab runs a special saving me $2, then my price would automatically be less than $225. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I want complete control over my final prices. It is what I advertise with! I do not want smugmug or the labs in control of my final selling price.
I am not a volume seller - my prices are too high for volume. In my case I need to be able to control my selling price and be able to easily and quickly change my selling price. This is supposed to be a PRO account. I should be free to price the way I want to price. You said you "build the features of our customers" - then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE figure out a way to make it an option to change the selling price for those of us who are just like me and want to control that.
Hey Matt,
First off, it's an honor to have you here from Photoshelter, so it's painful to disappoint you.
As far as the lab sales go, when we were in some (all-day) offsites with photographers, we noticed how touchy some were about sales. I remember two really successful wedding photographers among a group of 12 we were with going ballistic over the idea of sales, which they felt would cheapen their brand. The others thought they were crazy, that even premium brands have sales.
The point we took home is we have to be able to let pros opt in our out of sales when we roll out the feature so that if they want fixed prices, they're fixed, as far as lab sales go.
First off, it's an honor to have you hear from Photoshelter, so it's painful to disappoint you.
As far as the lab sales go, when we were in some (all-day) offsites with photographers, we noticed how touchy some were about sales. I remember two really successful wedding photographers among a group of 12 we were with going ballistic over the idea of sales, which they felt would cheapen their brand. The others thought they were crazy, that even premium brands have sales.
The point we took home is we have to be able to let pros opt in our out of sales when we roll out the feature so that if they want fixed prices, they're fixed, as far as lab sales go.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
Chris is this something new that has not been released? The opt out of lab Sales and have a fixed price have not been mentioned before. Could you elaborate because I cannot find that on this pricelist thread..
Auto opt would be a nice option to opt in to, not be forced into.
For the FOURTH time, are we going to be able set our prices directly, or fool with plugging in profit numbers until we get the price we want?
+1000
It shouldn't be difficult to implement a check box (per price list or per item price, you choose SM) that allows the PRO to assign a final price and then let the back end determine profit like it has in the past. If that means my profit fluctuates because of a decision I made, so be it.
The pricelist feature is an excellent idea, it just sems like you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in your implementation. The whole point (in my opinion) of a "price list" is that you have a fixed set of prices you can deliver to your clients.
Sales, promos, etc should be handled separately.
As my 11 y.o.'s band teacher would say.... Epic Fail
Chris is this something new that has not been released? The opt out of lab Sales and have a fixed price have not been mentioned before. Could you elaborate because I cannot find that on this pricelist thread..
Hiya David - It sounds like you haven't watched the video Baldy started this thread with yet - where he mentions that Pricelists opens the door for many possibilities in the future, including lab sales -
When you and I spoke a few days ago, you had yet to actually migrate, or use the feature, or run through the help pages etc - I did offer to revisit this with you yesterday, and I do see that you have now migrated to Pricelists - If you'd like to take me up on the offer for personal run-through, I can make myself available today!
Hiya David - It sounds like you haven't watched the video Baldy started this thread with yet - where he mentions that Pricelists opens the door for many possibilities in the future, including lab sales -
When you and I spoke a few days ago, you had yet to actually migrate, or use the feature, or run through the help pages etc - I did offer to revisit this with you yesterday, and I do see that you have now migrated to Pricelists - If you'd like to take me up on the offer for personal run-through, I can make myself available today!
Just shoot me an email (you have the address) -
I did migrate and watch the videos, I really like how easy it is to create them. I just want to set my prices and have it stick so they can't be changed by anyone but me. That is all
It seems like many are asking to be able to set their final price. It would be a nightmare
playing with percentages to get these. Then their advertized prices could fluctuate.
If the final prices are manually set any fluctuations in base would only then effect their
profit. If the lab has a discount then they get extra profit. It the base goes up they lose
profit and should be notified when any base price increases so they can adjust those.
