I'm getting pretty impatient here. I need to be able to offer coupons and packages this fall. As a business, I simply can't afford not to. It's so important that it's now part of my price list for event bookings. As bookings are coming in for the fall, I am promising the client print credit and listing packages on my site. Whether those packages come from SmugMug or ExposureManager is up to SmugMug. I'd love to offer them through SM. While EM is only $12.95/month, that's $12.95/month I shouldn't have to spend plus the time I spend to set it up. Nevertheless, I think I'll make that cost up on the extra sales the packages/coupons net me.
So let's go SmugMug. Enough with excuses. You just got all our hopes up with the fancy SmugMug Pro teaser page. We all want coupons and packages, and I think I speak for many of the SM Pro subscribers that if the next time I'm asked for my $150 for the year SM hasn't released its new Pro service, I won't be paying.
Thanks for telling us in no uncertain terms exactly how important this is to you.
Andy:
This is very important to me. I did not sign up with the "other" company (starts with a "Z") because I liked the functionality and customization options (edit) of SmugMug. I was also told by your support group that coupons were coming real soon. I would like to order business cards and include a coupon code on the card.
Instead of saying that the coupon function is under active aggressive development, how about giving us a date we can expect to see coupons. This thread is over a year old.
I too will consider whether or not I will continue with SmugMug once my membership is up for renewal.
how about giving us a date we can expect to see coupons.
I'm sorry, we can't give a date. I wish I had a different, better answer than the one I've been giving. I can promise you that your patience will be rewarded, and soon I hope.
I understand that you've repeated that you can't give a date. The thing that scares me is that "soon" is not a guarantee. When I'm launching major projects, I set a date. I make it reasonable, and not so soon that it will be a nightmare to finish, but nevertheless a due date. And by the time that due date/launch date rolls around, the project is ready to go. Can you at least confirm for us that an internal due date exists? It seems like it may not, and that's why this project has been promised as coming in the near-future for so long.
Coupons for Fans...
I'm patiently waiting too for the coupons. ( As SM is well aware.) I want to be able to offer discounts to my Twitter and Facebook friends which is over 5,500 fans. The fall is my season. After the sailing season, crews and captains are looking for gifts and they want to buy the best photos of the season. The holiday's are huge for me too.
I'm patiently waiting too for the coupons. ( As SM is well aware.) I want to be able to offer discounts to my Twitter and Facebook friends which is over 5,500 fans. The fall is my season. After the sailing season, crews and captains are looking for gifts and they want to buy the best photos of the season. The holiday's are huge for me too.
Yup. I totally know what you mean. After attending multiple seminars related to the business of photography, I've made the decision to restructure my entire business model.
A MAJOR part of my new business model is going to involve coupons. If I can't roll this out in time for the ramp up of the holiday season (early September) then there is no point in doing it at all.
I realize that you want to do coupons right, but it seems at this point (to quote my friend Voltaire) that "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Coupons are really key to controlling my work and ensuring my clients receive quality prints. Virtually all my clients want CDs. Many of them then turn around, buy no prints, and go to Costco to get some crappy 7 cents 4x6s. Not only do I lose the small profit on prints, but more importantly, I lose the marketing value of my prints. When a friend of a client sees one of the beautiful lustre prints from Bay, they'll ask who shot the photo and I have the potential to get a referral. When someone sees a set of horribly inconsistent and generally terrible Costco prints, they'll ask who shot them. The client will mention my name, and the potential new client will leave thinking I'm a terrible photographer.
To make a long story short, adding coupons allows me to sell print credit in my packages. Then my clients will get their prints from me, giving me more exposure and new clients. And the cycle repeats. This is so important to me that I'm willing to leave SM for a while in the fall and spend the money and time on setting up ExposureManager just to be able to do this.
Can you at least confirm for us that an internal due date exists?
Yes, it exists, and I've said this. We're trying as hard as we can. We KNOW you want them. There's nothing we can do to make them happen faster that we're not already doing, promise.
