digital downloads, freebies, and more

ibcrewinibcrewin Registered Users Posts: 40 Big grins
edited October 31, 2007 in Mind Your Own Business
First of all, I can't tell you enough how smugmug has ligitimized my foray in to being a semi-pro photographer. It's so much easier to get gigs when you have a kickass site.

Second bit. I did a portrait party as a favor to the local mothers group (marketing ploy). So I took the kids pictures and posted them and let the parent by prints at cost. Do I see these sales? Can I make sure they prints are set up right before sending them out like when someone buys a pro-priced print?

Those are here: http://www.hyperfocalphotography.com/gallery/3710784 Password is Astoria

So from that gig, I got 2-3 more clients lined up. I don't offer a CD of the pictures, but I want to offer digital downloads. A 4x6 is 5 bucks, so should I charge about twice as much for a digital download? May be $20 bucks for the Hi_res. If I am shooting raw on an XT, how much is 1mpix and 4mpix relative to the original?

Thanks!
Ivan

Comments

  • ibcrewinibcrewin Registered Users Posts: 40 Big grins
    edited October 29, 2007
    BUMP for the Monday morning crowd.
    ibcrewin wrote:
    First of all, I can't tell you enough how smugmug has ligitimized my foray in to being a semi-pro photographer. It's so much easier to get gigs when you have a kickass site.

    Second bit. I did a portrait party as a favor to the local mothers group (marketing ploy). So I took the kids pictures and posted them and let the parent by prints at cost. Do I see these sales? Can I make sure they prints are set up right before sending them out like when someone buys a pro-priced print?

    Those are here: http://www.hyperfocalphotography.com/gallery/3710784 Password is Astoria

    So from that gig, I got 2-3 more clients lined up. I don't offer a CD of the pictures, but I want to offer digital downloads. A 4x6 is 5 bucks, so should I charge about twice as much for a digital download? May be $20 bucks for the Hi_res. If I am shooting raw on an XT, how much is 1mpix and 4mpix relative to the original?

    Thanks!
    Ivan
  • rdlugoszrdlugosz Registered Users Posts: 277 Major grins
    edited October 29, 2007
    Hi Ivan. A few comments:

    * Nice photos! I'm sure the parents will like them.
    * In order to track orders you'll need to have at least a $.01 markup.
    * Use the print delay feature in order to adjust cropping and/or replace the photo with a retouched one before a customer's order ships.
    * Your comments say "email me at hyperfocal.com" or whatever - you might want to specify an actual email address there.
    * Finally, your header is pretty large in general. The actual photos get pushed down below the fold on my screen... kind of annoying to have to scroll down to see the pictures.

    Regarding the pricing questions, I think $5 for a 4x6 is pretty low, especially since most people will probably only end up ordering one of them. As for the digital downloads, I haven't actually sold any of those, but I think $20 for the original is way low. The way I look at it is that if a customer wants the original pixels then they probably plan to use them - why cut yourself out of the income stream?

    Price the 1mpx image as something affordable - maybe that's a $5 item; the 4mpix is good enough for small prints - maybe make that one around $20 or so; crank the original *way* up - perhaps $1-200. That way the customer would be more inclined to purchace what they're looking for directly from you rather than just giving you the one-time $20 and printing their hearts out.

    Just some suggestions, hope it helps!
    -Ryan
  • ibcrewinibcrewin Registered Users Posts: 40 Big grins
    edited October 30, 2007
    rdlugosz wrote:
    Hi Ivan. A few comments:

    * Nice photos! I'm sure the parents will like them.
    * In order to track orders you'll need to have at least a $.01 markup.
    * Use the print delay feature in order to adjust cropping and/or replace the photo with a retouched one before a customer's order ships.
    * Your comments say "email me at hyperfocal.com" or whatever - you might want to specify an actual email address there.
    * Finally, your header is pretty large in general. The actual photos get pushed down below the fold on my screen... kind of annoying to have to scroll down to see the pictures.

    Regarding the pricing questions, I think $5 for a 4x6 is pretty low, especially since most people will probably only end up ordering one of them. As for the digital downloads, I haven't actually sold any of those, but I think $20 for the original is way low. The way I look at it is that if a customer wants the original pixels then they probably plan to use them - why cut yourself out of the income stream?

    Price the 1mpx image as something affordable - maybe that's a $5 item; the 4mpix is good enough for small prints - maybe make that one around $20 or so; crank the original *way* up - perhaps $1-200. That way the customer would be more inclined to purchace what they're looking for directly from you rather than just giving you the one-time $20 and printing their hearts out.

    Just some suggestions, hope it helps!
    -Ryan

    Thanks for the input Ryan! I made a few changes so it looks better.

    I am going to bump up the original prices for sure!
  • bhambham Registered Users Posts: 1,303 Major grins
    edited October 30, 2007
    rdlugosz wrote:
    Price the 1mpx image as something affordable - maybe that's a $5 item; the 4mpix is good enough for small prints - maybe make that one around $20 or so; crank the original *way* up - perhaps $1-200. That way the customer would be more inclined to purchace what they're looking for directly from you rather than just giving you the one-time $20 and printing their hearts out.
    -Ryan

    Well with the 4mpix image you could get good 8x10's. A 1600x2000 pix image is only 3.2 mpix and you could print 4x6's, 5x7's at about 300dpi and 8x10 at 200dpi. Most of those through someone like smugmug are gonna come out looking pretty good. So to say the 4mpix is only for small prints I think that is misleading, unless you are saying 8x10 and under are small prints.

    I say this because you rarely (as a % of all photos) see people print photos over 8x10.
    "A photo is like a hamburger. You can get one from McDonalds for $1, one from Chili's for $5, or one from Ruth's Chris for $15. You usually get what you pay for, but don't expect a Ruth's Chris burger at a McDonalds price, if you want that, go cook it yourself." - me
  • rdlugoszrdlugosz Registered Users Posts: 277 Major grins
    edited October 31, 2007
    bham wrote:
    I say this because you rarely (as a % of all photos) see people print photos over 8x10.

    That's a really good point. I'd like to see SM add a "Profile Picture" size to the options: a very small image that people could use as their web avatar but could get much in the way of a print from it.

    ... not that many would buy it; I'd imagine that a lot of people will just steal the (watermarked) thumbnails if they want it for this purpose anyway...
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