Hey, the migration created a whole slew of price lists from my thousands of various galleries. I ended up with maybe 25 pricelists. Each new list labeled itself sort of like:
"From Gallery BlahBlah (and two others..)"
So I went to that labeled gallery "BlahBlah" and made sure that it picked up my new default pricelist once deleted. It did pick up my new default pricelist, which is the good news...
But, my specific question is, how do I figure out which galleries those "two others" might have been?
Hey, the migration created a whole slew of price lists from my thousands of various galleries. I ended up with maybe 25 pricelists. Each new list labeled itself sort of like:
"From Gallery BlahBlah (and two others..)"
So I went to that labeled gallery "BlahBlah" and made sure that it picked up my new default pricelist once deleted. It did pick up my new default pricelist, which is the good news...
But, my specific question is, how do I figure out which galleries those "two others" might have been?
There's no need for you to check for those galleries as the default pricelist is automatically used for all galleries that do not have a pricelist applied. So deleting a pricelist that was assigned to a gallery, will have that gallery use your default pricelist.
To check what galleries are assigned to a pricelist, edit the pricelist in question and click on the number shown for galleries or photos. That would open the gallery / photo picker. In the top right, you'll find the "selected" button that'll reveal which galleries or photos have the pricelist applied.
I've just created a pricelist for one lab, but once I saved it, applied it to the galleries, I realized I'd picked the wrong lab. Now I can't edit the price list and change labs ... is this something you can only do on creation?
I'm pretty sure you can only select the lab when creating a new pricelist. The product offerings are just so different that they really aren't interchangeable..
I'm pretty sure you can only select the lab when creating a new pricelist. The product offerings are just so different that they really aren't interchangeable..
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.
.... snip ....
So how best to handle this? We know we can't please everyone, but we'd love to please as many as possible.
I have been watching this thread for a few days now and after trying to set my own prices, I now believe I understand the conflicting issues that are arising. The photographer wants to set their price and not have it change without their knowledge; SmugMug wants to be able to react to price changes from their suppliers as appropriate. I don’t think either wants to deal with an end customer that ordered a print on Tuesday that was one price and goes to order a second copy on Wednesday and it is a different amount. This situation is very similar to the challenges being dealt with in other industries, the cost of parts changes but one cannot change prices daily despite that is how quickly things fluctuate. There is a solution I believe that will match both people’s need through the introduction of a third value in the data set, minimum profit.
I did some modeling in Excel and found that this approach would meet my desire as a photographer to have a consistent price and meet SmugMug’s need to be able to adjust for varying prices. The photographer gets to set the current markup, as well as the minimum profit that is acceptable. If one wants a formula can even be created that would suggest a new price for the photographer.
Currently the way the system works, the photographer places in a “Profit” of a certain percentage, I think the better term would be “Markup” as the percentage is actually a gross amount not accounting for cost of sales or the other items in a successful business. From that Markup Value and the Cost (Base Price) the selling price is calculated. The formula for this calculation is Selling Price = ((Desired Profit* Base Price)/0.85)+Base Price. After that calculation is run the photographer can set a round up amount, with the additional profit going to the photographer.
If there is a small change in the Base Price the rounding can mask the price from changing to the end customer. This rounding also means that the amount of markup delivered to the photographer does not match the percentage entered into the pricing tool. However as long as the profit delivered is greater than the desired profit percentage entered into the pricing typically no one will complain and everyone will be happy.
If one continues that approach instead by setting a minimum markup as long as the increase of the print cost does not cause the markup to drop below the desired amount, no one will complain. However if the amount of markup does drop below the desired amount an e-mail alert can be sent and if desired a new price be put in place.
Allow me to illustrate:
A print cost is US$0.38
The desired markup is 400%
The end user price would be US$2.17
If one sets the rounding to highest dollar, it becomes US$3.00
The markup to the photographer goes up as a result of the rounding by US$0.71
The cost of print can go up to US$0.52 before the rounded price goes higher than US$3.00
As long as the cost of the print is less than US$0.53 the markup to the photographer is still >400% and the price to the end customer does not change.
That is the way things would work currently. A change of up to 36.8% does not change the price, but that is due to the ratio of base values to the amount added during rounding.
At the higher value prints this change is not as forgiving as the rounding amount is not as great. That is where the setting of the end user price might be desired as long as the value doesn’t change.
For a more expensive print, let’s run the same process:
A print cost is US$45.29
The desired markup is 400%
The end user price would be US$258.42
If one sets the rounding to highest dollar, it becomes US$259.00
The markup to the photographer goes up by US$0.49
The cost of print can go up to US$45.39 before the rounded price goes higher than US$259.00
This results in a change of as little as 0.2% changing the price to the end customer
If the process is changes and the photographer sets two values, End User Price and Markup Threshold. The variances can be just as wide, but since the rounding amount can be set by the photographer the impact of small changes on large dollar items will be reduced. The default values of the End User Price and the Markup Threshold can be pre filled based on a markup percentage if desired.
