I never stop learning in this game.
Glort
Registered Users Posts: 1,015 Major grins
Last week at the gig we were doing, the girls found that they got a fair bit of flack from telling people that an image on CD was $35. They all seemed to think it should cost next to nothing and made out we were crooks.
When I went out and bought some 4G USB drives and added the $4 odd price to the cost and made it $40, people were actually excited and we didn't have so much as a hesitation at the price.
Go Figure.
On the weekend I had my best ever sales days breaking all previous records. I think in a reasonable part, this was due to another change one of my girls implemented.
We were selling 8x12 sheets with multiple size prints ( like a school pic layout) for $25 and again getting some flack. We had 2 Multiple print sheets and a full size print, all of the one image.
We also had a 3 8x12 sheet pack for $35 which was the 2 multi pic sheets and an A4.
These went OK with some places making them the best sellers and others about 50% of our overall product sales.
Due to a Glitch ( She accidentally deleted the action for one of the multi layouts) my sales girl had the good sense and initiative ( I so love her for the way she repeatedly thinks on her feet and takes action) to have a look in the printer software and see there was a layout for 2x 6x8 images on a page.
She decided substitute this into the full package and to price it on it's own at $30 because a lot of people have 2 kids and would buy the one sheet instead of 2 of the old layout.
We did get a lot of people saying they just wanted one pic not a few of the same so this served that need as well.
It took about an hour to see this layout was a real winner and ended up being the most popular product purchased over the remaining 3 days we were at the gig. Rather than loose revenue, I feel we have gained more because with the old layout people were hesitant to buy one of each kid, even at the discounted price we offered as a family discount.
We seemed to get a fair few walk aways obviously because of the price ( they loved the pics right up till the "How much ?" question.)
With this layout, it's much more justifiable for them at $15 ea for a large print and the people that just have the one kid are happy to take 2 copys of the same as it's easy to find someone to give it to or for dad to take to work etc.
It's been very apparent that price NOR product is the issue, it's how you package and present it.
I would have not thought that this would be the case to this extent but I have now Very successfully field proven it.
I'm going to have a look at my other offerings over Christmas and work on the branding and presentation over all. It will be difficult to 2nd guess what the clients want or will sell best without testing but I think we have got the tuning pretty close for the moment.
I was looking at the local shopping centre at the Santa photos. They have things nicely built into rolling cases which is something I'd like to do for my setup as well. I was checking out their price list and came away thinking I wouldn't like to be doing what they are. They offer a LOT of stuff for the $50 top package. There was 6x4 and 6x8 prints, Bookmarks??, a calendar, 8x12, wallets, gift tags???, image on cd and a couple of other things I can't remember.
They print on Sony Dye subs and the media here is not cheap on those things.
Add in the cost of the elaborate packaging, santa and his 3 "elves", the $5k a week Min the shopping centre would be charging them and I'll stick to my tidly wink biz thanks very much.
I guess if you are the parent company and have paid the gear off over a few years and use it for other things now and then as well, If you only make $1-2K a week and have 20 sites, your having a good week every week. For me though it would be a lot of investment and hassel for what I would regard as a fairly low return for what was involved.
I noticed they are only charging $22.95 for 2 6x8'xs on a page so I am doing well getting $30 as a best selling product that seems to have little to no resistance.
I want to als have a think abut some other things we could offer that are easy and quick to produce and don't interfere with our customer flow or other products.
When I went out and bought some 4G USB drives and added the $4 odd price to the cost and made it $40, people were actually excited and we didn't have so much as a hesitation at the price.
Go Figure.
On the weekend I had my best ever sales days breaking all previous records. I think in a reasonable part, this was due to another change one of my girls implemented.
We were selling 8x12 sheets with multiple size prints ( like a school pic layout) for $25 and again getting some flack. We had 2 Multiple print sheets and a full size print, all of the one image.
We also had a 3 8x12 sheet pack for $35 which was the 2 multi pic sheets and an A4.
These went OK with some places making them the best sellers and others about 50% of our overall product sales.
Due to a Glitch ( She accidentally deleted the action for one of the multi layouts) my sales girl had the good sense and initiative ( I so love her for the way she repeatedly thinks on her feet and takes action) to have a look in the printer software and see there was a layout for 2x 6x8 images on a page.
She decided substitute this into the full package and to price it on it's own at $30 because a lot of people have 2 kids and would buy the one sheet instead of 2 of the old layout.
We did get a lot of people saying they just wanted one pic not a few of the same so this served that need as well.
