PrePaid Client Orders

wellseen

Hi,

I am a pro user, and I'd like to order a set of photos for my wedding client, but have her choose the photos herself. Because she has already paid me for these prints, Is there a way for me to prepay a credit for say 200 prints for her, or to create a guest login where she can make the order, and then have it billed to me at cost, as though I had made the order myself?

Thanks!
Sebastian

username: wellseen


WELLSEEN PHOTOGRAPHY
http://www.wellseen.com/
828-398-4785

Andy

wellseen wrote:

Hi,

I am a pro user, and I'd like to order a set of photos for my wedding client, but have her choose the photos herself. Because she has already paid me for these prints, Is there a way for me to prepay a credit for say 200 prints for her, or to create a guest login where she can make the order, and then have it billed to me at cost, as though I had made the order myself?

Thanks!
Sebastian

username: wellseen


WELLSEEN PHOTOGRAPHY
http://www.wellseen.com/
828-398-4785

Hi Sebastian, no I'm sorry there is not. You'll need to place the order yourself, based on images she chooses.

I wish I had a different answer for you.

Welcome to Dgrin!

marlinspike

How about this. Upload all the images to a special gallery for her. Then set the proof delay (that new feature, I forget the real name) to be 30 days (or whatever the longest allowed is). Have the customer order through the website (tell her before hand to ignore the prices), then you make that same order yourself, and cancel her order.

Andy

marlinspike wrote:

How about this. Upload all the images to a special gallery for her. Then set the proof delay (that new feature, I forget the real name) to be 30 days (or whatever the longest allowed is). Have the customer order through the website (tell her before hand to ignore the prices), then you make that same order yourself, and cancel her order.

:nono that's not good - pro can't cancel the order. Has to be a support desk process, and we aren't able to do that as a routine, sorry.

wellseen

Andy wrote:

:nono that's not good - pro can't cancel the order. Has to be a support desk process, and we aren't able to do that as a routine, sorry.

Thanks Andy and Marlinspike!

hmmm... that seems to be on the right track though... is there a way for her to make a selection of photos, and save the order without actually paying for it, so that I can go in later and pay for it for her?

Any one else have a clever idea for how to do this? Thanks for the help!!!

pat.kane

You could just let her order on her nickel, then provide her a "rebate" once you've confirmed the sell.

bham

I would advise enabling the filenames for the gallery and then have her tell you which files and what size she wants to order. Then you order. I know its a pain, but given the current smugmug setup, the only way I figured to do it for a few customers in the past.

Dna

Next time, don't charge her as much and say that you have the photos at cost in a passworded gallery for the first two weeks after they get back from the honeymoon and then you will make it public and charge your normal prices.

Dna

wellseen

Dna wrote:

Next time, don't charge her as much and say that you have the photos at cost in a passworded gallery for the first two weeks after they get back from the honeymoon and then you will make it public and charge your normal prices.

Dna

Thanks everyone... but the whole point is for her to be able make make the selection online, without having to copy 300 filenames, and also for her not to know the amount of my markup. I could charge her less initially, but then she probably wouldn't order as many prints. I think there are other sites that offer this... it should be very simple to save a customer order and forward it to the pro owner for completion. Any chance that this feature could be added?

Bodley

wellseen wrote:

Thanks everyone... but the whole point is for her to be able make make the selection online, without having to copy 300 filenames, and also for her not to know the amount of my markup. I could charge her less initially, but then she probably wouldn't order as many prints. I think there are other sites that offer this... it should be very simple to save a customer order and forward it to the pro owner for completion. Any chance that this feature could be added?

This probably won't work and hopefully someone that knows will set me straight but here goes:

The cart info resides in a cookie. Maybe she could add the photo's to her cart, then have her email you the cookie. You complete the order.

wellseen

Bodley wrote:

This probably won't work and hopefully someone that knows will set me straight but here goes:

The cart info resides in a cookie. Maybe she could add the photo's to her cart, then have her email you the cookie. You complete the order.

Hmmm ... Very interesting idea. How exactly would I do this?

Bodley

wellseen wrote:

Hmmm ... Very interesting idea. How exactly would I do this?

I'm just the idea guy - I was hoping one of those "in the know" would chime in and tell us. If we knew the name of the cookie SM stores that would help.

Bodley

Bodley wrote:

I'm just the idea guy - I was hoping one of those "in the know" would chime in and tell us. If we knew the name of the cookie SM stores that would help.

So - was the cookie suggestion so unfeasable that it didn't deserve an answer?

pat.kane

I'm not sure how responsive smugmug should be when options are being presented that have the potential to take part of their profit share out of the equation--the pro service obviously is driven in part by a cut in the profits. The automated self-fulfillment options being suggested don't provide smugmug an opportunity to earn that profit.

A parked shopping cart system that allowed self-fulfillment and a share of the profits would seem to be the ideal situation. Until then, you're going to have to figure out workarounds.

I don't think that the cookie idea would work as the cookie probably remembers the user (not just the cart) and that user isn't entitled to your non-marked-up pricing.

I think lessons could be learned from the paypal thread (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=29055). I believe a variation of this technique for self-fulfillment would be quite workable.

I'm not sure how feature rich the paypal shopping cart is. Their guide is at:

https://www.paypal.com/en_US/pdf/PP_WebsitePaymentsStandard_IntegrationGuide.pdf

I think you'd want to show thumbnails in the cart (maybe modify urlToImage to do this), but it appears the item_name field is limited to 127 characters and it isn't obvious if html is even allowed.

Just some random thoughts. Hope some of them are useful.

mwgrice

Random, marginally useful thought: have her leave a comment on the photos she wants. Then you can order the appropriate prints.

cmason

How about this:

Provide her with a login id and password. Have her add the photos she likes to her cart, but not buy them. Then you log in with her id and password, go to the cart, and purchase what is in there.

Stustaff

isnt the cart info saved in a cookie on the users comp though?
not at smugmug? in which case that wouldnt work.

Bodley

mwgrice wrote:

Random, marginally useful thought: have her leave a comment on the photos she wants. Then you can order the appropriate prints.

Good Idea.

This would work since you can be notified about new comments. Have the gallery private (keep outside sources from adding comments). They could put size and finish info in the comment. You could even add info to the caption of the photos to make an up-sell (larger canvas stroked prints available at an additional cost......)

Then you just go and review each comment and add to your cart. Bingo

Cindy

I'd like to see smugmug add the ability to save shopping cart contents and or share shopping cart wishlists. This would work beautifully to enable pros to fullfill pre-paid orders (the customer would share their cart wishlist). Of course smugmug wouldn't be getting an additional profit share (above our yearly subscription and the markup they allready have on prints) but the pro would afterall be handling the footwork here right.

In the meantime I find customers don't want to be hassled with having to leave comments on every photo they want... just give them a list of filenames with the appropriate prints, sizes, etc in columns alongside the numbers and they can fill out their order as they view the gallery. Not quite sure how but you could make the order form downloadable and link to it from the gallery description.