Allow me to run the same example:
A print cost is US$45.29
The desired selling price is US$260.00
The markup to the photographer is US$182.50
The markup threshold is a 300% markup of the original value (US$45.29) or US$120.45
The cost of print can go up to US$118.29 before the markup threshold is breached
This results in a change as great as 161.2% before the photographer needs to be made aware to make a change.
An e-mail is dispatched indicating that the threshold has been crossed by the recent price change, and to be apply a desired markup of 400% would be US$675 and that will be applied until the photographer makes a change.
I have done all of this modeling in Excel, I am confident that these calculations could be done in SQL as well. I think that this will address the issues that both the photographer and SmugMug are concerned about.
Hope that helps, now back off to thinking about how to make my first sale....
Actually that changed a couple of years ago, with the introduction of coupons. You are now notified of all sales, with and without profit, and your proof period applies to all except download sales.
ann
Wow... good to know... I have been making my life a lot harder than necessary apparently...
This is also a question, is Smugmug now taking 50 Cents of ever digital download if I set those in addition to the 15% on checkout?
Apparently, yes. (And this little nuance seems to have been lost in the entire price list change)
I price my digital downloads for small races at $4.99 for 1mp images.
I used to make $4.25 per small sale, now I make $3.83.
It would have been one thing to enforce a _minimum_ price (a 4x6 is still only $0.20) but leave it at the old 15/85 split.
And I'd also like to chime in on the Final vs Profit price thing. Some items are very cost sensitive. $4.99 sells a lot better than $5.00. I had to tweak my profit and then use the round up function to get the prices to be $4.99 vs $5.00. If SM decides that the base price of a download is $0.55 then I could be screwed. It would be nice if we could 'lock in' the final price for a price sheet (with the caveat that our profit may go up or down).
And I'd also like to chime in on the Final vs Profit price thing. Some items are very cost sensitive. $4.99 sells a lot better than $5.00. I had to tweak my profit and then use the round up function to get the prices to be $4.99 vs $5.00. If SM decides that the base price of a download is $0.55 then I could be screwed. It would be nice if we could 'lock in' the final price for a price sheet (with the caveat that our profit may go up or down).
So, you could basically lock in the customer's price for a long while if you simply set your profit at $2.98. It is a minimum profit that you are putting in that entry block. The Mug could raise your cost from to about $1.49 before your customer saw an increase.. At $2.98, the customers's price is $4.01 rounded up to $4.99.
So, you could basically lock in the customer's price for a long while if you simply set your profit at $2.98. It is a minimum profit that you are putting in that entry block. The Mug could raise your cost from to about $1.49 before your customer saw an increase.. At $2.98, the customers's price is $4.01 rounded up to $4.99.
Yes, there is always a workaround. But does this advanced math not seem rather convoluted when I could just enter $4.99 into the final price field and be done with it?
Yes, there is always a workaround. But does this advanced math not seem rather convoluted when I could just enter $4.99 into the final price field and be done with it?
Well, you know how your teacher always did say that someday algebra would save your life... At least it didn't need calculus!:D
Yes but the big problem I have is that I forgot how to do basic things like add, subtract, multiply and divide right around the time I figured out infinite series (and once I had that figured out the rest of my college math classes were a cakewalk, so long as I had a calculator) :-)
That's the last column in the product field, "Price". "Base" is the base cost of each item. "Profit" is the minimum profit you will make.
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but the percentage there refers to how much profit is set as compared to the base cost. So 0% is selling with no profit, 100% is selling for as much profit as the base cost, etc. Rounding allows you to make your final prices uniform and customer-friendly. Instead of $2.76, it can be $2.99.
You can also override the values by manually entering whatever minimum profit you want.
Manually enter a higher value into the profit field for those products.
Did you migrate or start over from scratch? If you migrated your pricing, nothing should have changed for your customers. Regardless, you can remove any products either by the 'x' on the Edit page (one at a time), the "Delete" button for any product group (multiple), or even faster by using the "Choose Products" button and the resulting interface.
We used to offer digital downloads, including bulk gallery downloads and videos, at a base cost of $0.00. Unfortunately, that simply wasn't something we could maintain. Many Pros were selling them at $0.00 or $0.01, which means we lost money on every one of those transactions. Credit card fees, zip file creation/storage/distribution, and customer support are not insignificant for those orders, unfortunately. You would be hard-pressed to find digital content on the web for sale for anything less than $0.79, whether it is iOS Apps or MP3's.
So single digital downloads, like a single photo or video, now have a base cost of $0.49. Bulk gallery downloads now have a base cost of $0.99.
I realize change is hard, but I'm hoping you'll give it a chance. I believe that the new system is far more efficient, adaptable, and scalable. It's going to give us a lot more flexibility to improve the variety of products available for sale.
I honestly don't believe that "most pros" would remotely entertain selling digital downloads for $0.00 or $0.01 the majority of the time. This only comes into play when we're contracted to provide digital files for a photo session or special event.
