Backprinting @ smugmug

K.Van · April 3, 2005

Bear in mind I have absolutely NO vested interest in this but I find this decision extremely interesting since it ONLY requires a licensing agreement by SmugMug.

It appears that SmugMug is turning to a more “Brand Aware” corporate environment so how is it that SmugMug will not license their brand for fear of dilution yet I, as a pro user, contracting to SmugMug to do my order fulfillment through annual fees and service fees per order etc. am subjected to SmugMug slapping their "Brand" all over the back of MY prints going out to MY customers thereby diluting MY brand with no regard or sensitivity to MY business and giving MY customers a nice reminder of where they got the PRINTS but not the picture.

Also, since MY company has no identifier other than where the picture was PRINTED, customers can circumvent all copyrights that I hold (yes I’ve spoken to my lawyer on this as well) and take the picture to the local WalMart, Walgreens, Longs Kodak picture copying kiosk and make copies. I’ve checked with the printer and they have advised me backprinting is not a limitation on their part.

Since SmugMug is so in tune to their brand and business interests, perhaps they could offer some reciprocity to the businesses that support their existence and help us protect our brand that is precious in our eyes as well.

Other than this and a few other minor points, I like SmugMug but you should be aware that prior to "Discovering" Nikolai's program I was looking at alternate solutions and planing my departure from SmugMug (and only after 4 months) because of the cumbersome and unreliable uploading. He (and the other developers) are creating tools that enhance YOUR service and SmugMug should embrace them and celebrate their creativity and fully support them in their endevors. After all, it only helps SmugMug be more successful.

Keith Van Wemmer
President
Pictures Ink

onethumb · April 4, 2005

This probably deserves it's own thread, so if it continues to develop, expect it to be broken out...

K.Van wrote:

Bear in mind I have absolutely NO vested interest in this but I find this decision extremely interesting since it ONLY requires a licensing agreement by SmugMug.

It appears that SmugMug is turning to a more “Brand Aware” corporate environment so how is it that SmugMug will not license their brand for fear of dilution yet I, as a pro user, contracting to SmugMug to do my order fulfillment through annual fees and service fees per order etc. am subjected to SmugMug slapping their "Brand" all over the back of MY prints going out to MY customers thereby diluting MY brand with no regard or sensitivity to MY business and giving MY customers a nice reminder of where they got the PRINTS but not the picture.

If I'm missing something, and there's some other service that matches or beats what we do for $100, I'd love to hear about it. We're thrilled that thousands of Pros use smugmug and love it, but I certainly don't purport to have a monopoly on the markeplace or to own the high-end portion of it.

I think anyone who's used smugmug for very long can attest that the offering keeps getting better and better. One of the biggest complaints we hear, actually, is that it's *only* $100. They'd rather pay more, to ensure our success.

You're essentially getting access to a multi-million dollar piece of software and everything else (customer service, servers, bandwidth, etc) for $100/year. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Bottom line: If you don't like my service, you're free to go elsewhere. We're not for everyone, and I wouldn't want to be. We're a BMW, not a Ford.

I've even devoted a huge amount of my time to make it easy to do so - use the API or one of the great tools here to download all your photos for re-upload elsewhere. We're not like the roach hotel, where photos check in but don't check out. If we start to suck, people should be able to take their priceless photos elsewhere.

K.Van wrote:

Also, since MY company has no identifier other than where the picture was PRINTED, customers can circumvent all copyrights that I hold (yes I’ve spoken to my lawyer on this as well) and take the picture to the local WalMart, Walgreens, Longs Kodak picture copying kiosk and make copies. I’ve checked with the printer and they have advised me backprinting is not a limitation on their part.

I'm not entirely sure I'm understanding what's your point here, but if you really think that a copyright message on the back of your prints prevents local printers from making copies, you're wrong. At least, in some cases you're wrong - I know people who do it all the time. The guy behind the counter at your local 1-hour photo is there to make bucks, and he doesn't (often? always?) flip through them to see if they're copyrighted or something.

Yes, it'll say "copyright, do not copy". But people don't care and will make copies regardless.

K.Van wrote:

Since SmugMug is so in tune to their brand and business interests, perhaps they could offer some reciprocity to the businesses that support their existence and help us protect our brand that is precious in our eyes as well.