I did migrate and watch the videos, I really like how easy it is to create them. I just want to set my prices and have it stick so they can't be changed by anyone but me. That is all
Thanks
Hi David -
I'm pretty sure I made it clear when we spoke that you could set your prices as you like, and that they would not 'fluctuate.' I'm not really sure why you think that you cannot and they will -
Again - say the word and I'll give you the run through -
I'm pretty sure I made it clear when we spoke that you could set your prices as you like, and that they would not 'fluctuate.' I'm not really sure why you think that you cannot and they will -
Again - say the word and I'll give you the run through -
Sean
In all the discussions about why we CANNOT just set the price and not worry about what profit margin, we have been told it is based on foreign currency and lab sales which can change. It doesn't take a math wizard to know if the base cost goes up or down, a price set on profit margin will go up or down.
We have asked for a public confirmation if our prices will change without us knowing about it. Andy asked me why I thought they would change and gave him reasons why, and I have yet to see a response.
So are you saying once we as end users plug in several numbers to finally get a set price, it will not change? If it will not change, then why not just let us set the price we want instead of playing guess the price games with the profit formula?
It appears I misspoke - as what I typed was not taken as meant... allow me re-word / clarify -
I've been speaking with quite a few pros about this, and the concern that I've been 'gleaming' has been that there is a fear of 'fluctuation.' (as opposed to an infrequent 'change') - To me that implies prices fluctuating on a regular/daily/frequent basis - and to that end, my previous statement, "that they would not 'fluctuate.'"
This is still the case for US based Pros - and from that definition, I stand by my statement - but yes, 'change' is a possibility - I believe more details and an example will be forthcoming. Don't change that channel -
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.
Hmm... this is news to me! I thought we had to set everything at +.01 to get a proof delay email and have it show up in our pro sales??
It seems like many are asking to be able to set their final price. It would be a nightmare
playing with percentages to get these. Then their advertized prices could fluctuate.
If the final prices are manually set any fluctuations in base would only then effect their
profit. If the lab has a discount then they get extra profit. It the base goes up they lose
profit and should be notified when any base price increases so they can adjust those.
So I am diving into pricing, cause I am figuring maybe someone will buy something. I think my mom is looking for gifts for her friends. But I do have a comment on something now that I have tried to do some pricing. I wanted to do some simplistic pricing US$5 for 5" x 5" Prints - Square Sizes no matter the finish; US$8 for 8" x 8" excluding Glicee. (Those dollars are for illustrative purposes only) but I have to go in and set each one, correct? I can do the math to figure the difference between price for print and sale. But I have to do each one on my own, correct?
I also noticed that there was no way to go in and expand all the price dialogs at once so I could just use the tab key to move or did I miss that option
Want to still be able to manually set prices
I've been watching this with interest, since it seems that in a couple months it will come to me whether I want it or not. I'm a little different from most folks here - my sales so far have been 100% donated to charity (I take photos because I love to, and the cases where people are buying the prints are cases where I donate my time to the event I am photographing and donate back all profits).
As with many of the pros here, I have a sliding scale, where a 4x6 is $8 (around 2100% profit) and a 24x36 metal print is $320 (around 36% profit). Clearly I am not in this for the money! (nor am I undercutting anyone who is). Rather, I want to provide a relatively low-cost option to my "clients" while still making a nominal "profit" on the sale that I can donate. That said, I did put a lot of thought into the prices, to make the list look "natural" to someone who has no idea what the base (SmugMug/Bay) price is. (by the way, so far no takers on the big metal prints! :-))
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE figure out a way to make it an option to change the selling price for those of us who are just like me and want to control that.
While I feel that the old way had its difficulties (e.g., easy to leave something at-cost), it at least gave me the full control that I knew what the end pricing was. Now, as has been eloquently pointed out by others, I will have to fiddle with percentage-markups to get the prices I want.
Thanks for your consideration. --Erik Bailey (erikbaileyphotography.com)
It appears I misspoke - as what I typed was not taken as meant... allow me re-word / clarify -
I've been speaking with quite a few pros about this, and the concern that I've been 'gleaming' has been that there is a fear of 'fluctuation.' (as opposed to an infrequent 'change') - To me that implies prices fluctuating on a regular/daily/frequent basis - and to that end, my previous statement, "that they would not 'fluctuate.'"
This is still the case for US based Pros - and from that definition, I stand by my statement - but yes, 'change' is a possibility - I believe more details and an example will be forthcoming. Don't change that channel -
And that is the basic problem I (and John and many others) have with the profit driven pricing scheme.
Prices on my pictures should only change if I change them.