I altered my pricing today and discovered that the downloads section of the price list included a bunch of extra offerings that were all "FREE" because you guys haven't been smart enough to make items we have not set a price on yet default to unavailable.
I'm not a fan of what I've read here or seen on the videos regarding the new price lists. I shouldn't have to spend time on my smugmug pro site figuring out that you're trying to tank my product sales for me in the name of progress.
The primary thing that needs to be done to price lists is make everything default to unavailable until the business owner enters a price and makes the item available for sale.
From what I've seen so far I don't ever want to migrate completely to the new price lists if ever at all. Markup varies wildly from product to product across a complete range of clients.
I'm not interested in having to expand photosizes over and over either. As simple as mousing is, it takes time. It's faster to scroll down, or enter price, tab, enter price, tab, enter price tab.
Statisticians are educated to be good at statistics. That doesn't necessarily translate to being good at business.
I abhorr finding free items on my price list because you've added new items to it and don't have those items default to unavailable until I set a price for them or set it to $0.00 so it's permanently unavailable until I choose to change it.
Yes, there is always a workaround. But does this advanced math not seem rather convoluted when I could just enter $4.99 into the final price field and be done with it?
totally agree with these 2 and also with kdlanejr's above ...
Is there a date set yet for this becoming the ONLY way to set prices????????????????? cause I am not MUCKING (keeping it PG rated here) with profit percentages, I have a little undeer 1 yr before I have to subscribe again and I will start looking to go else where due to this.......
I honestly don't believe that "most pros" would remotely entertain selling digital downloads for $0.00 or $0.01 the majority of the time. This only comes into play when we're contracted to provide digital files for a photo session or special event.
Unfortunately, the data disagrees.
I altered my pricing today and discovered that the downloads section of the price list included a bunch of extra offerings that were all "FREE" because you guys haven't been smart enough to make items we have not set a price on yet default to unavailable.
Pricelists does not add products by default. You choose to add whichever products you want to sell.
I'm not a fan of what I've read here or seen on the videos regarding the new price lists. I shouldn't have to spend time on my smugmug pro site figuring out that you're trying to tank my product sales for me in the name of progress.
The primary thing that needs to be done to price lists is make everything default to unavailable until the business owner enters a price and makes the item available for sale.
Pricelists does that.
From what I've seen so far I don't ever want to migrate completely to the new price lists if ever at all. Markup varies wildly from product to product across a complete range of clients.
I'm not interested in having to expand photosizes over and over either. As simple as mousing is, it takes time. It's faster to scroll down, or enter price, tab, enter price, tab, enter price tab.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, you can click on the 'Products' line and it will open them all up at once. It's not obvious though, so we're likely going to improve the UI in that regard soon.
Statisticians are educated to be good at statistics. That doesn't necessarily translate to being good at business.
I don't know if that's a personal attack on me or not, but I happen to agree with you.
I abhorr finding free items on my price list because you've added new items to it and don't have those items default to unavailable until I set a price for them or set it to $0.00 so it's permanently unavailable until I choose to change it.
Great, then pricelists solves your main complaint about the old pricing system.
Photo download Groupon
Think of the .01 downloads as a Groupon for you business that was amazing for you because, all your money was paid upfront and not through Smugmug costing you nothing. However you are not paying the Credit Card Transaction fee or any of the associated business cost of the 1Cent download Smugmug is. I can completely understand the need to rectify this situation, do I like the prices? Not really but to be honest I am tired of folks taking advantage of people I do business with, my business is based 90% online and the majority of payment through Smugmug, it is important to me.
I want new labs and products for my customers, pricelists are supposed to be the answer for this and we may even get a break on some of the products we sell most and some prices may go higher. I understand that I just want to set a price and not fiddle with things, If my price does not create a profit and I owe Smugmug money then I cannot make that sale and need to be notified. I honestly like all the new stuff on pricelists, have been told I don't change my prices much but with new labs and stuff being added that may change and that is a good thing.
We have beat on the thread for almost a month (not long compared to some topics) on Dgrin and the overriding reaction is we like it but want to set a price and after being asked how by Chris to help everyone has presented some really good ideas to move forward make Smugmugs Pros' Happy. So I am asking where does Smugmug stand on this right now? What's going on and what can we expect?
I
I abhorr finding free items on my price list because you've added new items to it and don't have those items default to unavailable until I set a price for them or set it to $0.00 so it's permanently unavailable until I choose to change it.
Great, then pricelists solves your main complaint about the old pricing system.
Sorry, WHAT?!?!
My understanding of the old system is that any new offering was automatically set to $0.00 to prevent inadvertently selling it at cost.
Too bad SM doesn't take that approach with all new features (square thumbs, facebook, etc through the years) and set them to disabled by default.
My understanding of the old system is that any new offering was automatically set to $0.00 to prevent inadvertently selling it at cost.