I assume by "reciprocity" you're talking about backprinting? If not, I'm sorry, but it's not totally clear in your post. If it is, we've talked about putting backprinting in Pros hands, and I think it'll happen at some point, but the honest answer is I don't hear that request often. Out of thousands of Pro photographers who use the service, this might be the fifth time I've heard it. Other requests come up far more often, and thus, they get priority treatment.

K.Van wrote:

Other than this and a few other minor points, I like SmugMug but you should be aware that prior to "Discovering" Nikolai's program I was looking at alternate solutions and planing my departure from SmugMug (and only after 4 months) because of the cumbersome and unreliable uploading. He (and the other developers) are creating tools that enhance YOUR service and SmugMug should embrace them and celebrate their creativity and fully support them in their endevors. After all, it only helps SmugMug be more successful.

No-one is more aware of it than I am. As I already mentioned, I've devoted more time and energy to building and supporting the API than some of my employees thought was wise. We've also offered support in many other ways, not because we had to, but because we love what's happening with our favorite applications.

No-one understands how much they help our success more than I. I *hated* writing the new policy and I've hated participating on this thread. But at the same time, their success relies on our success. If damaging our brand damages us, the spillover effect will damage them. The branding rules are good for us and good for them - it shouldn't be taken in any way, shape, or form as a reduction of our support, endorsement, or ethusiasm for the amazing work they do.

Don

rutt · April 4, 2005

Let's boil this one down to a simple feature request. K.Van would like to customize what's written on the back of prints of his photographs that people order though smugmug. Then they could say something like:

Copyright K.Van 2005 Do not copy under penalty of death

Or whatever.

I assume this is pretty hard. Presumably, the paper from prints is ordered in large lots with whatever is printed on the back already there. Suppose he were willing to pay for his own paper. How much would that cost him?

rainforest1155 · April 4, 2005

rutt wrote:

Let's boil this one down to a simple feature request. K.Van would like to customize what's written on the back of prints of his photographs that people order though smugmug.

I assume this is pretty hard. Presumably, the paper from prints is ordered in large lots with whatever is printed on the back already there. Suppose he were willing to pay for his own paper. How much would that cost him?

Here in Germany there are several print services that will print the filename on the back and they are not more expensive than others. So I guess it's possible if the print-service bought the right machines.

Long story short, it should be possible for ez-prints sooner or later and I second K.Van's suggestion.

Thanks rutt for bringing this down to the point.

Sebastian

K.Van · April 4, 2005

rutt wrote:

Let's boil this one down to a simple feature request. K.Van would like to customize what's written on the back of prints of his photographs that people order though smugmug. Then they could say something like:
Copyright K.Van 2005 Do not copy under penalty of death
Or whatever.

I assume this is pretty hard. Presumably, the paper from prints is ordered in large lots with whatever is printed on the back already there. Suppose he were willing to pay for his own paper. How much would that cost him?

I appreciate everyone’s support and before I go on, I will agree with Don that the Backprinting issue probably needs it’s own thread. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

With that said, backprinting is easy, Shutterfly, ez-prints (obviously), Costco et.el. all do it, I do it when I process locally. It appears that when SmugMug wrote it’s software it was not geared for the pro user and therefore the feature was overlooked.

Perhaps the Death part is a little severe, but I'm okay with that

{JT} · April 4, 2005

K.Van wrote:

... when SmugMug wrote it’s software it was not geared for the pro user and therefore the feature was overlooked.

That is not the case at all, we have had the pro user in mind from the start. The simple fact is that we did a lot of research (read: Baldy) to try and find the best printer to go with. It came down to EZprints (by a long shot) - and they do not offer backprinting (DOH, i stand corrected, they do offer backprinting).

onethumb · April 4, 2005

rutt wrote:

Let's boil this one down to a simple feature request. K.Van would like to customize what's written on the back of prints of his photographs that people order though smugmug. Then they could say something like:
Copyright K.Van 2005 Do not copy under penalty of death
Or whatever.

I assume this is pretty hard. Presumably, the paper from prints is ordered in large lots with whatever is printed on the back already there. Suppose he were willing to pay for his own paper. How much would that cost him?

I don't, actually, think this would be very hard - it's just not something we get a lot of requests for, unlike all the other new features we've rolled out in the last few months.

I'm sure we'll get to it if A) more people ask or

we don't have other things to work on that more people want.