This whole fiasco is making me regret joining smugmug earlier in the month. I want to run my business the way I want to run it, and that involves easily setting my own prices - prices that I know won't change, that I won't have to play a guessing game trying to get to, etc.
I am glad I didn't close my Photoshelter account yet - they allow one to easily set the prices one wants - so does Zenfolio which I am now looking at. Both offer self-fullfillment options as well. Smugmug calls this a "Pro" account and I can't manually enter the selling price of my photos?????
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
I have been playing with the videos and learned many things, not trying to kiss up to anyone but there is one thing that really strikes me that has not been brought up. You have allowed Pro's to set a Pricelist for an individual photo in a gallery. I remember reading many a thread about maintaining this was a deal breaker at times when working on overhauling the price list. Many a comment about how this was important to them (Pros), did not affect me but it would many folks, glad you considered them. It might affect me one day as well.
Thanks, David. We really debated that one hard because it complicated things. I dunno how long it delayed pricelists, but maybe 6 months? But with the feedback here, we came to understand how important it is.
Everyone knows how much Smugmug does not like to tell customers about future things but to be honest, it builds more goodwill than you realize.
With the help of many of our customers, we've changed positions pretty dramatically on this. if you go to old threads you'll see how open we used to be and how I'd show mockups a year or more before we went live.
But it created so much angst among our customers as you can see in many posts when priorities changed, things got delayed, or we released it in a different form than we originally planned, that we felt we had to give it up.
Prices on my pictures should only change if I change them.
Period.
So help us to understand how to handle a situation that comes up now and then, and hopefully together we can think through a solution.
When a lab changes the price of an item, if it's higher than they currently offer it to us, it's a dilemma. It doesn't happen often but we expect it to happen more as we add labs and more items like frames, etc.
Right now our choices are:
1. Raise the price we charge the pro. This doesn't work for many pros because they price a small amount higher than the product costs, so they would be under water for each sale. And Hell hath no fury....
2. Notify pros who sell that item. That's an issue because the response rate is low and it's a hassle for our pros. The majority just want us to handle it (raise the price), but some are understandably passionate about not doing that, as we're seeing here.
3. Eat the loss. That's what we do now, which keeps us from lowering the price of other items, and eventually causes us to get our prices and the lab's out of sync and people start to question why some items are cheaper at the lab. The perception becomes that we're ripping them off.
4. Discontinue the product and assign a new product ID for the higher-priced item. But Hell hath no fury like a pro who thought they were selling something, but weren't. Or have to hassle figuring out a price change when they're busy shooting.
The good news is this happens very infrequently, but the labs tell us that as Kodak and Fuji get themselves in deeper trouble, for example, or the labs experience supplier issues for certain frames, etc., we should be prepared.
So how best to handle this? We know we can't please everyone, but we'd love to please as many as possible.
Comments
Thanks..
www.phabulousphotos.com
Sportsshooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=10162
That would have been enough of an answer. And I also read the response before you edited it.
I feel like Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi and smugmug is trying to use the Jedi Mind Trick on me. I have agreed with you using the pricelist is way better than the old system. I have been a proponent of a pricelist, and I remember Andy telling me over a year ago it was low on the list of priorities after I was telling how it would benefit the end user. I have a problem we can't set the price without jumping through hoops to get the price we want and those prices can be changed by smugmug, not us. I don't have a problem with pricelists.
I brought up volume customers as in you are losing or not going to get any with the 15% take as an automatic deduction from the retail price. For small orders, 15% is great, for orders that get into the $500 or more, money is left on the table for the pro. I gave you suggestion of how to get MORE customers who deal in volume and letting you KNOW how those pros view smugmug's automatic 15% deduction. A handling fee is appropriate, but 15% on even a 1K order? I am just passing on info about the perception smugmug has with some pros I know. I tried to sell one of my friends on how smugmug can handle taking the order and prints, but the 15% was too much when his retail pricing can get into the thousands.
I am going to request we be able to set our prices the normal, intuitive way by inputting the retail price.
Hey everyone!
This is my first post to the dgrin forums (I just joined smugmug as a pro as well and have been spending time uploading photos and trying my hand at customization - www.korinekphotography.smugmug.com - still under construction).