Sorry, you're right and my wording was imprecise. A handful of people have reported this happening over the years with the old system. Whether it was a bug or it was just a difficult thing to understand, we're not sure. But we believe that pricelists makes it quite clear: nothing is even listed on your pricelist until you manually choose to add it.
Too bad SM doesn't take that approach with all new features (square thumbs, facebook, etc through the years) and set them to disabled by default.
There are a number of reasons we do it, though we make that decision on a feature by feature basis. There is a fascinating TED talk regarding this kind of decision-making.
Sorry, you're right and my wording was imprecise. A handful of people have reported this happening over the years with the old system. Whether it was a bug or it was just a difficult thing to understand, we're not sure. But we believe that pricelists makes it quite clear: nothing is even listed on your pricelist until you manually choose to add it.
There are a number of reasons we do it, though we make that decision on a feature by feature basis. There is a fascinating TED talk regarding this kind of decision-making.
Is there a fascinating TED Conference video on answering the obvious question of a customer??
We have beat on the thread for almost a month (not long compared to some topics) on Dgrin and the overriding reaction is we like it but want to set a price and after being asked how by Chris to help everyone has presented some really good ideas to move forward make Smugmugs Pros' Happy. So I am asking where does Smugmug stand on this right now? What's going on and what can we expect?
I can dream right? I figure if I keep asking enough it might happen..
Don't get me wrong, (constantly) reminding them how you (me too!) want it to work is important.
Just don't expect to know about the change until after it's released.
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited January 13, 2012
Hey everyone,
Thanks for all the feedback. We've actually been closely monitoring this thread, but naturally we're also closely watching the help desk, pros who visit, ones we see at SMUGs, ones we call, etc.
So far about 10,000 pros have converted, a very small fraction of the overall, but it's giving us some sense of the pain points and good parts.
My stomach actually dropped a little when I saw the suggestions that we email everyone when/if there is ever a price change on a product. Reason being, a really good response rate if we did everything well would be 15% on a request like that (the open rate could be as high as 50%), which leaves a staggering number of pros who we wouldn't be able to reach.
It really killed us when we had to change our IP address so Akamai could do its magic of delivering photos and videos faster than we could, and there were thousands of pros in the end we never could reach.
I know....it's a major bummer for everyone on this thread because you are the responsive ones and it's hard to imagine pros not like you. The hardest news of all, at least from my perspective, is the highest volume pros are the least responsive. They're great, wonderful photographers, but they just keep telling us, "We're busy shooting! Just make it so we don't have to go fiddle with something."
Perhaps I've made a mountain of a molehill mentioning that sometimes we have to change prices, because it happens so rarely and so far not with mainstream products like 8x10 prints.
But we had hoped to introduce more vendors and a lot more products and options, and the problem is how to make available new exotic finishes or specialty frames when the vendor can't guarantee the price won't rise in the forseeable future. The feedback we had always gotten was "go ahead and offer them but protect our profit if you must change price for some reason."
We've bandied about the idea of providing the option to enter price or profit, but if I'm understanding what I'm reading here and the price can never change without either permission or pros not reading their email (we'd get shot in the street for that option), that would make a difference in how many new product options we could offer.
So, we're still mulling and talking, partly because we're trying to get a handle on where suppliers stand with product pricing for the stuff we have in mind.
Thanks for all the feedback. We've actually been closely monitoring this thread, but naturally we're also closely watching the help desk, pros who visit, ones we see at SMUGs, ones we call, etc.
So far about 10,000 pros have converted, a very small fraction of the overall, but it's giving us some sense of the pain points and good parts.
My stomach actually dropped a little when I saw the suggestions that we email everyone when/if there is ever a price change on a product. Reason being, a really good response rate if we did everything well would be 15% on a request like that (the open rate could be as high as 50%), which leaves a staggering number of pros who we wouldn't be able to reach.
It really killed us when we had to change our IP address so Akamai could do its magic of delivering photos and videos faster than we could, and there were thousands of pros in the end we never could reach.
I know....it's a major bummer for everyone on this thread because you are the responsive ones and it's hard to imagine pros not like you. The hardest news of all, at least from my perspective, is the highest volume pros are the least responsive. They're great, wonderful photographers, but they just keep telling us, "We're busy shooting! Just make it so we don't have to go fiddle with something."
Perhaps I've made a mountain of a molehill mentioning that sometimes we have to change prices, because it happens so rarely and so far not with mainstream products like 8x10 prints.
But we had hoped to introduce more vendors and a lot more products and options, and the problem is how to make available new exotic finishes or specialty frames when the vendor can't guarantee the price won't rise in the forseeable future. The feedback we had always gotten was "go ahead and offer them but protect our profit if you must change price for some reason."
We've bandied about the idea of providing the option to enter price or profit, but if I'm understanding what I'm reading here and the price can never change without either permission or pros not reading their email (we'd get shot in the street for that option), that would make a difference in how many new product options we could offer.
