How are you selling your goods...

ilumsden · May 29, 2012

I’m throwing out a question here to see how professional photographers are selling their photographs taken during events. I’ve been to a few sporting events in the last month and have been struck by the various methods professional photographers are selling their work. I'm thinking of doing the same, but on a smaller scale.

Question is, what is more successful, selling your photos (either print or digital) on site at the time of the event or having customer visiting your site and order them at a later time?

Thank you for your participation

Glort · May 29, 2012

Not even remotely close.
On site leaves online for dead for a whole load of reasons.

If I couldn't sell onsite, it's not worth even doing the event.

Snowgirl · May 31, 2012

Glort wrote: »

Not even remotely close.
On site leaves online for dead for a whole load of reasons.

If I couldn't sell onsite, it's not worth even doing the event.

He is so right. I shot a horse show two weeks ago (and I'm not equipped for on-site sales, so rely on on-line galleries for sales) and so far have sold TWO photos - both of a man and his Irish Wolfhound.

Last week-end I was INVITED to come and shoot a show jumping event. So far, not a single sale.

That was, without doubt, my last event as I am not in a position to invest in on-site printing and/or additional personnel to facilitate even on-site order taking.

This is a case of go big, or go home.

Pure Energy · May 31, 2012

I would take a look at your hit count for your galleries. Maybe someone here can shed some light on what they think is a good conversion rate. Number of hits/views versus sales. Please let us know what you're doing to drive people to your site. If you're posting the link here or in your profile, your numbers might be a lower conversion rate as well.

The devil's in the details (and there's a lot you're not sharing) so I wouldn't (and I'm not going to) give up on online sales just yet. However, I would look at doing some form of onsite sales anyways. More importantly, to think about what type of photographer/sales person you are and to consider doing onsite sales in such a way that the customers would not dare or even consider having you replaced by the likes of Glort. So in that sense, Snowgirl is half right. Go big or post hope online.

Glort · May 31, 2012

I'm really sorry to hear you are giving it away Snow.
The quality of your images and the effort you have invested into the horses makes you deserving of a whole lot better than what you have got.
I'm not sure that doing onsite would be worth your while anyway. If you can't get better than that out of online, it tells me the market is doubtful and has problems beyond anything you can do to stimulate it.

As far as go big, I was the biggest of all with the Horse's and it wasn't enough to make it worthwhile for me either. I have my trailer up for sale atm and re assigned the servers and work stations and have a whole pile of laptops I'm not sure what I'm going to do with.
There are a couple of events that have been winners for us over the years I might do in a few months but they will be the exception rather than the rule.

I got to thinking about the horses earlier this week and was missing them. I had a look on the association website at how little was going on and how far away most things were and woke up to myself. I don't think it's doing the events I miss, it's the people. Getting up at 4am and working your butt off in the freezing cold or sweltering heat and not having your backside fall into a chair till 9pm is something I don't miss at all.

One thing I have seen as being telling is that so far I HAVEN"T been asked to cover any of the usual events. The ones I'm thinking of are special one off annuals they asked me to come back for last year rather than the regular stuff I was covering.
Despite having over a ton of gear literally and slave labor, it was clear that the business had gone as far as it was going to go and no amount of extra investment in it was going to make a difference to how much people bought or spent. I had grand illusions of what I wanted to turn it into when I first started but I hit the reality check about 6 months in.

Even though sports events are so much less saturated with shooters here than in the states or I imagine Canada, The whole photo thing has gone down hill rapidly even in the short 3 years I have been in the game. I guess it's a bunch of factors not the least being the availability of cheap, high quality cameras that the enthusiastic can take their own pics with and in the case of the horses here, a constant down hill slide of the people in the sport.

I have not missed the realization that I found the swim stuff at exactly the right time. I could have been doing it last year instead of the horses. I lost a bunch of horse events last year due to cancellations from lack of entries. Just this week I had a look at the numbers for this year and saw they are another 5500 rider registrations down on top of the 7500 they lost last year. The market is now around 14,000 riders for the entire state. That's less than one of the guys I know in the US covers in a single Cheer event!

