Your Prices are too high!

MT Stringer

I knew I would hear that statement sooner or later. A lady called me today and claimed to be confused. "It says at the bottom of the Smugmug page that 4x6 prints ar $.19 but when I got to your gallery, they are $7. Why? That's too high."

Well sir, it took me a little while to explain why but I don't think she believed me. I may have lost a customer, but so be it. I still can't believe she thinks I would drive to and fro, spend two hours shooting her kids ball game with photo gear that costs thousands more than her P&S and then spend 5 hours post processing/uploading the pics and still sell them to her at cost!

Sorry, I just needed to vent. I was as polite as I could possibly be and not boil over.

Mike

Sparky

Tell her to go down to the local store and ask what they pay for a product and demand that price!

Ann McRae

Thats why I am moving to a fee for service rather than trying to be paid for prints. Especially for shooting kid sport action shots, I have found that without an upfront fee you cannot earn enough to pay for time and gear through prints. So my approach now is I will shoot 2 games for a team for $200. They get a CD of the shots that they can make prints from or put onto their computers or share by email - I don't care. Too many people are willing to scan and share or use the drugstore scanning kiosk to make extra prints from the one 4 x 6 they buy. For an extra $25, instead of providing the cd, I'll provide a gift subscription to smugmug and they can purchase prints from that account at cost. At least my time is paid for - kind of! Better than I was doing shooting on spec, waiting for orders anyway.

nipprdog

MT Stringer wrote:

I and then spend 5 hours post processing/uploading the pics and still sell them to her at cost!

You don't have a pricing problem, as much as you have a workflow problem.

5 hours per game?

+900 shots per game???????

As far as cost, simply tell her that SM doesn't cost more than a local lab.

MT Stringer

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, it took awhile. I actually shot over 1200 images, but narrowed them down to 945. Lots of offense, baserunning, flower pickin', etc. Next time, I'll cull a whole lot more. But you never can tell what someone will buy...or not.

I resized the pics to 1200x1800 and it still took about 45 seconds per pic to upload - all night and half the next day. Then I had to rotate a bunch of them.

Mike

Noel_

MT Stringer wrote:

I resized the pics to 1200x1800 and it still took about 45 seconds per pic to upload - all night and half the next day. Then I had to rotate a bunch of them.
Mike

How come your rotation isn't automatic? What I've done with sports is the following:
- Pick out bad ones
- Duplicate Folder
- Run Batch (sat/contrast/sharpen/proof setup/file info/resize up/etc..)
- Crop good ones
- Upload

dogwood

Sparky wrote:

Tell her to go down to the local store and ask what they pay for a product and demand that price!

rofl

SavedByZero

MT Stringer wrote:

Thanks for the replies. Yeah, it took awhile. I actually shot over 1200 images, but narrowed them down to 945. Lots of offense, baserunning, flower pickin', etc. Next time, I'll cull a whole lot more. But you never can tell what someone will buy...or not.

I resized the pics to 1200x1800 and it still took about 45 seconds per pic to upload - all night and half the next day. Then I had to rotate a bunch of them.

Mike

And how much do you make off a single game?? How many prints do you sell on average from each game set??

MT Stringer

How come your rotation isn't automatic?

Thanks for the question, Noel.
I used IRFANVIEW to resize to the longest side, add saturation, sharpness, etc. I don't know why but most of the pics need to be rotated. I need to do some more research and see if I missed a setting. That is a fast program. I just need to make it work right for me.

SavedByZero wrote:

And how much do you make off a single game?? How many prints do you sell on average from each game set??

That varies...from $100 to $1000...to the lady complaining for not getting WalMart pricing!
Mike

snaptie2002

The simple answer I give people is "You are not paying for the print you are paying for what is on it. You would not offer a painter the price of the canvas for his painting would you?"

Marty

aerialphoto

MT Stringer wrote:

Sorry, I just needed to vent. I was as polite as I could possibly be and not boil over.

I feel for ya. Years ago we had a "client" call to do some vertical images of some property. She initially wanted it done in a helicopter, then decided our normal aircraft was ok. After going through her specifications, setting up the project, flight planning it, and coming up with a firm price, she got very irate. I think our price was about $1000, she wanted to pay $20. Her reasoning was, "someone" knocked on her door 10 years ago trying to sell her a snapshot of her house he took from a helicopter (on spec) for $20 - therefore all aerial photography cost $20 per image.

I don't push the airplane outside for less than $750 usually.

bham

MT Stringer wrote:

I knew I would hear that statement sooner or later. A lady called me today and claimed to be confused. "It says at the bottom of the Smugmug page that 4x6 prints ar $.19 but when I got to your gallery, they are $7. Why? That's too high."

Most times its pointless to try and overcome stupidity. It is a simple as "Is it worth $7 to have the photo of (your child, grandchild, etc whatever is appropriate).

She had to do some looking to find the .19 cost. She is overly thrifty. Did she call you collect?