So, we're still mulling and talking, partly because we're trying to get a handle on where suppliers stand with product pricing for the stuff we have in mind.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
the 10k that have converted are the ones that NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO will follow you and kiss your feet no matter what....and as you said that is a pittance of the pro users...that should tell you that the larger group of us DO NOT WANT THIS CRAP...
"just make it so we don't have to fiddle...." .... FREAKING EXACTLY..GET RID OF THE PERCENTAGE CRAP AND KEEP PRICES..SOLID & EASY TO ADD PRICES...NO MUCKING AROUND...ENTER AND IT IS DONE.
I SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE THE TIME TO SCREW WITH THE PERCENTAGE CRAP...YOU HAVE TO MUCK AND PLAY AND MUCK TO GET THE CORRECT PERCENTAGE POINT TO GET THE EXACT PRICE YOU WANT....I DO NOT NEED ANY MORE STRESS IN MY LIFE...AS I HAVE SAID.....I WILL BE LOOKING TO GO ELSE WHERE ... IF THE PERCENTAGE PRICE POINT CRAP IS THE ONLY OPTION...I SIMPLY WILL NOT MUCK WITH IT....
I know....it's a major bummer for everyone on this thread because you are the responsive ones and it's hard to imagine pros not like you. The hardest news of all, at least from my perspective, is the highest volume pros are the least responsive. They're great, wonderful photographers, but they just keep telling us, "We're busy shooting! Just make it so we don't have to go fiddle with something."
Perhaps I've made a mountain of a molehill mentioning that sometimes we have to change prices, because it happens so rarely and so far not with mainstream products like 8x10 prints.
But we had hoped to introduce more vendors and a lot more products and options, and the problem is how to make available new exotic finishes or specialty frames when the vendor can't guarantee the price won't rise in the forseeable future. The feedback we had always gotten was "go ahead and offer them but protect our profit if you must change price for some reason."
We've bandied about the idea of providing the option to enter price or profit, but if I'm understanding what I'm reading here and the price can never change without either permission or pros not reading their email (we'd get shot in the street for that option), that would make a difference in how many new product options we could offer.
So, we're still mulling and talking, partly because we're trying to get a handle on where suppliers stand with product pricing for the stuff we have in mind.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
Thanks Baldy. I have just a couple quick comments.
What would be the issue offering an opt-in to one system or the other? Or (probably harder) doing it on a pricelist by pricelist basis.
Pros who want fixed pricing (like me) will have to accept that profit will fluctuate if/when base pricing changes (rarely according to most Heroes). Maybe have a second option to select what happens in the case of negative profit. Either charge the Pro for the difference or temporarily suspend availability of the product(s). You already have the ability to disable products based on minimum resolution requirements, surely adding a second check for profit wouldn't be too difficult.
Pros who want a guaranteed profit margin will have to accept fluctuating prices without worrying about negative profits.
All this talk about Pros saying "We're busy shooting! Just make it so we don't have to go fiddle with something." is silly to quote in the same message as your statement "But we had hoped to introduce more vendors and a lot more products and options" since these Pros will need to "fiddle" with their prices to make the new products/options available. I can't imagine there are many Pros who would be willing to set an arbitrary profit percentage and then say "Go ahead and offer every new product that becomes available as long as I make XXX percent profit".
From what I've seen in this thread products will continue to be unavailable until the Pro comes and explicitly sets a price (or now a profit margin). Or have I got that wrong?
My stomach actually dropped a little when I saw the suggestions that we email everyone when/if there is ever a price change on a product. Reason being, a really good response rate if we did everything well would be 15% on a request like that (the open rate could be as high as 50%), which leaves a staggering number of pros who we wouldn't be able to reach.
But we had hoped to introduce more vendors and a lot more products and options, and the problem is how to make available new exotic finishes or specialty frames when the vendor can't guarantee the price won't rise in the forseeable future. The feedback we had always gotten was "go ahead and offer them but protect our profit if you must change price for some reason."
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
Baldy,
Thanks for your reply, I pointed to these two paragraphs and have a few observations. Do the pro's always pay attention to their 1099, profit payment and proof delay emails? I am sure you get a better reply than 15% on those every time. I am busting my butt trying to run a business making pictures and Smugmug is a huge part of this, I however have to make an effort pay attention to what is going on. Can you not just make a product that is on a Pro's pricelist that is under profit and will cost them money unavailable to be sold and send an email to them. You rely on it for the other stuff I mentioned above and I am sure it works..
I know that Smugmug has not changed their pricing for 9 years and that is awesome but, I also know you are trying to add some amazing products to the Pro category. We sign up for our account year to year or even month to month. There is a user agreement associated with that should state Smugmug may change prices etc and you will be notified and if your price will not produce a profit based on changes and can't be sold until you change your price. Why do the pros that pay attention to their business have to be at the mercy of those that don't?
I would also love to show up at your office and talk or at a SMUG to let everyone know what is going on. I live in Orlando and the 1st SMUG in Tampa was changed to a time I could not make and the next never happened. Jacksonville happens every so often but, Central Florida is huge you need to find have a SMUG here to it would cover a large amount of photogs..