So once again coupons and packages have taken a back seat! This time to a new uploader. BIG DEAL! The old ones worked just fine.
Why on earth would you think this? The uploader sorcerer is a completely different guy than the guy that does the Coupons. We have 10 sorcerers on the team
Why on earth would you think this? The uploader sorcerer is a completely different guy than the guy that does the Coupons. We have 10 sorcerers on the team
Why would i think this? Are you serious? I've only been hearing coupons are coming for a couple of years now and still NOTHING!!!
Why would i think this? Are you serious? I've only been hearing coupons are coming for a couple of years now and still NOTHING!!!
Hi, I'm merely pointing out that the two have nothing to do with each other. Totally different sorcerers - so your reason was incorrect. Are coupons taking longer than we wanted? Yep, we've established that - but don't blame it on our new uploader.
My reason is not incorrect. I'm not blaming your new uploader, but we keep seeing new feature after new feature rolled out with still only an empty promise of coupons and packages. I have now renewed twice on the promise that they are coming. TWICE! I know you have lost customers over this and I will not be renewing a third time on the same empty promise.
You and others say that it's a high priority but it gets harder to stay when I see new features and not the one so many have been asking for for so long.
My reason is not incorrect. I'm not blaming your new uploader, but we keep seeing new feature after new feature rolled out with still only an empty promise of coupons and packages. I have now renewed twice on the promise that they are coming. TWICE! I know you have lost customers over this and I will not be renewing a third time on the same empty promise.
You and others say that it's a high priority but it gets harder to stay when I see new features and not the one so many have been asking for for so long.
I'm sorry, I really don't wish to argue with you. I'll leave you with this:
1) coupons are aggressively being worked on, right now. I'm sorry it takes longer than we all thought. It is not any form of empty promise,if you feel that way, I'm sorry. We do not roll this way, haven't for 7 years running.
2) uploaders are done by a wholly different Sorcerer
My reason is not incorrect. I'm not blaming your new uploader, but we keep seeing new feature after new feature rolled out with still only an empty promise of coupons and packages. I have now renewed twice on the promise that they are coming. TWICE! I know you have lost customers over this and I will not be renewing a third time on the same empty promise.
You and others say that it's a high priority but it gets harder to stay when I see new features and not the one so many have been asking for for so long.
Dude... chill.
There are plenty of things to complain about, but the fact that Smugmug is working on projects in parallel with coupons is not one of them.
Assigning all 15 programmers to coupons would not make it go 15 times faster. Writing code is complex, and not something that is easily done by multiple people at once. You would end up with some seriously buggy software.
If they say they are working on it, then I believe them. If it is taking too long for you, then explore your options. There is no need to get nasty.
I hear you - I'd like coupons too. But, you do need to get a grip. There really is no correlation. You can't throw 9 women together and birth a baby in 1 month. Same is true with software developmet. You can't always throw more people on the effort. So, shutting down all software development projects and putting every programmer on one project won't neccessarily help. So while I'm disappointed with Smugmug's policy of not providing a target release date, it's their policy. But as someone who has spent the last 16 years in IT I understand it's unrealistic and un-workable to expect a company to drop all IT projects accept one and put all their resources on it.
Remember, just like photography manufacturers, Smugmug has multiple market segments they have to support. There are a vast number of users who WONT benefit from coupons. As a business, smugmug can't ignore those users and focus solely on those of us who want this feature.
Just like it would have been nice if Canon had stopped all other corporate projects to deal with the mkIII focus issue, it wasn't going to happen. Same here.
Are you waiting to release coupons until they're "complete" and "perfect"? I realize that there are many ways to offer coupons and many considerations that must be made. But it appears the natives are getting restless as am I. Wouldn't it make sense to release coupon functionality in phases? Surely you have some basic features working now.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Are you waiting to release coupons until they're "complete" and "perfect"?