Don

onethumb · April 4, 2005

{JT} wrote:

That is not the case at all, we have had the pro user in mind from the start. The simple fact is that we did a lot of research (read: Baldy) to try and find the best printer to go with. It came down to EZprints (by a long shot) - and they do not offer backprinting (as of now).

Much as I hate to correct my esteemed colleague, I belive EZ Prints does offer backprinting.

He is absolutely correct, though, that smugmug was built with Pros in mind. And we've got thousands of them. And they do a ton of sales through us (we're writing 5 figures worth of checks on a regular basis to our Pros). And yet, almost no-one asks for the feature, so logically, it must not be as important as upping the max sizes of the photos to 16MB @ 48Mpix, for example.

If I'm wrong, let's hear about it.

Don

tmlphoto · April 4, 2005

onethumb wrote:

Much as I hate to correct my esteemed colleague, I belive EZ Prints does offer backprinting.

He is absolutely correct, though, that smugmug was built with Pros in mind. And we've got thousands of them. And they do a ton of sales through us (we're writing 5 figures worth of checks on a regular basis to our Pros). And yet, almost no-one asks for the feature, so logically, it must not be as important as upping the max sizes of the photos to 16MB @ 48Mpix, for example.

If I'm wrong, let's hear about it.

Don

I'm not a pro, but I do have a pro account. I believe that I have asked for back printing before. It's not a huge deal for me. I have played around with the idea of requiring my clients to purchase 4x6 "Proofs" of a photo session, rather than charge a sitting fee. If the filename were printed on the back this would allow them to find the image quickly on my site. Its a feature I could use, but I can wait. Thanks for listening. I appreciated all the work everyone at smugmug is doing to improve it everyday.

Nikolai · April 4, 2005

I would not mind back printing at all...
Even if it costs some extra $ (but not too much $$$).

And I would not mind having it custom (default + per gallery + per image, like the pricing).
Say, up to 4 lines, and you can include parameters like %filename%, %filetitle%, %imageurl%, %galleryname%, %galleryurl%, %imagedate%, etc.
So, on a defaul basis I would put something like (in my case)

Line1: %gallerytitle% > %filetitle%
Line2: %imageurl%
Line3: http://www.photosocal.com
Line4: Copyright(c)2005 Nikolai Sklobovsky

This would rock!

onethumb · April 4, 2005

Nikolai wrote:

Even if it costs some extra $ (but not too much $$$).

And I would not mind having it custom (default + per gallery + per image, like the pricing).
Say, up to 4 lines, and you can include parameters like %filename%, %filetitle%, %imageurl%, %galleryname%, %galleryurl%, %imagedate%, etc.
So, on a defaul basis I would put something like (in my case)

Line1: %gallerytitle% > %filetitle%
Line2: %imageurl%
Line3: http://www.photosocal.com
Line4: Copyright(c)2005 Nikolai Sklobovsky

This would rock!

Just so we're clear, I belive we're limited to a single line and not very many characters (maybe 100 at most?). Filename and copyright are probably the extent of what you could do.

Don

Nikolai · April 4, 2005

"One line", says you..

onethumb wrote:

Just so we're clear, I belive we're limited to a single line and not very many characters (maybe 100 at most?). Filename and copyright are probably the extent of what you could do.

Don

"Better than nothing:-)" says I:-)

Filename parameter (something like a %s or %% as a place holder) and static copyright text woulbe be plenty to start with

, e.g.
"copyright (c) 2005 so-and-so %s"

Thank you very much for considering this!

Cheers!

JamesJWeg · April 4, 2005

I would also like to see this happen.

James.

System · April 4, 2005

I assume by "reciprocity" you're talking about backprinting? If not, I'm sorry, but it's not totally clear in your post. If it is, we've talked about putting backprinting in Pros hands, and I think it'll happen at some point, but the honest answer is I don't hear that request often. Out of thousands of Pro photographers who use the service, this might be the fifth time I've heard it. Other requests come up far more often, and thus, they get priority treatment.

OK, here is the sixth "official request" on this issue I guess. For one hundred dollars a year I feel pros should not have smugmug plastered all over the prints. This may be multimillion dollar software, but I for one, know quite a few very nice open source galleries and an open source mod that allows you to do automated printing services, set prices, and share galleries almost exactly like smugmug for free. Agreed, it may not be quite as smooth as smugmug but it is very similar and there is no other branding other than the gallery owners shown to the customer. And it is free as long as you get yourself a $2 month server setup.