I recently upgraded to the new pricing system, whereby you enter a % markup and rounding (which in an of themselves are a good upgrade). However, I can't seem to be able to manually change the cost of a specific item. The reason I'd like to do this is because the way I'm currently pricing is to mark up the little things more than the big things so that people are enticed to buy larger prints, so I don't have a specific percentage across the board. Can you switch back to the old way? Or is there a way to integrate the two? I have lots of ideas on how I would set up a pricing system based on what I'm trying to do! :P
Thanks!
Matt
Welcome to Dgrin!
Actually, with pricelists, you can set up a percentage for an individual category to supersede your pricelist percentage over base cost. Check out this screenshot:
As you can see the base profit for the pricelist is set to 400%. On the left, I opened up the standard prints category and priced that at 600% over cost (red arrow). Furthermore, I did enter a manual profit for the 4x6 lustre size at $5. Those manually entered profits are highlighted green. To revert a manually entered profit, just click on the arrow right to the profit column.
If you want to tidy up the retail prices for your customers, use the "round up prices" feature. While this may earn you slightly higher profits, we'll keep displaying your minimum profit in the profit column.
You can read more on pricelists here:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93345-price-and-sell-your-photos
Also check out the videos to give you a quick overview on how pricelists work.
SmugMug Support Hero
A little background on me for perspective. I have been a full-time photography pro for over 20 years. I currently am a fine art photographer selling open and limited edition prints. I am new to smugmug, having just purchased a pro account 3 weeks ago after figuring out the old price system and making it work for me - and now you change it to a terribly thought out percentage price list.
I have been with Photoshelter for years prior to smugmug, even being featured in one of their many popular free ebooks - I was featured in their ebook "Selling Fine Art Photography". Photoshelter knows how to handle pricing - they leave it up to THE PHOTOGRAPHER to choose their own selling price. They have price lists as well, and even have a self-fulfillment price list where photoshelter collects the money and the photographer prints the photo themselves. They understand that business owners what to control what is important to them - their prices!
In years past I was a portrait/wedding/special event photographer as well. NEVER NEVER NEVER has my print pricing been based solely as a percentage markup from what the lab charges. There are so many other costs involved in running a business - the very least of which are print prices - that factor into my final selling price. How can smugmug be so shortsighted to think that print prices alone should be the determining factor of what the customer price should be is beyond me and certainly not business friendly and definitely not the definition of a "PRO" account.
My answers to a few of the questions/statements being made here:
Are you kidding me? Many business owners just like me are quite capable of figuring out our selling price!! I am quite shocked at this response. My prices are based on the square inch. A 20x30 has 600 square inches. On average I sell my work for about $1 a square inch, making a 20x30 priced out at $600. That price factors in lab costs (the smallest expense there is), it factors in experience, camera equipment, computers, software, insurance, and all of the other business expenses I and any other photographer has. It is certainly NOT confusing to me to set my final prices. What I am confused about is why smugmug thinks lab costs alone should be where final print price is based upon?!?
The way this new price list is set up, for me to sell something at $225, I have to keep inputing numbers, guessing all along, until I hit my magical selling price of $225. I should be able to adjust it with one easy number entry! Why is that a difficult concept????
Honestly, I could care less about lab specials and can only guess this pricing change was completely motivated by the printing labs so that they can increase their print sales by offering us specials. When I am selling a print for $1,000, a $10 lab discount is really meaningless. I am sure this is a great idea for some/many photographers - BUT NOT ALL OF US!
If I have my pricing set where the selling price ends up being what I want - $225 - and the lab starts charging more, say $2 more, then my final selling price would automatically be more than the $225 I wanted because the only number locked in and changeable is my profit number. If a lab runs a special saving me $2, then my price would automatically be less than $225. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I want complete control over my final prices. It is what I advertise with! I do not want smugmug or the labs in control of my final selling price.
I am not a volume seller - my prices are too high for volume. In my case I need to be able to control my selling price and be able to easily and quickly change my selling price. This is supposed to be a PRO account. I should be free to price the way I want to price. You said you "build the features of our customers" - then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE figure out a way to make it an option to change the selling price for those of us who are just like me and want to control that.
At first i was excited about PRICE LISTS...but after delving into it and seeing everything is driven by profit %'s this sux big time...like the 2 quoted above....I need to have complete control..single entry of final price...not trying this percentage or that percentage....
