Is this weird?? No sales at all??

grandlakephoto · August 25, 2010

So far 79,000 picture views at my site this month alone and still no sales. Is that normal? The economy? Whats the deal?? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

denisegoldberg · August 25, 2010

It's not weird at all to have no sales. You haven't provided a link to your site so I have no idea if you are actively pushing sales or if you are expecting people to come to you.

Are you actively marketing your photos?
What type of photos are on your site?
Do you do portraits or weddings or sports and have the sales of the end product photos go through your site?

--- Denise

grandlakephoto · August 25, 2010

site
oops.. its grandlakephotos.com here at smugmug. In the last year I have been doing events and a few weddings. I don't understand why I have only had 6 sales in a years time. Someone was telling me that if the people can come see the pictures then they won't buy them. If that is true then maybe I should have a limit on how long the pictures stay up??

grandlakephoto · August 25, 2010

yes
www.grandlakephotos.com

Thanks for any advice!

denisegoldberg · August 25, 2010

You are allowing access to originals in your galleries. With access to originals do you really think that people will pay for the photos? I know, you have right click protection turned on. That is merely a stumbling block; it doesn't stop people from taking the photos. The original is always used for printing, regardless of the largest display size selected. You should update your galleries to set the largest display size to something other than original.

You have a Portfolio entry on your navbar that takes the viewer to an empty gallery. Your Pricing and About me galleries show the message "this gallery has no photos to display yet". Your About gallery shows the same message and is in fact empty. None of these give the feel of a professional's site.

I clicked into several galleries and clicked on the buy button only to find that the photos you'd uploaded to the galleries weren't large enough to support even a 4x6 print. See this page for minimum (size) requirements - http://www.smugmug.com/help/print-quality.

You say that you shoot weddings and events. When you shoot weddings, do you have a contract that includes some photos, or are you expecting all ad hoc sales? For events, what type of marketing are you doing? Do the attendees know how to find your site?

--- Denise

timnosenzo · August 25, 2010

I didn't look through all of your galleries, so they may not be all like this - but....

In this gallery: http://www.grandlakephotos.com/Weddings/KassieJosh-Wedding/9953465_4paQt#679629276_DrPmW

You have uploaded very small photos (too small to print a 4x6 from), so customers can't order them. Here's what I see:

Screen shot 2010-08-25 at 10.18.59 PM.jpg

I can't buy them if I wanted too. Also, for all of your photos, they're not watermarked and you have the originals enabled, so folks can just download them if they want.

I checked a few galleries in the wedding category and they were all the same.

grandlakephoto · August 25, 2010

Yes
As I have just upgraded to pro level at smugmug all of my newer uploads are in a higher quality for printing. All of my older folders were small to save time in uploading. My thoughts were to print them myself so all I needed was a file number from the client. And I will redo the older folders as I quick as I have time.
Yes.. the people know who I am and wherever I am they come up to me with smiles and say they really love my pictures and talk about setting up sessions. and I think that is why I am getting 50,000 to 80,000 picture hits a month.. but no website sales.. that is really weird to me. I was really counting on people wanting to buy event pictures.
Yes its true my site is lacking on looking as professional as most here. I still haven't figured out how to make it pretty yet. I am just thrilled to have more than just facebook.
Ok.. I will switch from original to large? medium?
Thank you so much....

jfriend · August 25, 2010

I just looked through your Ugly's Rock The Dock 4 Aug21 gallery to get a sense for the images you're offering for events. What I see here is a gallery that people would enjoy browsing and sharing with their friends, but not images that people would want to order prints of. In my galleries, I see people order prints generally for two things:

1) They want a whole bunch of 4x6 images because it's easier to show other people this way. I sometimes see people ordering 4x6's of the entire gallery (depending upon how reasonably priced they are). Note that as people get more and more web connected, this is happening less and less.

2) People want to order some sort of enlargement that they can put in a frame.