I am also very disappointed that the smugmug links and logos are plastered all over the shopping cart process as well. I would hope this could be cleaned up for pro accounts soon. Actually, no offense intended, but it is rather disgusting I think.

I also think many people are sensitive to this branding thing, but as with most net users they are just lurkers and are afraid to confront things as they see them, or take the issues up with the site admins they have a beef with. They tend not to rock the boat and use what they get.

I have shopped almost every service under the sun the past couple of years and smugmug seems to be a good value and very professional. I just think this smugmug dominated purchase process is a little too much.

I just paid my hundred but now am wondering what you policy is if I am dissatisfied? I received millions of image views last year and this is quite important to me. I like the convenience of the smugmug service but in my mind I pretty am much sure I want less co and much more brand.

Anyway, you all have a great site here and this is my major beef. Keep up the good work and if someone has posted a solution to this I am sorry that I have missed it.

If changes are made with the prints I can live with one line. If you can or can't do anything for the cart at least make the logo smaller and maybe get rid of the bi ol' smugmug footer for pros for starters.

Thanks for listening.

Good day.

-don

mercphoto · April 4, 2005

minoltaman wrote:

For one hundred dollars a year I feel pros should not have smugmug plastered all over the prints.

Actually I think for "only" $100 a year for this service its a great deal. And lets be honest. Its not "plastered" all over the back of the prints. Dude, you're over-reacting.

This may be multimillion dollar software, but I for one, know quite a few very nice open source galleries and an open source mod that allows you to do automated printing services, set prices, and share galleries almost exactly like smugmug for free.

Not to be disrespectful, but why are you not using that system then?

I am also very disappointed that the smugmug links and logos are plastered all over the shopping cart process as well. I would hope this could be cleaned up for pro accounts soon. Actually, no offense intended, but it is rather disgusting I think.

From what I understand, it is not uncommon at all for a customer of Smug's to buy several prints from several different users all in the same transaction. Given this reality, who's branding exactly should appear in the shopping cart?

JamesJWeg · April 4, 2005

The current SM logo size in the cart does not really bother me, what does is that by default on a pro account you have a catalog linked at the bottom of each page, boldly listing the Smugmug print prices. I have two feature requests that really arn't features, save us some time a make two pages for us to link to, one which is a price free catalog *or* one with out prices (much more of a PITA for you) and also please create a order instructions page that is very plain and seperate from the rest of the help pages, that once again we can link to, you *could* be really nice and make it appear as part of our site, with pro header, footer, etc.

James.

Ben · April 4, 2005

JamesJWeg wrote:

The current SM logo size in the cart does not really bother me, what does is that by default on a pro account you have a catalog linked at the bottom of each page, boldly listing the Smugmug print prices. I have two feature requests that really arn't features, save us some time a make two pages for us to link to, one which is a price free catalog *or* one with out prices (much more of a PITA for you) and also please create a order instructions page that is very plain and seperate from the rest of the help pages, that once again we can link to, you *could* be really nice and make it appear as part of our site, with pro header, footer, etc.

James.

http://www.smugmug.com/prints/catalog2.mg

That is what is linked from the bottom of the shopping cart automatically when there are any prints in the cart that have custom pricing applied on them.

You can also easily remove the footer in your pro page by going into customization options in your Control Panel and putting anything at all into the footer section (even a link to the unpriced catalog)

System · April 4, 2005

mercphoto wrote:

Actually I think for "only" $100 a year for this service its a great deal. And lets be honest. Its not "plastered" all over the back of the prints. Dude, you're over-reacting.

Dude, your opinion and my opinion are two different things. There are other sites and software programs available that offer the same type of general services for the same or less money . In my opinion there should be less smugmug and smugmug links in the payment portion of the co-brand, especially in the cart process.

mercphoto wrote:

Not to be disrespectful, but why are you not using that system then?