I doubt there is much swim stuff available where you are, (its cold here now so you're probably sweating!) but maybe something like pre-school photography may hold some potential for you?
To me, this is going to be where the money is in any sort of event photography. En mass, McDonald's sausage machine type work where there are large groups of people. The corporate dinners and charity balls are also good for me but That's probably because of the amount of gear and the setup I have. For you it would be back to onsite, staff etc which may not be practical.

Anyway, I just wanted to say you are not alone in what you have experienced even from the other side of the world.
You are a damn talented shooter Snow so try and think outside the square and see where the hidden opportunities are.
I would have never imagined myself shooting kids underwater in a million years but at the moment my biggest problem with it is working out when I can fit all the places in between now and Christmas and stressing because my supplier doesn't have the 7000 sheets of A4 paper I need for the next centre.

Snowgirl · June 1, 2012

Thanks, Glort, for your words of encouragement. As you've said, there comes a point where you just have to face the realities and find another revenue stream if you are going to stay in business.

For me - I'm not sure what that will be. i love doing family and pet portraits and there is a market for that in my area - but it's not enough to sustain the total business, that's for sure. I also specialize in small, intimate (2nd marriages or older couples) weddings. I have no desire to shoot the big ones and take on all the physical strain and mental stress. Age and health are factors too.

I am located in a small market area. The total population of our province, distributed over a large geographical area, is only slightly more than 700,000 people - so that is a reality too when you start segmenting into specific sports, activities, venues, events and significant life moments.

I think that specializing may be the answer - and being the very best at one or two things. Just not sure yet in which direction I want to take that train of thought.

Have a great day!

Glort wrote: »

I'm really sorry to hear you are giving it away Snow.
The quality of your images and the effort you have invested into the horses makes you deserving of a whole lot better than what you have got.
I'm not sure that doing onsite would be worth your while anyway. If you can't get better than that out of online, it tells me the market is doubtful and has problems beyond anything you can do to stimulate it.

As far as go big, I was the biggest of all with the Horse's and it wasn't enough to make it worthwhile for me either. I have my trailer up for sale atm and re assigned the servers and work stations and have a whole pile of laptops I'm not sure what I'm going to do with.
There are a couple of events that have been winners for us over the years I might do in a few months but they will be the exception rather than the rule.

I got to thinking about the horses earlier this week and was missing them. I had a look on the association website at how little was going on and how far away most things were and woke up to myself. I don't think it's doing the events I miss, it's the people. Getting up at 4am and working your butt off in the freezing cold or sweltering heat and not having your backside fall into a chair till 9pm is something I don't miss at all.

One thing I have seen as being telling is that so far I HAVEN"T been asked to cover any of the usual events. The ones I'm thinking of are special one off annuals they asked me to come back for last year rather than the regular stuff I was covering.
Despite having over a ton of gear literally and slave labor, it was clear that the business had gone as far as it was going to go and no amount of extra investment in it was going to make a difference to how much people bought or spent. I had grand illusions of what I wanted to turn it into when I first started but I hit the reality check about 6 months in.

Even though sports events are so much less saturated with shooters here than in the states or I imagine Canada, The whole photo thing has gone down hill rapidly even in the short 3 years I have been in the game. I guess it's a bunch of factors not the least being the availability of cheap, high quality cameras that the enthusiastic can take their own pics with and in the case of the horses here, a constant down hill slide of the people in the sport.

I have not missed the realization that I found the swim stuff at exactly the right time. I could have been doing it last year instead of the horses. I lost a bunch of horse events last year due to cancellations from lack of entries. Just this week I had a look at the numbers for this year and saw they are another 5500 rider registrations down on top of the 7500 they lost last year. The market is now around 14,000 riders for the entire state. That's less than one of the guys I know in the US covers in a single Cheer event!

I doubt there is much swim stuff available where you are, (its cold here now so you're probably sweating!) but maybe something like pre-school photography may hold some potential for you?
To me, this is going to be where the money is in any sort of event photography. En mass, McDonald's sausage machine type work where there are large groups of people. The corporate dinners and charity balls are also good for me but That's probably because of the amount of gear and the setup I have. For you it would be back to onsite, staff etc which may not be practical.