To be honest, in this gallery, I didn't see anything that people would want to put on their wall. They're images that document an event and would be fun to watch in a group slideshow and laugh about and remember the event, but they aren't images that people want to hang on their wall. I don't see anything technically wrong with them - they just aren't the type of images that people buy.

grandlakephoto · August 26, 2010

Thank you John
Yes All of my events are on assignment for our small local paper so yes there is a slant to documenting the events.. capturing the people just having fun and such.
I looked at your site and it is beautiful. I clicked on your portfolio and then to your popular ones and its so amazing.. your landscapes and such. I can see why people would want enlargements and frame them.
Question?? is it a oversight or ??? that your 4x6's are .20 and 8x10's are $2.00?
Jeff

jfriend · August 26, 2010

grandlakephoto wrote: »

Yes All of my events are on assignment for our small local paper so yes there is a slant to documenting the events.. capturing the people just having fun and such.
I looked at your site and it is beautiful. I clicked on your portfolio and then to your popular ones and its so amazing.. your landscapes and such. I can see why people would want enlargements and frame them.
Question?? is it a oversight or ??? that your 4x6's are .20 and 8x10's are $2.00?
Jeff

I'm not selling things for profit on that site. I have a different site where I shoot kids sports events.

SamirD · August 26, 2010

I've learned that not protecting image sizes larger than medium, not right-click protecting, and not watermarking will lead to less sales. In this Internet-minded economy. If it's online and is able to be obtained for free, no one will pay for it.

And the images themselves are pretty important too. As everyone now has a dslr, what separates your images from theirs? You have to have an edge of some sort, and it's getting tougher and tougher to do that as the competition increases every day.

To give you some data for comparison, I have around 300,000+ image views a month. This month only has 5 sales. Last month had 10.

grandlakephoto · September 1, 2010

event picture sales
ok.. so if I am to understand this right and to learn from all the smugmug pros here.. (I am seriously trying to learn here.. ha) my pictures are really not that good for sales.. yes the people here love them but they want them for free and won't part with their hard earned money..
Question then is.. Are there people here on Smugmug that are successful at selling their event images? I would sure love to see what and how they are doing it.
Thanks sooo much.

RKnecht · September 1, 2010

In my opinion, every image should have a nice watermark on it

Design a watermark that can't be easily removed by the casual photoshop user. Before I used watermarks, people actually were telling me how great the pictures they got from my site looked! They actually told me they simply copied them and got them printed at the local Costco, Walmart, etc. I informed them that it was theft, and they were shocked. Now, I watermark everything.

WinsomeWorks · September 7, 2010

First of all, I think you have the most luck selling event images if you work events that are connected with a somewhat wealthier community.... wealthier than the one I live in, anyway! I mean, that sounds crass, but I know that so many parents in my community struggle just to buy the school photos each yr. You also should have cards or something ready to pass out right there at the event so that you can actually get people to look for your site later-- they never remember the name of your site. And choose events that are within the bounds of your photographic prowess (i.e. you have the right lenses, flashes, whatever is needed for that event) & don't have a hundred other people already capturing it better than you can. This info is mostly gleaned from my brother & from the limited experience I've had-- I haven't cashed in well on event sales, but some of the above is why I haven't, besides the fact that it's just not my favorite thing!

Just out of curiosity-- I was wondering about your equipment, etc. & checked out camera info on a bunch of shots--great camera--- but wondering why you would set your ISO to 1000 for such a bright outdoor-light event. For 1000 ISO, the clarity isn't bad, but I was noticing a fair amount of noise, & that explains it. It seems you're using that high ISO a lot, even for all those shots where lots of depth-of-field isn't needed or even desirable. Even for the indoor shots, which were even higher ISO-- 1250, I doubt you'd have needed all that. You're getting a lot of over-blown highlights too in that bright light... you could set your camera on a shade setting or back off the contrast in your menu, at least on bright days like that. And lots of times, having a much lower ISO for outdoors will be more likely to make it easier to only keep the focus on the real focal point of the photo, rather than having every single boat in the marina in focus, for instance.

Not saying these things will improve sales... just an overall improvement thing. And if you have kid shots or other people shots, you can do a little more cropping right here on SmugMug, so that parts of other people's bodies or other extraneous stuff isn't there ruining the shot. You have plenty of pixels to work with. As a parent, I'd be much more interested in buying good shot of my kid if it were well-presented & well-cropped. You should always have an original somewhere, of course. Well, good luck! There's event money to be had-- and lots of books & courses that would help you improve & capitalize on them.

grandlakephoto · October 18, 2010

Thank you Anna. I still seem to be getting a lot of "what if this and what if that" but still haven't met anyone who is doing well at selling prints through smugmug. It may be the economy.. don't know. Is there anyone out there doing well?? I mean.. making more money than they spend?
Jeff