No
I realize that there are many ways to offer coupons and many considerations that must be made. But it appears the natives are getting restless as am I.
Getting? We're restless too. Thanks for your infinite patience.
Wouldn't it make sense to release coupon functionality in phases? Surely you have some basic features working now.
Or to paraphrase another quote, "Perfect is the enemy of good". Or in this case, replace "good" with "anything at all".
I feel sorry for Andy; I really do. The poor guy has gone too many rounds with us on this, and SM won't even give him a chair or a drink in the form of a prospective date, probably because they have no idea what "soon" means themselves.
I feel sorry for all the pros waiting for this feature, too. However, as of this week, I refuse to wait any longer, and will be signing up with someone else (not sure who, but will decide by the end of the week). Sorry, SM. I hope to be back when you figure it all out. Thanks for 4 relatively good years.
I feel sorry for all the pros waiting for this feature, too. However, as of this week, I refuse to wait any longer, and will be signing up with someone else (not sure who, but will decide by the end of the week). Sorry, SM. I hope to be back when you figure it all out. Thanks for 4 relatively good years.
Zenfolio appears at first glance to have successfully ripped off the SM look & feel more or less, and they do coupons. I'm pretty sure I saw that they also allow the user to perform cropping like SM does, which imo is critical. It looks like they do not do packages, but you can accomplish basically the same thing with coupons.
I shoot LL baseball in the spring and I may get a soccer tournament in the fall, and if coupons aren't here by then I'll have to get another gallery somewhere, probably ZF. It will kill me to do so because I love SM. I just cannot go through the wringer of fulfilling my own packages again. Also I need a better sales model than hoping people take the initiative to go to my SM gallery on their own with no obligation and buy something. Being able to pre-sell coupons is imperative.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I shoot LL baseball in the spring and I may get a soccer tournament in the fall, and if coupons aren't here by then I'll have to get another gallery somewhere, probably ZF. It will kill me to do so because I love SM. I just cannot go through the wringer of fulfilling my own packages again. Also I need a better sales model than hoping people take the initiative to go to my SM gallery on their own with no obligation and buy something. Being able to pre-sell coupons is imperative.
I understand. I assume you mean vouchers instead of coupons. Right now, EM seems to be the only one offerering vouchers, coupons, and packages. Admittedly, they're not as sexy as SM, but that doesn't matter if I can't pre-sell anything.
Printroom has all of the above, but their UI is shite, imo.
Vouchers are pre-sales. You used baseball as an example. Offer a dollar amount or number of prints to the customer prior to shooting the game. You can make it more lucrative by discounting it, say 12 4x6 prints retail at $60 and you pre sell the voucher for $50. Now you know which players to shoot.
Especially helpful for me in football, because my "players to shoot list" that comes from parents requesting shots is unmanageable by mid season because half the team is on there, but only about 20% of those on the list actually buy--the rest are looky loos, or just never get around to ordering.
A coupon is exactly that--$X off, or x% off an order.
You can set an expiration date for either.
I expect the change in print fulfillment vendors will be difficult for both me and my customers (they're used to SM), but I see no other way around it. I begged, pleaded, and bellyached, but it didn't get a solution, so I'm off to other (and hopefully greener) pastures.
Vouchers are pre-sales. You used baseball as an example. Offer a dollar amount or number of prints to the customer prior to shooting the game. You can make it more lucrative by discounting it, say 12 4x6 prints retail at $60 and you pre sell the voucher for $50. Now you know which players to shoot.
That's what I have in mind. I <i>think</i> the Zenfolio coupons can be used like that. But I haven't looked too far into them. Yet.
Especially helpful for me in football, because my "players to shoot list" that comes from parents requesting shots is unmanageable by mid season because half the team is on there, but only about 20% of those on the list actually buy--the rest are looky loos, or just never get around to ordering.
