I have issues with Pro Pricing

RKeaton

Let me preface this post - as always - by saying that I may just be an idiot.

That being said, I really am not very happy with the way Pro Pricing is handled and (on a somewhat seperate note, displayed) on Pro Account sites.

My first (and biggest) concern is this: If you don't carefully set your prices when creating new galleries there seems to be the possibility that a visitor to your site could buy prints at cost. I swear in the past I have seen cost prices attached to my images.

You will no doubt say "ah, you were logged in and that's why you saw the cost prices!"

To which I say, first of all, I don't think so. I'm fairly sure that by simply not inputting pro prices for some galleries in the past, cost prices were available to visitors. I may be wrong here but I'm almost positive I saw it, after logging out. Assuming for a moment that I'm correct, I would say that it should be absolutely impossible for cost prices to EVER be available to a visitor to a PRO ACCOUNT site. By definition, pro users are selling their images for a profit so inputting pro prices should be mandatory before any orders can be placed.

And secondly, even if the problem was that I was simply logged in I would say that this is a pain and I do not like it. I don't want to have to logout everytime I want to doublecheck that pro prices are up and correct. It's an inconvenience logging in and out all the time. I would like my Pro Pricing Menu to be viewable at all times, IN the gallery, W/OUT logging out, just as my customers see it. If I want to purchase prints at cost for myself, that should be a seperate option altogether.

Speaking of which, I am also not real pleased with what my customers must do to see the prices for my images. First of all, I would prefer it if they were somehow viewable ON the gallery page. I know space is tight, but I think the subliminal message of having prices right there next to the gallery (without having to add to cart) can be very powerful and would increase everyone pro's sales, which of couse would also be good for SmuMug.

Take a gander at this page from a random photographer's website:

http://prints.goodlux.org/p/2006_03_09_ruby/img_1450_sm25

This person's site is hosted by 'another photo site'. (I'm not here to promote other sites, just to offer suggestions for improving SmugMug:): .) But would you not agree that this is an excellent way to display a for-sale image? All items and prices are right there next to a large version of the image, plain as day. I feel it strongly encourages purchases, wouldn't you agree? I would love to have my site looking like this.

By comparison in SmugMug, people need to take the 'add to cart' step to see prices (unless there's a quicker way that I don't know about!) AND EVEN STILL - now this really bugs me - there is no room on the 'cart' page for a simple list of all available items and prices such as the one in the link above? I typically have about 7 or 8 items available for each image - not an expansive list by any means. But to see these items my customers have to access no less than 4 drop-down menus (reg. prints, special prints, gifts and dig downloads)??? I am really not happy with that format and don't feel it does much to encourage sales.

I have just started creating new galleries and trying to sell via SmugMug again (I was going around you for awhile there, partly due to this stuff and also since you weren't offering digital downloads) and would love to see some of these things tweaked before I invest too much time and effort creating galleries and promoting my site.

Thanks for listening, I look forward to your responses.

Andy

RKeaton wrote:

Let me preface this post - as always - by saying that I may just be an idiot.

That being said, I really am not very happy with the way Pro Pricing is handled and (on a somewhat seperate note, displayed) on Pro Account sites.

My first (and biggest) concern is this: If you don't carefully set your prices when creating new galleries there seems to be the possibility that a visitor to your site could buy prints at cost. I swear in the past I have seen cost prices attached to my images.

You will no doubt say "ah, you were logged in and that's why you saw the cost prices!"

To which I say, first of all, I don't think so. I'm fairly sure that by simply not inputting pro prices for some galleries in the past, cost prices were available to visitors. I may be wrong here but I'm almost positive I saw it, after logging out. Assuming for a moment that I'm correct, I would say that it should be absolutely impossible for cost prices to EVER be available to a visitor to a PRO ACCOUNT site. By definition, pro users are selling their images for a profit so inputting pro prices should be mandatory before any orders can be placed.

Rob, thanks for posting!

If you set portfolio pricing, you'll never have a gallery available at cost:
http://blogs.smugmug.com/pros/2005/07/19/how-to-block-at-cost-sales/
http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-pricing

If you need any further help with this part, let me know.

On to the next part of your post..

RKeaton wrote:

And secondly, even if the problem was that I was simply logged in I would say that this is a pain and I do not like it. I don't want to have to logout everytime I want to doublecheck that pro prices are up and correct. It's an inconvenience logging in and out all the time. I would like my Pro Pricing Menu to be viewable at all times, IN the gallery, W/OUT logging out, just as my customers see it. If I want to purchase prints at cost for myself, that should be a seperate option altogether.

I wish I had a better answer for you - wait, I do Use a second browser, we love Firefox, free from www.mozilla.com - you simply fire up firefox, view your site from there as your customers would - logged out.

RKeaton wrote:

Speaking of which, I am also not real pleased with what my customers must do to see the prices for my images. First of all, I would prefer it if they were somehow viewable ON the gallery page. I know space is tight, but I think the subliminal message of having prices right there next to the gallery (without having to add to cart) can be very powerful and would increase everyone pro's sales, which of couse would also be good for SmuMug.

It's something we're looking at. Thanks for telling us how important this is to you! In the meantime, there are various ways to go about it, including what this SmugMugger has done!
http://bastic.smugmug.com/gallery/911810/18/41351536

RKeaton

Andy wrote:

In the meantime, there are various ways to go about it, including what this SmugMugger has done!
http://bastic.smugmug.com/gallery/911810/18/41351536

That sure is an improvement, Andy. Though I must say it doesn't look quite as slick as the layout in that link I gave, fair to say?

I hope you will continue to look into it. Thanks for your lightning-fast replies