I do, the galleries that use the mod I speak of are coppermine, 4images gallery, and a third that has the mod built in! (Gee whiz) The single solitary reason I like to use smugmug is because I like the price of storage here. I will upload about 25,000 quality hig rez images to smugmug that I want to put somewhere other than on my servers. Have you ever heard of off site backup? This makes backup number 4 on my images for me. I currently own dozens of photography related urls and am in the very slow process of building out those sites. As I mentioned somewhere else, I am hoping one day for this site to become the grandaddy of pro share sites. I do put thousands of images on my servers as I also run a hosting company and small domain registrar so I find the need to use all of the photo sites around the net at times. I am not knocking smugmug, only making an honest comment here. Remember, I did pay a hundred dollars, so I figure I can voice my opinion in this forum on issues of smugmug that I encounter that I feel can be improved.

mercphoto wrote:

From what I understand, it is not uncommon at all for a customer of Smug's to buy several prints from several different users all in the same transaction. Given this reality, who's branding exactly should appear in the shopping cart?

Are you kidding me? I pay a hundred dollars a year here to sell my prints, not yours or anyone elses! I got millions of views last year and I am not looking to scam cross traffic, nor do I like to give my customers away so easily. I would think the pro account could become just a wee bit more "pro". There is no sense in branding if the branding is severly compromised in the payment and delivery system. So I feel the branding should be generic or mine on the cart and prints. Or at minimum it should be as subtle as it is in the pro non-cart pages.

ben wrote:

You can also easily remove the footer in your pro page by going into customization options in your Control Panel and putting anything at all into the footer section (even a link to the unpriced catalog)

Unless I am a complete idiot the cart still shows theSMUGMUG footer no matter what. I have altered the footer and the footer in the cart remains unaffected. So as I see it pro branding does not include changing the footer in the cart, or the header for that matter. This is where I fee pro-cobranding is compromised severly. Please correct me if I am wrong on this.

Good day.

-don

onethumb · April 4, 2005

minoltaman wrote:

For one hundred dollars a year I feel pros should not have smugmug plastered all over the prints.

Plastered? I had no idea we were printing our name all over your prints. Plastered suggests it's on the print multiple times, over your subjects. Is that the case?

minoltaman wrote:

This may be multimillion dollar software, but I for one, know quite a few very nice open source galleries and an open source mod that allows you to do automated printing services, set prices, and share galleries almost exactly like smugmug for free. Agreed, it may not be quite as smooth as smugmug but it is very similar and there is no other branding other than the gallery owners shown to the customer. And it is free as long as you get yourself a $2 month server setup.

Use it, then. We're not for everyone.

minoltaman wrote:

I am also very disappointed that the smugmug links and logos are plastered all over the shopping cart process as well. I would hope this could be cleaned up for pro accounts soon. Actually, no offense intended, but it is rather disgusting I think.

I think this has been discussed to death in the formus already, but here it is again: I seriously doubt this is ever going to happen for two reasons.

#1 - Smugmug shoppers often buy prints from 2 or more people. Who's branding do we use in a cart which contains prints from more than one person?

#2 - Smugmug is the name that shows up on their credit card bill. If they don't know who smugmug is, they refuse the charges and we don't get paid. Smugmug is the name the email order confirmation comes from. Smugmug is who they complain to when the prints weren't to their liking. We do all the customer service stuff so you don't have to. If that's not acceptable, do it yourself.

minoltaman wrote:

I just paid my hundred but now am wondering what you policy is if I am dissatisfied? I received millions of image views last year and this is quite important to me. I like the convenience of the smugmug service but in my mind I pretty am much sure I want less co and much more brand.

You have a 7 day free trial to decide whether you like it or not. If you're truly dissatisfied after your trial, let us know and we'll try to make it right - but no promises. You agree on the signup page to pay your $100 if you continue beyond the trial.

Don

JamesJWeg · April 4, 2005

Ben wrote:

http://www.smugmug.com/prints/catalog2.mg

That is what is linked from the bottom of the shopping cart automatically when there are any prints in the cart that have custom pricing applied on them.

You can also easily remove the footer in your pro page by going into customization options in your Control Panel and putting anything at all into the footer section (even a link to the unpriced catalog)

Thank you very much, I missed that catalog page. I knew about replacing the footer, I am just saying that it seems kinda thoughtless to link it there by default on pro accounts, many people get pissy if they know how much you are making off them, even if it is peanuts. How about ordering istructions? did I miss one that's clean and free of the rest of help? If not could we get one?

James.

onethumb · April 4, 2005

JamesJWeg wrote:

The current SM logo size in the cart does not really bother me, what does is that by default on a pro account you have a catalog linked at the bottom of each page, boldly listing the Smugmug print prices. I have two feature requests that really arn't features, save us some time a make two pages for us to link to, one which is a price free catalog *or* one with out prices (much more of a PITA for you) and also please create a order instructions page that is very plain and seperate from the rest of the help pages, that once again we can link to, you *could* be really nice and make it appear as part of our site, with pro header, footer, etc.