I hear ya brother. One time I got a real money shot of a catcher with his helmet off in a run-down with the ball in his hand. I showed both the kid and the parent/coach on the camera lcd. The whole team clamored around, and everyone exclaimed what a great shot it was. You know the rest of the story... no sale. I'm sure they just looked at it on my SM gallery, limited to "large" size only and big watermark and all, emailed the link around and that satisfied them. Argh. This is the problem with the smugmug sales model.
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I hear ya brother. One time I got a real money shot of a catcher with his helmet off in a run-down with the ball in his hand. I showed both the kid and the parent/coach on the camera lcd. The whole team clamored around, and everyone exclaimed what a great shot it was. You know the rest of the story... no sale. I'm sure they just looked at it on my SM gallery, limited to "large" size only and big watermark and all, emailed the link around and that satisfied them. Argh. This is the problem with the smugmug sales model.
No.... That would be a problem with an online gallery sales model. If you really want to make a considerable sale, you would have to do a projection session.
A projection session consists of going to the clients home (or them coming to your studio) and project the image nice and large so they can see it on their living room wall above the sofa.
As you said, once they see it online, there won't be a sale.
If you can't do a "projection session" then put the gallery online for only 10 days. After 10 days, take the gallery down and do not put it back up (unless they pay your "put the gallery back up fee").
If you can't do a "projection session" then put the gallery online for only 10 days. After 10 days, take the gallery down and do not put it back up (unless they pay your "put the gallery back up fee").
This advice always surprises me...
I sell photos from events that have been online for years. In fact I just sold several from a December 2007 dance show today!
I think limiting the viewing time and then charging a "put back" fee would kill all of those sales, and quite probably piss off a large number of customers.
I think some (or even most) clients need some light pressure to purchase. For wedding sales, I think once the honeymoon is over, the motivation starts to fade. I am all for time limits on galleries. Then you can repost just prior to holidays like Christmas or anniversaries.
I think some (or even most) clients need some light pressure to purchase. For wedding sales, I think once the honeymoon is over, the motivation starts to fade. I am all for time limits on galleries. Then you can repost just prior to holidays like Christmas or anniversaries.
I think I'd prefer the term motivation to pressure, and that's (IMHO) what coupons are all about.
Give them a coupon for free standard shipping (or whatever) on orders over $XX, good for 30/60/90 (you pick) days after the pics are posted.
Its a tiny incentive, but then my wife has spent thousands of dollars "saving money" with coupons, I'm sure she's not alone.
The other method (time limiting the online viewing and then charging a re-post fee) comes across as punitive. The coupon is a "reward" for ordering early.
Comments
So let's go SmugMug. Enough with excuses. You just got all our hopes up with the fancy SmugMug Pro teaser page. We all want coupons and packages, and I think I speak for many of the SM Pro subscribers that if the next time I'm asked for my $150 for the year SM hasn't released its new Pro service, I won't be paying.
Save $5 on a new Smugmug Membership
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:whip consider our developers whipped!
Thanks for telling us in no uncertain terms exactly how important this is to you.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Andy:
This is very important to me. I did not sign up with the "other" company (starts with a "Z") because I liked the functionality and customization options (edit) of SmugMug. I was also told by your support group that coupons were coming real soon. I would like to order business cards and include a coupon code on the card.
Instead of saying that the coupon function is under active aggressive development, how about giving us a date we can expect to see coupons. This thread is over a year old.
I too will consider whether or not I will continue with SmugMug once my membership is up for renewal.
Neal Jacob
[URL="http://nealjacob.com/twitter"]Twitter[/URL]|[B][URL="http://photos.nealjacob.com"]SmugMug[/URL][/B
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Save $5 on a new Smugmug Membership
Host your website for just $3.45/mo with JustHost - Rated best web host of 2010
See my profile for a gear list & more
I'm patiently waiting too for the coupons. ( As SM is well aware.) I want to be able to offer discounts to my Twitter and Facebook friends which is over 5,500 fans. The fall is my season. After the sailing season, crews and captains are looking for gifts and they want to buy the best photos of the season. The holiday's are huge for me too.