Comments
"From Gallery BlahBlah (and two others..)"
So I went to that labeled gallery "BlahBlah" and made sure that it picked up my new default pricelist once deleted. It did pick up my new default pricelist, which is the good news...
But, my specific question is, how do I figure out which galleries those "two others" might have been?
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
To check what galleries are assigned to a pricelist, edit the pricelist in question and click on the number shown for galleries or photos. That would open the gallery / photo picker. In the top right, you'll find the "selected" button that'll reveal which galleries or photos have the pricelist applied.
SmugMug Support Hero
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
http://www.facebook.com/rt2photo
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
Ok, off to rebuild that price list then! thanks
http://www.facebook.com/rt2photo
I have been watching this thread for a few days now and after trying to set my own prices, I now believe I understand the conflicting issues that are arising. The photographer wants to set their price and not have it change without their knowledge; SmugMug wants to be able to react to price changes from their suppliers as appropriate. I don’t think either wants to deal with an end customer that ordered a print on Tuesday that was one price and goes to order a second copy on Wednesday and it is a different amount. This situation is very similar to the challenges being dealt with in other industries, the cost of parts changes but one cannot change prices daily despite that is how quickly things fluctuate. There is a solution I believe that will match both people’s need through the introduction of a third value in the data set, minimum profit.
I did some modeling in Excel and found that this approach would meet my desire as a photographer to have a consistent price and meet SmugMug’s need to be able to adjust for varying prices. The photographer gets to set the current markup, as well as the minimum profit that is acceptable. If one wants a formula can even be created that would suggest a new price for the photographer.
Currently the way the system works, the photographer places in a “Profit” of a certain percentage, I think the better term would be “Markup” as the percentage is actually a gross amount not accounting for cost of sales or the other items in a successful business. From that Markup Value and the Cost (Base Price) the selling price is calculated. The formula for this calculation is Selling Price = ((Desired Profit* Base Price)/0.85)+Base Price. After that calculation is run the photographer can set a round up amount, with the additional profit going to the photographer.
If there is a small change in the Base Price the rounding can mask the price from changing to the end customer. This rounding also means that the amount of markup delivered to the photographer does not match the percentage entered into the pricing tool. However as long as the profit delivered is greater than the desired profit percentage entered into the pricing typically no one will complain and everyone will be happy.
If one continues that approach instead by setting a minimum markup as long as the increase of the print cost does not cause the markup to drop below the desired amount, no one will complain. However if the amount of markup does drop below the desired amount an e-mail alert can be sent and if desired a new price be put in place.
Allow me to illustrate:
That is the way things would work currently. A change of up to 36.8% does not change the price, but that is due to the ratio of base values to the amount added during rounding.
At the higher value prints this change is not as forgiving as the rounding amount is not as great. That is where the setting of the end user price might be desired as long as the value doesn’t change.
For a more expensive print, let’s run the same process:
If the process is changes and the photographer sets two values, End User Price and Markup Threshold. The variances can be just as wide, but since the rounding amount can be set by the photographer the impact of small changes on large dollar items will be reduced. The default values of the End User Price and the Markup Threshold can be pre filled based on a markup percentage if desired.
Allow me to run the same example:
I have done all of this modeling in Excel, I am confident that these calculations could be done in SQL as well. I think that this will address the issues that both the photographer and SmugMug are concerned about.
Hope that helps, now back off to thinking about how to make my first sale....
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Wow... good to know... I have been making my life a lot harder than necessary apparently...
Time to change the help page?
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Apparently, yes. (And this little nuance seems to have been lost in the entire price list change)
I price my digital downloads for small races at $4.99 for 1mp images.
I used to make $4.25 per small sale, now I make $3.83.
It would have been one thing to enforce a _minimum_ price (a 4x6 is still only $0.20) but leave it at the old 15/85 split.
And I'd also like to chime in on the Final vs Profit price thing. Some items are very cost sensitive. $4.99 sells a lot better than $5.00. I had to tweak my profit and then use the round up function to get the prices to be $4.99 vs $5.00. If SM decides that the base price of a download is $0.55 then I could be screwed. It would be nice if we could 'lock in' the final price for a price sheet (with the caveat that our profit may go up or down).
So, you could basically lock in the customer's price for a long while if you simply set your profit at $2.98. It is a minimum profit that you are putting in that entry block. The Mug could raise your cost from to about $1.49 before your customer saw an increase.. At $2.98, the customers's price is $4.01 rounded up to $4.99.
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and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
Yes, there is always a workaround. But does this advanced math not seem rather convoluted when I could just enter $4.99 into the final price field and be done with it?
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www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
Yes but the big problem I have is that I forgot how to do basic things like add, subtract, multiply and divide right around the time I figured out infinite series (and once I had that figured out the rest of my college math classes were a cakewalk, so long as I had a calculator) :-)
I honestly don't believe that "most pros" would remotely entertain selling digital downloads for $0.00 or $0.01 the majority of the time. This only comes into play when we're contracted to provide digital files for a photo session or special event.