Your customers are paying for your skill, talent, and the fact that you captured some subject in just the way they wanted it. They're not paying you for their printing - everyone on earth knows you can get prints for $0.19 at Wal-Mart. They don't complain about that, and they don't complain about smugmug's prices.

But, having said that, we do offer a print page with no prices, and the cart automagically uses it when there's any custom-priced prints in it.

Add that page to your own footer and the problem is solved.

Don

onethumb · April 4, 2005

minoltaman wrote:

Are you kidding me? I pay a hundred dollars a year here to sell my prints, not yours or anyone elses! I got millions of views last year and I am not looking to scam cross traffic, nor do I like to give my customers away so easily.

Of course we're not kidding you.

Generally, these types of sales are *EXTRA* sales for you. People come to smugmug looking to buy photos and they find you in the search engine or by browsing the site.

They weren't *your* customers to begin with, but lucky you, they liked some of your work and want to buy it.

If you don't want the extra sales, fine, mark all your galleries Private or something, and you won't get them.

Don

System · April 4, 2005

onethumb wrote:

Plastered? I had no idea we were printing our name all over your prints. Plastered suggests it's on the print multiple times, over your subjects. Is that the case?

I thought I clarified myself on this earlier in the thread, it is the cart footer and branding that really bothers me.

onethumb wrote:

Use it, then. We're not for everyone.

I use multiple services around the net, if you will read my earlier post you will see why.

onethumb wrote:

I think this has been discussed to death in the formus already, but here it is again: I seriously doubt this is ever going to happen for two reasons.

#1 - Smugmug shoppers often buy prints from 2 or more people. Who's branding do we use in a cart which contains prints from more than one person?

#2 - Smugmug is the name that shows up on their credit card bill. If they don't know who smugmug is, they refuse the charges and we don't get paid. Smugmug is the name the email order confirmation comes from. Smugmug is who they complain to when the prints weren't to their liking. We do all the customer service stuff so you don't have to. If that's not acceptable, do it yourself.

Now we are getting somewhere. We (the pros) are paying for branding and you (your business model) are taking a subscription fee and print percentage. That should be enough to allow for generic branding in those cases or all cases it would seem.

Maybe a bit smaller SMUGMUG branding and footer in the payment stream would be a compromise. I don't think that the people that order prints call kodak or fuji which is normally on the back of prints when they have a problem. If you don't list the photograher with the image # on print sales invoices, I don't know why. If there was less smugmug branding for pros in the payment stream people would contact the photographer and not you so much. That's how it usually works. If you need to hold some payments to cover refunds then by all means do that. I just think great minds could come up with a better, more buttery smooth co-branding solution to this issue. Really it is the footer in the cart and the large logo that I am most disatisfied with.

And if you read my post above you will find I do use many sites. I have a specific use for this site that is why I paid the ben franklin to you to use it

onethumb wrote:

You have a 7 day free trial to decide whether you like it or not. If you're truly dissatisfied after your trial, let us know and we'll try to make it right - but no promises. You agree on the signup page to pay your $100 if you continue beyond the trial.

I don't expect a refund as I did agree to the "short" but yet useful 7day trial.
I did not reallly notice the excessive smugmug stuff surrounding the cart process until after the 7days. I stated before in this thread that I am using this as backup primarily, so I do appreciate the quality of this site. I do also appreciate your consideration without promises as that seems only fair. I will not be asking for refund, only that you consider my requests before your dump them completely.

onethumb wrote:

Add that page to your own footer and the problem is solved.

Not in the cart though, correct?

onethumb wrote:

Of course we're not kidding you.

Generally, these types of sales are *EXTRA* sales for you. People come to smugmug looking to buy photos and they find you in the search engine or by browsing the site.

They weren't *your* customers to begin with, but lucky you, they liked some of your work and want to buy it.

If you don't want the extra sales, fine, mark all your galleries Private or something, and you won't get them.

I mentioned before in this thread that I do not choose make my galleries private. And I really don't need the type of cross traffic off of me to buy someone elses images from others for just 25 cents. That is not the kind of cross traffic I need as a pro, although I do realize it is the nature of the beast. All I ask for is some minimalism applied to the smugmug cart.