Leighton
http://www.leightonphoto.com
Nautical & Travel Photographer
http://leightonPHOTO.com
Yup. I totally know what you mean. After attending multiple seminars related to the business of photography, I've made the decision to restructure my entire business model.
A MAJOR part of my new business model is going to involve coupons. If I can't roll this out in time for the ramp up of the holiday season (early September) then there is no point in doing it at all.
I realize that you want to do coupons right, but it seems at this point (to quote my friend Voltaire) that "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Get it done! Get it out!
To make a long story short, adding coupons allows me to sell print credit in my packages. Then my clients will get their prints from me, giving me more exposure and new clients. And the cycle repeats. This is so important to me that I'm willing to leave SM for a while in the fall and spend the money and time on setting up ExposureManager just to be able to do this.
Save $5 on a new Smugmug Membership
Host your website for just $3.45/mo with JustHost - Rated best web host of 2010
See my profile for a gear list & more
Yes, it exists, and I've said this. We're trying as hard as we can. We KNOW you want them. There's nothing we can do to make them happen faster that we're not already doing, promise.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Website
Sports Sample Photos
Sportsshooter.com/ctproctor
Four Seam Images
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Why would i think this? Are you serious? I've only been hearing coupons are coming for a couple of years now and still NOTHING!!!
Website
Sports Sample Photos
Sportsshooter.com/ctproctor
Four Seam Images
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
You and others say that it's a high priority but it gets harder to stay when I see new features and not the one so many have been asking for for so long.
Website
Sports Sample Photos
Sportsshooter.com/ctproctor
Four Seam Images
1) coupons are aggressively being worked on, right now. I'm sorry it takes longer than we all thought. It is not any form of empty promise,if you feel that way, I'm sorry. We do not roll this way, haven't for 7 years running.
2) uploaders are done by a wholly different Sorcerer
Thank you.
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Dude... chill.
There are plenty of things to complain about, but the fact that Smugmug is working on projects in parallel with coupons is not one of them.
Assigning all 15 programmers to coupons would not make it go 15 times faster. Writing code is complex, and not something that is easily done by multiple people at once. You would end up with some seriously buggy software.
If they say they are working on it, then I believe them. If it is taking too long for you, then explore your options. There is no need to get nasty.
I hear you - I'd like coupons too. But, you do need to get a grip. There really is no correlation. You can't throw 9 women together and birth a baby in 1 month. Same is true with software developmet. You can't always throw more people on the effort. So, shutting down all software development projects and putting every programmer on one project won't neccessarily help. So while I'm disappointed with Smugmug's policy of not providing a target release date, it's their policy. But as someone who has spent the last 16 years in IT I understand it's unrealistic and un-workable to expect a company to drop all IT projects accept one and put all their resources on it.
Remember, just like photography manufacturers, Smugmug has multiple market segments they have to support. There are a vast number of users who WONT benefit from coupons. As a business, smugmug can't ignore those users and focus solely on those of us who want this feature.
Just like it would have been nice if Canon had stopped all other corporate projects to deal with the mkIII focus issue, it wasn't going to happen. Same here.
Are you waiting to release coupons until they're "complete" and "perfect"? I realize that there are many ways to offer coupons and many considerations that must be made. But it appears the natives are getting restless as am I. Wouldn't it make sense to release coupon functionality in phases? Surely you have some basic features working now.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Thanks!
Portfolio • Workshops • Facebook • Twitter
Or to paraphrase another quote, "Perfect is the enemy of good". Or in this case, replace "good" with "anything at all".
I feel sorry for Andy; I really do. The poor guy has gone too many rounds with us on this, and SM won't even give him a chair or a drink in the form of a prospective date, probably because they have no idea what "soon" means themselves.