It took about an hour to see this layout was a real winner and ended up being the most popular product purchased over the remaining 3 days we were at the gig. Rather than loose revenue, I feel we have gained more because with the old layout people were hesitant to buy one of each kid, even at the discounted price we offered as a family discount.
We seemed to get a fair few walk aways obviously because of the price ( they loved the pics right up till the "How much ?" question.)
With this layout, it's much more justifiable for them at $15 ea for a large print and the people that just have the one kid are happy to take 2 copys of the same as it's easy to find someone to give it to or for dad to take to work etc.
It's been very apparent that price NOR product is the issue, it's how you package and present it.
I would have not thought that this would be the case to this extent but I have now Very successfully field proven it.
I'm going to have a look at my other offerings over Christmas and work on the branding and presentation over all. It will be difficult to 2nd guess what the clients want or will sell best without testing but I think we have got the tuning pretty close for the moment.
I was looking at the local shopping centre at the Santa photos. They have things nicely built into rolling cases which is something I'd like to do for my setup as well. I was checking out their price list and came away thinking I wouldn't like to be doing what they are. They offer a LOT of stuff for the $50 top package. There was 6x4 and 6x8 prints, Bookmarks??, a calendar, 8x12, wallets, gift tags???, image on cd and a couple of other things I can't remember.
They print on Sony Dye subs and the media here is not cheap on those things.
Add in the cost of the elaborate packaging, santa and his 3 "elves", the $5k a week Min the shopping centre would be charging them and I'll stick to my tidly wink biz thanks very much.
I guess if you are the parent company and have paid the gear off over a few years and use it for other things now and then as well, If you only make $1-2K a week and have 20 sites, your having a good week every week. For me though it would be a lot of investment and hassel for what I would regard as a fairly low return for what was involved.
I noticed they are only charging $22.95 for 2 6x8'xs on a page so I am doing well getting $30 as a best selling product that seems to have little to no resistance.
I want to als have a think abut some other things we could offer that are easy and quick to produce and don't interfere with our customer flow or other products.
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One thing that has been obvious is the variation in attutides toward price and it's been completely backwards. I now check places out with a view to the carpark criteria as I call it. IF it's full of Mercs, Audis, Range Rovers, BMW's etc, I get worried. History shows in the better areas people bitch more about price and are far harder to deal with wanting discounts etc.
IF the carpark is full of Holdens, Fords, Toyota's, Subarus, we normally do better and the people are actually appreciative and spend more and easier. It sounds like some sort of feel good urban myth for the under dogs to justify themselves against the rich but so far it's held 110% true for us.
I think the people in the more expensive areas have the better incomes, I also think they have much less DISPOSABLE income and that dosen't work well for us.
one thing we get a lot of in the Exy areas is the clients wanting to see multiple pics of their kids. They tend to be dis satisfied if you only show them one. Thing is when you do show multiples, They procrastinate for long times and slow things down and it's near impossible to sell them more than one pic anyway and the sales are no better than if you only show one pic in the first place.
The only advantage we get is if the kid came out gumby in the first pic an you have another, you have a chance of a 2nd bite at the sale.
That's the theroy, in practice we find if the kid looks gumby in one shot they will look gumby and still manage to close eyes, look away, pull a stupid face etc no matter how many pics you take or how many tries you have telling them in between what to do.
Some kids are legends and some really are completely and utterly stupid.
Some will go first in the groups and be perfect and others will watch 5 kids go before them and then either ask what they are supposed to do or do something inexplicable that makes even the other kids watching bewildered.
I shoot a fair few special needs kids and they are the best of all to shoot. All of them have their individual proclivities but far and away they are the best to work with and produce the best pics by far.
The parents are thankful for anything you do, buy heaps and its just plain rewarding to work with them and their kids. I'd be happy to shoot the special needs kids all day every day.
Maybe I should try and adapt at least 2 Package sets and maybe pricing Schedules. The one for the better areaa's will be more exy not to take advantage of them but to compensate us for them being so much harder and more stressful to deal with.
I think there's plenty data that suggests the rich got and stay rich by holding onto their money, hence they're not afraid to dicker or browbeat.
That is exactly correct. "Nobody ever got rich by spending money". The more they have, the tighter the pocket, because otherwise they'd have less.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Blatantly exaggerated!
All those rich privileged folks in Washington DC "elected officials" got rich by spending!!
OK, OK you don't get rich by spending your own money, but you sure can strike pay dirt spending other peoples money.
Sam