Competing against the flickr 50% discount

rolii

I'm loving it at Smugmug, but unless I rack up some referrals I don't think I'm going to be able to renew when the time comes. My issue here is why would anyone use my referral code when they can go for the 50% flickr refugee discount found on Smugmug's home?

I might be missing something here, so enlighten me, please.:scratch

stuartb

I suspect the 50% enticement is to persuade existing flickr users to jump ship. Its probably aimed at existing flickr users who already have loads of pics in flickr. Of course if you wanted to save a few dollars you could go to the effort of creating a flickr account in order to get the 50% discount but your only going to do it once. If you have a few hundred (or thousand) images on Smugmug by the end of the year, your not going to re-upload them just to get the 50% discount again? And once you are 'committed' in that way I suspect folks think hard before changing.

I agree that, whilst the flickr offer is available, there is a anomaly but are you really relying on people using your referral codes to fund your Smugmug annual fee?

rolii

stuartb wrote:

I agree that, whilst the flickr offer is available, there is a anomaly but are you really relying on people using your referral codes to fund your Smugmug annual fee?

The flickr offer has been in effect for a while now. It was only recently that I became aware of the fact that it is displayed on Smugmug's home page and that, of course, will have a negative impact on the regular referrals that one might expect to get.

As a father of four and living in Venezuela's struggling economy; yes, I would hope that through this referral system I can cover the cost of my renewal.

albumflip

I agree. I almost feel bad telling someone to use my referral code when I know that if they just use the flickr code, they'll get a whole 50% off instead. I want the referral, but should I lie to my friends? Anyone else have any ideas on this? Increase the referral discount?

Jeff

Baldy

albumflip wrote:

I agree. I almost feel bad telling someone to use my referral code when I know that if they just use the flickr code, they'll get a whole 50% off instead. I want the referral, but should I lie to my friends? Anyone else have any ideas on this? Increase the referral discount?

Jeff

Yeah, that was supposed to be temporary and we ended up leaving it too long. Sorry about that. We're thinking about replacing it with a box for video. No one who lands on our home page can tell we have video.

On a positive note, we sure get a lot of Flickr refugees now but it doesn't appear to be from the Flickr code.

rolii

Baldy wrote:

On a positive note, we sure get a lot of Flickr refugees now but it doesn't appear to be from the Flickr code.

It's got to be Microsoft going after Yahoo that's beginnig to drive some folks out of there.

claudermilk

rolii wrote:

I'm loving it at Smugmug, but unless I rack up some referrals I don't think I'm going to be able to renew when the time comes. My issue here is why would anyone use my referral code when they can go for the 50% flickr refugee discount found on Smugmug's home?

I might be missing something here, so enlighten me, please.

Umm, because they aren't Flickr users? Not everyone in the world uses Flicker (I never did).

timnosenzo

claudermilk wrote:

Umm, because they aren't Flickr users? Not everyone in the world uses Flicker (I never did).

Yeah, but you (or anyone) could still use the code and get 50% off.

havanese

I heard about smug from the video interview with Scoble and then I saw the 50% discount for flickr...that was enough for me.

Now I'm hooked because of the features (although I still have a flickr acct) and HD video.

Smugmug is my primary photo and video sharing site now.