I feel sorry for all the pros waiting for this feature, too. However, as of this week, I refuse to wait any longer, and will be signing up with someone else (not sure who, but will decide by the end of the week). Sorry, SM. I hope to be back when you figure it all out. Thanks for 4 relatively good years.
Zenfolio appears at first glance to have successfully ripped off the SM look & feel more or less, and they do coupons. I'm pretty sure I saw that they also allow the user to perform cropping like SM does, which imo is critical. It looks like they do not do packages, but you can accomplish basically the same thing with coupons.
I shoot LL baseball in the spring and I may get a soccer tournament in the fall, and if coupons aren't here by then I'll have to get another gallery somewhere, probably ZF. It will kill me to do so because I love SM. I just cannot go through the wringer of fulfilling my own packages again. Also I need a better sales model than hoping people take the initiative to go to my SM gallery on their own with no obligation and buy something. Being able to pre-sell coupons is imperative.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
I understand. I assume you mean vouchers instead of coupons. Right now, EM seems to be the only one offerering vouchers, coupons, and packages. Admittedly, they're not as sexy as SM, but that doesn't matter if I can't pre-sell anything.
If someone has another solution, I'm all ears.
What's the difference?
Printroom has all of the above, but their UI is shite, imo.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Vouchers are pre-sales. You used baseball as an example. Offer a dollar amount or number of prints to the customer prior to shooting the game. You can make it more lucrative by discounting it, say 12 4x6 prints retail at $60 and you pre sell the voucher for $50. Now you know which players to shoot.
Especially helpful for me in football, because my "players to shoot list" that comes from parents requesting shots is unmanageable by mid season because half the team is on there, but only about 20% of those on the list actually buy--the rest are looky loos, or just never get around to ordering.
A coupon is exactly that--$X off, or x% off an order.
You can set an expiration date for either.
I expect the change in print fulfillment vendors will be difficult for both me and my customers (they're used to SM), but I see no other way around it. I begged, pleaded, and bellyached, but it didn't get a solution, so I'm off to other (and hopefully greener) pastures.
That's what I have in mind. I <i>think</i> the Zenfolio coupons can be used like that. But I haven't looked too far into them. Yet.
I hear ya brother. One time I got a real money shot of a catcher with his helmet off in a run-down with the ball in his hand. I showed both the kid and the parent/coach on the camera lcd. The whole team clamored around, and everyone exclaimed what a great shot it was. You know the rest of the story... no sale. I'm sure they just looked at it on my SM gallery, limited to "large" size only and big watermark and all, emailed the link around and that satisfied them. Argh. This is the problem with the smugmug sales model.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
No.... That would be a problem with an online gallery sales model. If you really want to make a considerable sale, you would have to do a projection session.
A projection session consists of going to the clients home (or them coming to your studio) and project the image nice and large so they can see it on their living room wall above the sofa.
As you said, once they see it online, there won't be a sale.
If you can't do a "projection session" then put the gallery online for only 10 days. After 10 days, take the gallery down and do not put it back up (unless they pay your "put the gallery back up fee").
Neal Jacob
[URL="http://nealjacob.com/twitter"]Twitter[/URL]|[B][URL="http://photos.nealjacob.com"]SmugMug[/URL][/B
This advice always surprises me...
I sell photos from events that have been online for years. In fact I just sold several from a December 2007 dance show today!
I think limiting the viewing time and then charging a "put back" fee would kill all of those sales, and quite probably piss off a large number of customers.
YMMV.
I think I'd prefer the term motivation to pressure, and that's (IMHO) what coupons are all about.
Give them a coupon for free standard shipping (or whatever) on orders over $XX, good for 30/60/90 (you pick) days after the pics are posted.
Its a tiny incentive, but then my wife has spent thousands of dollars "saving money" with coupons, I'm sure she's not alone.
The other method (time limiting the online viewing and then charging a re-post fee) comes across as punitive. The coupon is a "reward" for ordering early.