Anyway, I just wanted to say you are not alone in what you have experienced even from the other side of the world.
You are a damn talented shooter Snow so try and think outside the square and see where the hidden opportunities are.
I would have never imagined myself shooting kids underwater in a million years but at the moment my biggest problem with it is working out when I can fit all the places in between now and Christmas and stressing because my supplier doesn't have the 7000 sheets of A4 paper I need for the next centre.

Snowgirl · June 1, 2012

My hit rate on event galleries is in the 10s of thousands. Hmm.

Pure Energy wrote: »

I would take a look at your hit count for your galleries. Maybe someone here can shed some light on what they think is a good conversion rate. Number of hits/views versus sales. Please let us know what you're doing to drive people to your site. If you're posting the link here or in your profile, your numbers might be a lower conversion rate as well.

The devil's in the details (and there's a lot you're not sharing) so I wouldn't (and I'm not going to) give up on online sales just yet. However, I would look at doing some form of onsite sales anyways. More importantly, to think about what type of photographer/sales person you are and to consider doing onsite sales in such a way that the customers would not dare or even consider having you replaced by the likes of Glort. So in that sense, Snowgirl is half right. Go big or post hope online.

Glort · June 1, 2012

Pure Energy wrote: »

I would take a look at your hit count for your galleries. Maybe someone here can shed some light on what they think is a good conversion rate. Number of hits/views versus sales. Please let us know what you're doing to drive people to your site. If you're posting the link here or in your profile, your numbers might be a lower conversion rate as well.

The devil's in the details (and there's a lot you're not sharing) so I wouldn't (and I'm not going to) give up on online sales just yet. However, I would look at doing some form of onsite sales anyways. More importantly, to think about what type of photographer/sales person you are and to consider doing onsite sales in such a way that the customers would not dare or even consider having you replaced by the likes of Glort. So in that sense, Snowgirl is half right. Go big or post hope online.

I don't think you understand the markets at all.
Neither online nor horse events.

It is not feasible to do horse events by shooting and selling onsite without help. It's often not profitable to pay someone to help you on a lot of them either.

From what Snow has shared with me, I'd say she has driven the whole damn thing as well as she could let alone people to her site.
Doing your part perfectly still leaves a whole mess of gaping holes in the online Business model which I am sure you will come to realize as your practical experience starts catching up with that of your theoretical outlook.

The guys that are making real money out of events as far as I am aware all do onsite. Most organizers of bigger events aren't interested in people that do online only these days because they recognize that onsite gives their event a value added importance and credibility. I think it would be very difficult for online only shooters to get the best and most profitable events. In fact with the competition these days and the level of efficency and professionalism the onsite boys leverage, I'd say it would be bloody near impossible for an online shooter to get anything other than the scraps the experience shooters wouldn't be interested in anyway.

If it were profitable to just post pics online and get your web addy into everyone's hands, the guys doing the serious stuff wouldn't have $100K+ tied up in vstations etc nor have a heard of staff to run it all for them. Sometimes it takes money to make money and there is no way around that.
I have yet to hear of anyone making near what they can online as what they do onsite but I'm always open to new info and learning something I didn't know if it proves my previous beliefs wrong.

There is a veritable grand canyon between the motivational theory of event sales and the practical reality.
In my experience the reality for people that want to make a worthwhile hourly rate in the event game rather than just playing Tiddly winks is "Do onsite or just don't waste your time covering the event in the first place. "

And this holds true for things like what I'm doing now as well. The guy before me at the last place I covered did online orders only. His sales rate both by what he said and what the clients said they bought was a million miles away from the pre printed onsite sales model I'm using.

Film was great in it's day too but it would be highly inefficient to do sports/ event work with nowadays.

mercphoto · June 1, 2012

Glort is mostly spot-on here. Online only event sales will never generate much income. You need the impulse buy that onsite gives. Note that you do not necessarily have to print on-site. You mainly want to show photos, take orders, and take money on-site. You can fulfill and ship later if you don't want to print on-site as well.