I don't know how much this has been discussed in the forums, but I will say I have read these forums for a long time and have spent hours here the last few days and did not cross the issue.

Have a good day and sorry for any spelling or grammer errors as this post is not spell checked.

-don

JamesJWeg · April 4, 2005

It would be rather nice if the cart stayed in the co-branded site, would it be that hard to maintain the co-branding when going into the cart? Don, with all due respect I think your argument about "Extra" sales through search is on the BS side, for me I am looking to make sales from people who I direct to the account, I don't see casual browsers being of any real value to me or most of your other pro users. I feel that most pro puchases are going to come from people who came into smugmug directly to the photographer's site to buy photo's they already know about. How many browsers will buy prints of someone else's car/bike/kart on the track? Someone else's kid playing soccer? etc? I guess it all depends on what subject matter you are shooting.

James.

K.Van · April 4, 2005

Not meaning to argumentative but I certainly pay much more than $100.00 per year for SmugMug. I realize that I pay for a subscription to SM but I also pay 15% from my sales for the service of fulfilling my orders which is where I believe SM really makes their money. I’m just a small fry but I’m certain that with what I’ve paid in fees multiplied by the thousands of pro’s doing the same amounts to a very nice revenue stream.

Don- you also mentioned that “Generally, these types of sales are *EXTRA* sales for you. People come to smugmug looking to buy photos and they find you in the search engine or by browsing the site.” This may be true for some of the pros offering “Stock Photography” but ALL of my sales are directly from my site. Granted I’ve only sold 1000 prints in the past 5 months but were catching on.

Sooooo…the importance to me is next season when MY customer flips over that picture of their kid sliding into home or catching a pass or a bride wants a reprint or to remember who those really nice photographers were, they know where to go and as mean as this sounds, I don’t want them going to SmugMug.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I view SM as my fulfillment house that takes and transmits orders not as a “view and share pictures with the family site” (I use my website and gallery for that),the “OnLine” fulfillment and delivery method (which includes SM) is an integral part of my business plan. Perhaps if SM were to view this from a commercial aspect rather than a “Picture Sharing” view they could empathize?

Baldy · April 4, 2005

Hey Don,

Not to take us off-topic, but you don't happen to be the guy of the same name who won an oscar for technical achievement once upon a time?

I can understand why you're so passionate about your brand and why it appears to you like we're wanting to splash our brand around. Honestly we've talked about your brand in the shopping cart and on the back of prints for a long time, but one answer is that, so far, they haven't been far enough up the list to get done.

Rutt hit one reason on the head: customizing the shopping cart takes a significant effort. Not to speak for onethumb but my guess is one reason is security (people are submitting their credit card info, etc.).

So I confess to being a guilty party at smugmug when trading off features. For example, I was in favor of an API (no small undertaking) to be prioritized over most other things including these two.

And I can understand onethumb's point of view too: he's working his heart out, adding features at a furious pace but there's only so much he can do if he's going to do it well.

Not to make Really Lame Excuses, but we're pretty good friends with the product dev people at the companies near us who have huge engineering teams and more money than Trump (Yahoo, eBay and Google), and they talk about the same issues: what to prioritize first, how to get to more things on their lists, etc.

All the best,
Baldy

Baldy · April 4, 2005

K.Van wrote:

Not meaning to argumentative but I certainly pay much more than $100.00 per year for SmugMug. I realize that I pay for a subscription to SM but I also pay 15% from my sales for the service of fulfilling my orders which is where I believe SM really makes their money.

That's a really good point and I wondered when someone would mention it.

Our top pros sell an amazing amount of prints and as today is payment day for last quarter I'm watching a big stack of checks go out to them.

We see it and appreciate it but if I were asked to prioritize again things like the API, seeing comments in one place off the control panel, gallery templates, bulk tools to arrange, etc., or customizing the cart and backprinting, I'd make them again that way.

Doesn't mean that what you're asking for aren't great things and fertile ground for the future, as long as onethumb doesn't say they're super time-absorbing.