I altered my pricing today and discovered that the downloads section of the price list included a bunch of extra offerings that were all "FREE" because you guys haven't been smart enough to make items we have not set a price on yet default to unavailable.
I'm not a fan of what I've read here or seen on the videos regarding the new price lists. I shouldn't have to spend time on my smugmug pro site figuring out that you're trying to tank my product sales for me in the name of progress.
The primary thing that needs to be done to price lists is make everything default to unavailable until the business owner enters a price and makes the item available for sale.
From what I've seen so far I don't ever want to migrate completely to the new price lists if ever at all. Markup varies wildly from product to product across a complete range of clients.
I'm not interested in having to expand photosizes over and over either. As simple as mousing is, it takes time. It's faster to scroll down, or enter price, tab, enter price, tab, enter price tab.
Statisticians are educated to be good at statistics. That doesn't necessarily translate to being good at business.
I abhorr finding free items on my price list because you've added new items to it and don't have those items default to unavailable until I set a price for them or set it to $0.00 so it's permanently unavailable until I choose to change it.
totally agree with these 2 and also with kdlanejr's above ...
Is there a date set yet for this becoming the ONLY way to set prices????????????????? cause I am not MUCKING (keeping it PG rated here) with profit percentages, I have a little undeer 1 yr before I have to subscribe again and I will start looking to go else where due to this.......
Please do the math for us. Let us put in the price we want to charge, and Smugmug figures out what that profit amounts to for each product.
Jason Scott Photography | Blog | FB | Twitter | Google+ | Tumblr | Instagram | YouTube
Unfortunately, the data disagrees.
Pricelists does not add products by default. You choose to add whichever products you want to sell.
Pricelists does that.
As mentioned earlier in this thread, you can click on the 'Products' line and it will open them all up at once. It's not obvious though, so we're likely going to improve the UI in that regard soon.
I don't know if that's a personal attack on me or not, but I happen to agree with you.
Great, then pricelists solves your main complaint about the old pricing system.
Think of the .01 downloads as a Groupon for you business that was amazing for you because, all your money was paid upfront and not through Smugmug costing you nothing. However you are not paying the Credit Card Transaction fee or any of the associated business cost of the 1Cent download Smugmug is. I can completely understand the need to rectify this situation, do I like the prices? Not really but to be honest I am tired of folks taking advantage of people I do business with, my business is based 90% online and the majority of payment through Smugmug, it is important to me.
I want new labs and products for my customers, pricelists are supposed to be the answer for this and we may even get a break on some of the products we sell most and some prices may go higher. I understand that I just want to set a price and not fiddle with things, If my price does not create a profit and I owe Smugmug money then I cannot make that sale and need to be notified. I honestly like all the new stuff on pricelists, have been told I don't change my prices much but with new labs and stuff being added that may change and that is a good thing.
We have beat on the thread for almost a month (not long compared to some topics) on Dgrin and the overriding reaction is we like it but want to set a price and after being asked how by Chris to help everyone has presented some really good ideas to move forward make Smugmugs Pros' Happy. So I am asking where does Smugmug stand on this right now? What's going on and what can we expect?
Thanks,
www.phabulousphotos.com
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Sorry, WHAT?!?!
My understanding of the old system is that any new offering was automatically set to $0.00 to prevent inadvertently selling it at cost.
Too bad SM doesn't take that approach with all new features (square thumbs, facebook, etc through the years) and set them to disabled by default.
Sorry, you're right and my wording was imprecise. A handful of people have reported this happening over the years with the old system. Whether it was a bug or it was just a difficult thing to understand, we're not sure. But we believe that pricelists makes it quite clear: nothing is even listed on your pricelist until you manually choose to add it.
There are a number of reasons we do it, though we make that decision on a feature by feature basis. There is a fascinating TED talk regarding this kind of decision-making.
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Is there a fascinating TED Conference video on answering the obvious question of a customer??
We have beat on the thread for almost a month (not long compared to some topics) on Dgrin and the overriding reaction is we like it but want to set a price and after being asked how by Chris to help everyone has presented some really good ideas to move forward make Smugmugs Pros' Happy. So I am asking where does Smugmug stand on this right now? What's going on and what can we expect?
Thanks,
www.phabulousphotos.com
Sportsshooter.com Member
http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=10162
Good luck.
Andy's mantra on this one is that SM doesn't discuss future plans or timing.
I can dream right? I figure if I keep asking enough it might happen..
www.phabulousphotos.com
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Don't get me wrong, (constantly) reminding them how you (me too!) want it to work is important.
Just don't expect to know about the change until after it's released.
Thanks for all the feedback. We've actually been closely monitoring this thread, but naturally we're also closely watching the help desk, pros who visit, ones we see at SMUGs, ones we call, etc.
So far about 10,000 pros have converted, a very small fraction of the overall, but it's giving us some sense of the pain points and good parts.
