Notification of photo sales

cmason

I am a smugmug standard user. I bought my account to share photos with friends and family. Of course, as a hobby, photography gets expensive, so the ability to sell a few photos is appealing. But, at this point, I am not committing an extra $110 a year to that notion (getting a pro acct).

However, I would like to know if people actually buy photos of my shots. If this happens often enough, I would consider upgrading to a pro account and makeing a few pennies for myself. Surely there is a record, somewhere, of my photo being ordered. Can I have a comment, or message delivered telling me a photo was ordered? I don't need to know who or anything, just alerted to it happening (I am sure this has not happened yet).

What about downloads? I realize that it is impossible to tell whether someone downloads vs just clicks and views on an image, so maybe this one is technically not possible. But how about a message if anyone downloads a photo from my site. Is this possible? While I don't expect to know who did it, it would be good to know it happened, at least to understand if I may have a copyright issue.

Andy

cmason wrote:

I am a smugmug standard user. I bought my account to share photos with friends and family. Of course, as a hobby, photography gets expensive, so the ability to sell a few photos is appealing. But, at this point, I am not committing an extra $110 a year to that notion (getting a pro acct).

However, I would like to know if people actually buy photos of my shots. If this happens often enough, I would consider upgrading to a pro account and makeing a few pennies for myself. Surely there is a record, somewhere, of my photo being ordered. Can I have a comment, or message delivered telling me a photo was ordered? I don't need to know who or anything, just alerted to it happening (I am sure this has not happened yet).

What about downloads? I realize that it is impossible to tell whether someone downloads vs just clicks and views on an image, so maybe this one is technically not possible. But how about a message if anyone downloads a photo from my site. Is this possible? While I don't expect to know who did it, it would be good to know it happened, at least to understand if I may have a copyright issue.

Hi, thanks for posting. Sales reporting is only available to Pro subscribers. As to downloads, we don't have any reporting on that, I'm sorry.

I wish I had a better answer for you.

All the best,

Andy

cmason

Andy wrote:

Hi, thanks for posting. Sales reporting is only available to Pro subscribers. As to downloads, we don't have any reporting on that, I'm sorry.
Andy

Thanks Andy...just to clarify...I am not asking for a sales report (I am not selling anything). Just a notification that a picture was purchased.

Andy

cmason wrote:

Thanks Andy...just to clarify...I am not asking for a sales report (I am not selling anything). Just a notification that a picture was purchased.

OK thanks! We don't offer any reporting or notification on sales for non-pro subscribers.

Cindy

Just throwing in 1-2 cents :-)

Last night I uploaded a huge sports gallery to offer free downloads and reduced print prices mostly of images that I would have normally deleted (I was testing a lens & practicing various settings... the results were mostly sad I thought - lol - but I know my customers would be pleased to have them regardless. I'm hoping offering the free downloads will increase some 'potentail' customer traffic - besides reaching current customers, that evenings alumni game represented 100's of people I've not seen in years &/or knew how to reach. I doubt they'd buy them but I'm sure they'll be happy to have them for free : I allmost always give customers free bonus prints when I fill their orders which surprizes them but gets me tons of referrals

Anyhow... I'm rambling - I intended to find out today if tracking downloads is possible or not. I see it's not for non-pro accounts but there anyway for pro accounts to track downloads? The number of downloads per each image not who downloaded. I don't think a site counter would be able to report this... but maybe so??? comments? Anyhow if it's not possible this would be a really cool feature to add on. Maybe even add the ability to display how many times the photo has been downloaded (shared, etc)

Edit - forgot to add: If e-mail notification of all sales (pro &/or non-pro) isn't possible a display area near keywords revealing # of times this photo has sold &/or downloaded... cool thought to consider. Pro's could choose if this info is displayed or not... Just a thought.

Thanks for reading,

Andy

Cindy wrote:

Just throwing in 1-2 cents :-)

Last night I uploaded a huge sports gallery to offer free downloads and reduced print prices mostly of images that I would have normally deleted (I was testing a lens & practicing various settings... the results were mostly sad I thought - lol - but I know my customers would be pleased to have them regardless. I'm hoping offering the free downloads will increase some 'potentail' customer traffic - besides reaching current customers, that evenings alumni game represented 100's of people I've not seen in years &/or knew how to reach. I doubt they'd buy them but I'm sure they'll be happy to have them for free : I allmost always give customers free bonus prints when I fill their orders which surprizes them but gets me tons of referrals

Anyhow... I'm rambling - I intended to find out today if tracking downloads is possible or not. I see it's not for non-pro accounts but there anyway for pro accounts to track downloads? The number of downloads per each image not who downloaded. I don't think a site counter would be able to report this... but maybe so??? comments? Anyhow if it's not possible this would be a really cool feature to add on. Maybe even add the ability to display how many times the photo has been downloaded (shared, etc)

Edit - forgot to add: If e-mail notification of all sales (pro &/or non-pro) isn't possible a display area near keywords revealing # of times this photo has sold &/or downloaded... cool thought to consider. Pro's could choose if this info is displayed or not... Just a thought.

Thanks for reading,

It's not a feature we have for anyone, Cindy. Thanks for asking though.

As to the "freebie" have you tried this technique?

http://blogs.smugmug.com/pros/2005/11/30/event-shooters-dont-forget-the-amuse-bouche/

Cindy

features & freebies

Andy wrote:

It's not a feature we have for anyone, Cindy. Thanks for asking though.

As to the "freebie" have you tried this technique?

http://blogs.smugmug.com/pros/2005/11/30/event-shooters-dont-forget-the-amuse-bouche/

Features: Will smugmug consider adding this in the future or something that worked similar to it? I have no idea how much 'chit chat' has been knocked around regarding this, but I really think it would be a nice add-on feature as well as a great marketing research tool for both pros & smugmugs 'thinking about it' pro accounts as well.

Freebies: :-) Thanks. I'd read that and no hadn't tried it yet but that's similar to what I hope to do. Maybe not from every event... not sure. I'm thinking along the lines of offering free desktop wallpaper from each event (a collage of sorts) with my contact info and web address on it If they use it, it would be a visual reminder to keep bringing them back. Lots of monitor sizes to deal with though so... not sure how time consuming this would become. I personally don't use wallpaper but my kids and most family members love it. Thoughts anyone? The ability to see how many people downloaded the wallpaper would be way cool

Thanks again,

Andy

Cindy wrote:

Features: Will smugmug consider adding this in the future or something that worked similar to it? I have no idea how much 'chit chat' has been knocked around regarding this, but I really think it would be a nice add-on feature as well as a great marketing research tool for both pros & smugmugs 'thinking about it' pro accounts as well.

Anything's possible - but I think this would be farther down the list...