PriceLists would be great if we could simply input final prices we need and not have to Muck with profit percentages....that is creating way more UNNECESSARY work for us....
Of course an OPT OUT of the new Profit Percentage PriceLists would be awesome also.
So why not continue to implement automatic (currency or sale) price changes pegged to the locked-down profit, but allow that (to be locked-down) profit to be entered either by direct entry in the profit column or calculated from an entered price in the price column?
For Smugmug US customers selling prints to US customers, where there is no currency change involved, It will appear the same as allowing price to be set (and fixed) directly. Where there is currency change involved, it will work as already envisioned by Smugmug.
The nature of the running discourse has had Smugmug arguing an underlying implementation characteristic: profit lock-down across currency/sale changes against a user interface request for price entry. These need not be incompatible.
The hardest part, as always, is to explain what you have implemented to the Smugmug customer base. They may need help understanding that it works for them.
Dale B. Dalrymple
...with apology to Archimedies
I just had all my previous prices nuked by hitting the migration tool, and after sending a help email three times I am upset that no one is at home. Can I have my prices restored? They all seem to be set at zero profit now.
Alpha 99 & VG, 900x2 & VG; 50mm1.4, CZ135 1.8; CZ16-35 2.8, CZ24-70 2.8, G70-200 2.8, G70-400, Sony TC 1.4, F20, F58, F60.
Dave, we're on it.
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Dave, looks like Hero Sean has called you and all is well for now? Let us know.
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Alpha 99 & VG, 900x2 & VG; 50mm1.4, CZ135 1.8; CZ16-35 2.8, CZ24-70 2.8, G70-200 2.8, G70-400, Sony TC 1.4, F20, F58, F60.
If I may so humbly reply, Pro's have posted responses to many questions from Smugmug and really have not received to many answers about what is going on. Where do we stand ?
Thanks,
www.phabulousphotos.com
Sportsshooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=10162
First off, it's an honor to have you here from Photoshelter, so it's painful to disappoint you.
As far as the lab sales go, when we were in some (all-day) offsites with photographers, we noticed how touchy some were about sales. I remember two really successful wedding photographers among a group of 12 we were with going ballistic over the idea of sales, which they felt would cheapen their brand. The others thought they were crazy, that even premium brands have sales.
The point we took home is we have to be able to let pros opt in our out of sales when we roll out the feature so that if they want fixed prices, they're fixed, as far as lab sales go.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
Chris is this something new that has not been released? The opt out of lab Sales and have a fixed price have not been mentioned before. Could you elaborate because I cannot find that on this pricelist thread..
www.phabulousphotos.com
Sportsshooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=10162
+1000
It shouldn't be difficult to implement a check box (per price list or per item price, you choose SM) that allows the PRO to assign a final price and then let the back end determine profit like it has in the past. If that means my profit fluctuates because of a decision I made, so be it.
The pricelist feature is an excellent idea, it just sems like you've thrown the baby out with the bathwater in your implementation. The whole point (in my opinion) of a "price list" is that you have a fixed set of prices you can deliver to your clients.
Sales, promos, etc should be handled separately.
As my 11 y.o.'s band teacher would say.... Epic Fail
Hiya David - It sounds like you haven't watched the video Baldy started this thread with yet - where he mentions that Pricelists opens the door for many possibilities in the future, including lab sales -
When you and I spoke a few days ago, you had yet to actually migrate, or use the feature, or run through the help pages etc - I did offer to revisit this with you yesterday, and I do see that you have now migrated to Pricelists - If you'd like to take me up on the offer for personal run-through, I can make myself available today!
Just shoot me an email (you have the address) -
I did migrate and watch the videos, I really like how easy it is to create them. I just want to set my prices and have it stick so they can't be changed by anyone but me. That is all
Thanks
www.phabulousphotos.com
Sportsshooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=10162
playing with percentages to get these. Then their advertized prices could fluctuate.
If the final prices are manually set any fluctuations in base would only then effect their
profit. If the lab has a discount then they get extra profit. It the base goes up they lose
profit and should be notified when any base price increases so they can adjust those.