My stomach actually dropped a little when I saw the suggestions that we email everyone when/if there is ever a price change on a product. Reason being, a really good response rate if we did everything well would be 15% on a request like that (the open rate could be as high as 50%), which leaves a staggering number of pros who we wouldn't be able to reach.
It really killed us when we had to change our IP address so Akamai could do its magic of delivering photos and videos faster than we could, and there were thousands of pros in the end we never could reach.
I know....it's a major bummer for everyone on this thread because you are the responsive ones and it's hard to imagine pros not like you. The hardest news of all, at least from my perspective, is the highest volume pros are the least responsive. They're great, wonderful photographers, but they just keep telling us, "We're busy shooting! Just make it so we don't have to go fiddle with something."
Perhaps I've made a mountain of a molehill mentioning that sometimes we have to change prices, because it happens so rarely and so far not with mainstream products like 8x10 prints.
But we had hoped to introduce more vendors and a lot more products and options, and the problem is how to make available new exotic finishes or specialty frames when the vendor can't guarantee the price won't rise in the forseeable future. The feedback we had always gotten was "go ahead and offer them but protect our profit if you must change price for some reason."
We've bandied about the idea of providing the option to enter price or profit, but if I'm understanding what I'm reading here and the price can never change without either permission or pros not reading their email (we'd get shot in the street for that option), that would make a difference in how many new product options we could offer.
So, we're still mulling and talking, partly because we're trying to get a handle on where suppliers stand with product pricing for the stuff we have in mind.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
the 10k that have converted are the ones that NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO will follow you and kiss your feet no matter what....and as you said that is a pittance of the pro users...that should tell you that the larger group of us DO NOT WANT THIS CRAP...
"just make it so we don't have to fiddle...." .... FREAKING EXACTLY..GET RID OF THE PERCENTAGE CRAP AND KEEP PRICES..SOLID & EASY TO ADD PRICES...NO MUCKING AROUND...ENTER AND IT IS DONE.
I SIMPLY DO NOT HAVE THE TIME TO SCREW WITH THE PERCENTAGE CRAP...YOU HAVE TO MUCK AND PLAY AND MUCK TO GET THE CORRECT PERCENTAGE POINT TO GET THE EXACT PRICE YOU WANT....I DO NOT NEED ANY MORE STRESS IN MY LIFE...AS I HAVE SAID.....I WILL BE LOOKING TO GO ELSE WHERE ... IF THE PERCENTAGE PRICE POINT CRAP IS THE ONLY OPTION...I SIMPLY WILL NOT MUCK WITH IT....
Thanks Baldy. I have just a couple quick comments.
What would be the issue offering an opt-in to one system or the other? Or (probably harder) doing it on a pricelist by pricelist basis.
Pros who want fixed pricing (like me) will have to accept that profit will fluctuate if/when base pricing changes (rarely according to most Heroes). Maybe have a second option to select what happens in the case of negative profit. Either charge the Pro for the difference or temporarily suspend availability of the product(s). You already have the ability to disable products based on minimum resolution requirements, surely adding a second check for profit wouldn't be too difficult.
Pros who want a guaranteed profit margin will have to accept fluctuating prices without worrying about negative profits.
All this talk about Pros saying "We're busy shooting! Just make it so we don't have to go fiddle with something." is silly to quote in the same message as your statement "But we had hoped to introduce more vendors and a lot more products and options" since these Pros will need to "fiddle" with their prices to make the new products/options available. I can't imagine there are many Pros who would be willing to set an arbitrary profit percentage and then say "Go ahead and offer every new product that becomes available as long as I make XXX percent profit".
From what I've seen in this thread products will continue to be unavailable until the Pro comes and explicitly sets a price (or now a profit margin). Or have I got that wrong?
Baldy,
Thanks for your reply, I pointed to these two paragraphs and have a few observations. Do the pro's always pay attention to their 1099, profit payment and proof delay emails? I am sure you get a better reply than 15% on those every time. I am busting my butt trying to run a business making pictures and Smugmug is a huge part of this, I however have to make an effort pay attention to what is going on. Can you not just make a product that is on a Pro's pricelist that is under profit and will cost them money unavailable to be sold and send an email to them. You rely on it for the other stuff I mentioned above and I am sure it works..
I know that Smugmug has not changed their pricing for 9 years and that is awesome but, I also know you are trying to add some amazing products to the Pro category. We sign up for our account year to year or even month to month. There is a user agreement associated with that should state Smugmug may change prices etc and you will be notified and if your price will not produce a profit based on changes and can't be sold until you change your price. Why do the pros that pay attention to their business have to be at the mercy of those that don't?
I would also love to show up at your office and talk or at a SMUG to let everyone know what is going on. I live in Orlando and the 1st SMUG in Tampa was changed to a time I could not make and the next never happened. Jacksonville happens every so often but, Central Florida is huge you need to find have a SMUG here to it would cover a large amount of photogs..
Thanks for your time,
www.phabulousphotos.com
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