Thanks,
Baldy

onethumb · April 4, 2005

K.Van wrote:

Not meaning to argumentative but I certainly pay much more than $100.00 per year for SmugMug. I realize that I pay for a subscription to SM but I also pay 15% from my sales for the service of fulfilling my orders which is where I believe SM really makes their money. I’m just a small fry but I’m certain that with what I’ve paid in fees multiplied by the thousands of pro’s doing the same amounts to a very nice revenue stream.[/color][/font]

You might be surprised. Our bread-and-butter is the $100/year service fee, not the 15% commission.

Baldy will never publicly admit to it, so I'll do it for him, but customer service on printing is expensive and time consuming. He spends way too much time on assisting with print orders, Pros who haven't learned how to color correct, reprints, returns, and the like. The 15% goes to pay for all the time and energy related to making sure your customers get great prints. It doesn't chew up the entire 15%, but there's a significant hit.

Don't get me wrong - we love the revenue stream, we love our Pros, we love all the sales they're doing. But the 15% is less cushy than it sounds.

I'll re-iterate for clarity's sake: It'd be very tough to cobrand the shopping cart not so much for technical reasons but for customer service reasons. You don't see all the high-touch, white-glove customer service we do behind-the-scenes, but I assure you it's happening. Your customers interact with our customer service reps often, which keeps them out of your hair.

Further, we have customers who decline payment on print orders fairly regularly. They call their credit card company and complain that they have no idea who "smugmug" is and that they haven't done business with us. (The credit card company won't let us put another name on the bill, such as your studio's name).

We then call them up and remind them of that gorgeous 16x20 print they got of their favorite horse and they fall all over themselves apologizing. If our brand were removed or reduced, the number of times that would happen would skyrocket. I don't think 15% would cover our losses.

Don

System · April 4, 2005

Baldy wrote:

Hey Don,

Not to take us off-topic, but you don't happen to be the guy of the same name who won an oscar for technical achievement once upon a time?

>Wrong guy I think. I have a technical background as a Navy et in the 80's and had a small satellite business in the mid-90's but have not come near an oscar unfortunately. I seem win a few *hole in the forum awards though as my travels in photography have taken me around the net.

I can understand why you're so passionate about your brand and why it appears to you like we're wanting to splash our brand around. Honestly we've talked about your brand in the shopping cart and on the back of prints for a long time, but one answer is that, so far, they haven't been far enough up the list to get done.

>I can only hope some sort of change gets pushed up the list.

Rutt hit one reason on the head: customizing the shopping cart takes a significant effort. Not to speak for onethumb but my guess is one reason is security (people are submitting their credit card info, etc.).

>Your fine customer support staff mentioned this. My proposal is something more minimalized or generic until the security issue is worked out and a branded cart implemented.

So I confess to being a guilty party at smugmug when trading off features. For example, I was in favor of an API (no small undertaking) to be prioritized over most other things including these two.

>I am not a coder or script kitty and can barely do html. I am a photographer and am thinking of this from a marketers standpoint. I can appreciate the tough decisions and compromizes that have to be made.

And I can understand onethumb's point of view too: he's working his heart out, adding features at a furious pace but there's only so much he can do if he's going to do it well.

>Will not argue this. He does have an excellent service.

Not to make Really Lame Excuses, but we're pretty good friends with the product dev people at the companies near us who have huge engineering teams and more money than Trump (Yahoo, eBay and Google), and they talk about the same issues: what to prioritize first, how to get to more things on their lists, etc.

>Very good. Thanks very much for the information and I will keep my fingers crossed. Take care.

All the best,
Baldy

-don

landrum · April 4, 2005

Personally I'd like to see custom backprinting. I can get it easily from other companies that I've printed thru, and I don't know that it would be that difficult. I am not worried about copyright infringement though...I would just like to have my name or website on the photos for my customer's reference. No one cares about breaking the copyright laws, and there is nothing you can do to inforce them anyway. If you really want your name on it, then print it on the image in the bottom corner. That way it's right up front and can't be missed. Then people will blatently be ignoring it instead of "just not looking" on the back when they copy your photos.

I don't have a problem with smugmug having their name on the shopping cart...actually I have to say that I never noticed it really. The only problems my customers have had are with enabling cookies to place orders or use passwords, and understanding the catagories for the prints (Standard and Specialty). Otherwise, I am very happy with the service and the constant improvements being made.

mercphoto · April 4, 2005

onethumb wrote:

Baldy will never publicly admit to it, so I'll do it for him, but customer service on printing is expensive and time consuming.

Which is exactly this is worth the 15% to me.

Backprinting @ smugmug

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