Andy · October 18, 2010

grandlakephoto wrote: »

Is there anyone out there doing well?? I mean.. making more money than they spend?
Jeff

We're paying out $millions to our pros... so there are definitely lots of sales being made! You're getting some great advice in from SmugMug Pros in this thread

grandlakephoto · October 18, 2010

Thank you Andy! Would it be ok to share a few names with me so I can "see" what I need to do to be successful at selling prints? I don't mind the work if it is still possible to sell in this economy.
Thank you so much,
Jeff

MileHighAko · October 18, 2010

I've had a pro account for a long time for the HD video capabilities, but just recently got into sill photography and on September 4th decided to sell prints of sporting events that my kids are involved with (football and gymnastics). I'm a hobbyist and not out to make more than just hobby money, so my prices are pretty cheap (e.g. $1.00 for 4x6 gymnastics prints). Anyway, since September 4th I've sold 165 prints, and have had several people offer to pay me to take specific action shots and also portraits. Now I'm trying to learn about lighting and am going to buy some more equipment and expand my skills. This little hobby is getting fun.

But anyway, my point is that I've sold 165 (sporting) event prints in the past month and a half - and I have been super impressed with the process and quality of smugmug's fulfillment, and my customers have also commented as such.

Oh, by the way, one word of advice is to set your proof days to at least 1. I initially had it at zero, and my first customer didn't realize how to crop their photo (and I being a beginner had some crops that were not standard size) and they ended up with a photo with the subject's head cut off! Since then I've learned to crop my photos in print friendly sizes, and with the proof days properly set I'm able to fix any customer's inability to crop during checkout.

Good luck.

www.adamcartwright.com

Luie · November 4, 2010

http://www.lensitself.com/

I've found that it's best to get your money up front. I photograph school's underclass and yearbook shots. The parents pay for the photos up front. If you give people the time to go home and think about it; you've lost a sale. They have the option of purchasing on line, but they have to pay the extra cost of shipping. I us that as a deterrent. I will say that this is the first time I've used smugmug for mass prints. Therefore I have questions of my own regarding that.

If you are shooting an event; you need to be getting paid for your time. I charge by the hour and offer a CD of the event. I give them a good 8x10 quality. Not the original. The gallery on line is mainly for marketing. Show your best shots only. If they do want that enlargement of a really good shot; they don't have to go through hundreds of photos to find it.

mischloss · November 4, 2010

I found this under your events/weddings statement:

"Online gallery for easy sharing and ordering that will remain online for 1 year. High Resolution digital files on disk given to you with license to print."

Why would you have images available for 1 year? Our event photographer put ours up for the Bar Mitzvah for 30 days! And it cost us an additional $25 for him to even create a gallery. Also, he would never, ever, EVER, let us have the jpgs from the event. The uploads were very small resolution and huge watermarks. Then each image was sold a la carte. True he was a rip off artist...one 8x10 was $35!!! but he didn't give away the cow with the milk that is for sure. Why would anyone buy anything if you give them the High Resolution digital files on a disk? They can do all the emailing and printing that they want to all their friends from it.

I really like some of your portraits by the way. You have the talent, you just need better busy practices. Good luck.

Hinson · November 14, 2010

Jeff; I know this is an old thread but I'll offer a bit of advice. It has been my experience that if you leave images of a wedding online, the bride and groom will use that as their personal album and refer family and friends but will not necessarily buy prints. Think about it. Do you want an 8x10 print of a friend getting married? Most don't but would like to look through the album once or twice. I think that is probably what is happening on your site. My advice: give the B&G a limited time to order prints and then take them off the site. Tell them to email you for a password once they return from their honeymoon and then give them two weeks to a month to order.

The only prints that I would leave are those that have commercial appeal to a broad audience, not just the subject(s) or family of subject(s).

Mark Dickinson · November 14, 2010

Answers you might like. I sell on average $500 profit per month
That profit is on about 20% markup. I am happy with that but not 100% satisfied. One way to get more print sales is as the previous said, limit the amount of time. Also PROMOTE! Sell them with coupons. Mark your prices to say 5-10.00 and then discount it and give a limited time to buy. It's the same as buying at your current price, but "DISCOUNTS" feel good.

www.mdpstore.com

Is this weird?? No sales at all??

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