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Hi David -
I'm pretty sure I made it clear when we spoke that you could set your prices as you like, and that they would not 'fluctuate.' I'm not really sure why you think that you cannot and they will -
Again - say the word and I'll give you the run through -
Sean
In all the discussions about why we CANNOT just set the price and not worry about what profit margin, we have been told it is based on foreign currency and lab sales which can change. It doesn't take a math wizard to know if the base cost goes up or down, a price set on profit margin will go up or down.
We have asked for a public confirmation if our prices will change without us knowing about it. Andy asked me why I thought they would change and gave him reasons why, and I have yet to see a response.
So are you saying once we as end users plug in several numbers to finally get a set price, it will not change? If it will not change, then why not just let us set the price we want instead of playing guess the price games with the profit formula?
It appears I misspoke - as what I typed was not taken as meant... allow me re-word / clarify -
I've been speaking with quite a few pros about this, and the concern that I've been 'gleaming' has been that there is a fear of 'fluctuation.' (as opposed to an infrequent 'change') - To me that implies prices fluctuating on a regular/daily/frequent basis - and to that end, my previous statement, "that they would not 'fluctuate.'"
This is still the case for US based Pros - and from that definition, I stand by my statement - but yes, 'change' is a possibility - I believe more details and an example will be forthcoming. Don't change that channel -
Hmm... this is news to me! I thought we had to set everything at +.01 to get a proof delay email and have it show up in our pro sales??
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I also noticed that there was no way to go in and expand all the price dialogs at once so I could just use the tab key to move or did I miss that option
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I've been watching this with interest, since it seems that in a couple months it will come to me whether I want it or not. I'm a little different from most folks here - my sales so far have been 100% donated to charity (I take photos because I love to, and the cases where people are buying the prints are cases where I donate my time to the event I am photographing and donate back all profits).
As with many of the pros here, I have a sliding scale, where a 4x6 is $8 (around 2100% profit) and a 24x36 metal print is $320 (around 36% profit). Clearly I am not in this for the money! (nor am I undercutting anyone who is). Rather, I want to provide a relatively low-cost option to my "clients" while still making a nominal "profit" on the sale that I can donate. That said, I did put a lot of thought into the prices, to make the list look "natural" to someone who has no idea what the base (SmugMug/Bay) price is. (by the way, so far no takers on the big metal prints! :-))
Therefore, I completely agree with:
While I feel that the old way had its difficulties (e.g., easy to leave something at-cost), it at least gave me the full control that I knew what the end pricing was. Now, as has been eloquently pointed out by others, I will have to fiddle with percentage-markups to get the prices I want.
Thanks for your consideration. --Erik Bailey (erikbaileyphotography.com)
And that is the basic problem I (and John and many others) have with the profit driven pricing scheme.
Prices on my pictures should only change if I change them.
Period.
I am glad I didn't close my Photoshelter account yet - they allow one to easily set the prices one wants - so does Zenfolio which I am now looking at. Both offer self-fullfillment options as well. Smugmug calls this a "Pro" account and I can't manually enter the selling price of my photos?????
But it created so much angst among our customers as you can see in many posts when priorities changed, things got delayed, or we released it in a different form than we originally planned, that we felt we had to give it up.
When a lab changes the price of an item, if it's higher than they currently offer it to us, it's a dilemma. It doesn't happen often but we expect it to happen more as we add labs and more items like frames, etc.
Right now our choices are:
1. Raise the price we charge the pro. This doesn't work for many pros because they price a small amount higher than the product costs, so they would be under water for each sale. And Hell hath no fury....
2. Notify pros who sell that item. That's an issue because the response rate is low and it's a hassle for our pros. The majority just want us to handle it (raise the price), but some are understandably passionate about not doing that, as we're seeing here.
3. Eat the loss. That's what we do now, which keeps us from lowering the price of other items, and eventually causes us to get our prices and the lab's out of sync and people start to question why some items are cheaper at the lab. The perception becomes that we're ripping them off.
4. Discontinue the product and assign a new product ID for the higher-priced item. But Hell hath no fury like a pro who thought they were selling something, but weren't. Or have to hassle figuring out a price change when they're busy shooting.
The good news is this happens very infrequently, but the labs tell us that as Kodak and Fuji get themselves in deeper trouble, for example, or the labs experience supplier issues for certain frames, etc., we should be prepared.
So how best to handle this? We know we can't please everyone, but we'd love to please as many as possible.