The only time I've made real money at events is when I've either managed to get an up-front fee to shoot the event (handing over files within the week) or pre-sold CDs to entrants. Otherwse I've generally made hobby-levels of sales at the motorsports events I shoot.

I'm slowly getting to the point I'm healthy enough to start the motorsports photography again (yeah!) and while I miss it, I do question if I want to get back into it. And I think I would only if I could either pre-sell CDs or get some money up-front for coverage (its worth it to hand over the files if the fee is good enough). Even handing over files, you can still sell speciality items that most people cannot get themselves.

Pure Energy · June 1, 2012

I don't think Glort is spot-on here, mercphoto. Even though I've read what Glort has meant before... everytime anyone goes off on saying onsite sales is the only way, I think everyone starts to assume the following:

tent for shade
many computers for viewing photos
able to purchase and pick up photos (prints or cds) within moments
photos may be saved but will not be posted online

And then the above notion of onsite sales is further ingrained as the only way to do things according to Glort when he further mentions:

Glort wrote: »

As far as go big, I was the biggest of all with the Horse's and it wasn't enough to make it worthwhile for me either. I have my trailer up for sale atm and re assigned the servers and work stations and have a whole pile of laptops I'm not sure what I'm going to do with.

In my opinion, ilumsden should only be doing online sales at the moment but I don't know enough of Larry's situation. Snowgirl shouldn't give up on online sales because I think there's more she can do but the whole market is changing or has changed. Some changes are that people are not wanting to freely spend money in this economy, better quality cameras are now in customer's hands and there's a lot of people thinking there's no rush to buy now. Doing only onsite sales solves the last problem but it isn't the only way.

If I had to hire an assistant that wasn't a relative to do onsite sales only, I would want to nearly double the amount of money I took in from an event. Does that mean I should be comfortable taking in what I currently am which could be half or well below what someone onsite is taking in? What if it isn't half or well below? Doubling the amount I take in to pay an assistant would then be even harder to do, especially if my online sales were adequate or close to what I could be doing onsite considering I'm doing it with a heck of a lot less overhead in equipment. Think about it. A dollar spent on equipment to do onsite sales to make a dollar more seems foolish to me. But I'm not saying there aren't events worth doing onsite sales the way Glort does. It just doesn't fit every event worth shooting.

How about giving us some real numbers to make some informed decisions?

For the few team photos I've done, I was still amazed everyone didn't buy the group shot or any shot. What should the numbers be like these days? Should 75% of the people in the group shot spending a certain dollar amount be reasonable? What is that dollar amount?

What percentage is the number of participants in sporting events (by sport) who actually purchase photos if a photographers photos are available:

onsite only?
onsite and online?
onsite ordering only?
onsite ordering and online only?
online only?

What's an average dollar amount value per person or the number and size of prints per person for each of the above scenarios?

For those posting your photos online, what's your conversion rate from hits to sales? Are people finding your site, looking at photos and will never purchase a photo because they aren't in the photo (like people here)? How many days, months or years are your photos posted? Any sales of photos posted a long time? Are you also doing onsite printing or ordering? It might take time and a lot of work to get the ball rolling consistently from event to event with online sales so one shouldn't be posting one or two events and going... huh, where are the sales? What is needed to get online sales working for a particular photographer is another story. It's not going to be the same for everyone.

What else don't we know about online sales? How about how many decent photos of a subject does a client need to see and want before pulling the trigger? Are they waiting for photos from a previous or future event to be posted before purchasing?

Like I said before, the devil's in the details. What are you doing to promote your photos. Nothing quite promotes your photos like a big tent full of computers for viewing and purchasing photos onsite at the event, Glort style... so of course onsite sales should really enhance one's pocket then to make it worthwhile.

Of course, Glort will probably say onsite sales doesn't have to be viewing under a tent and picking up onsite within moments... but that is what everyone is thinking onsite sales are contrary to what mercphoto mentioned.

I could be wrong on this but it also seems that Glort doesn't think posting of any photos online is a good idea even if one was taking onsite orders. So, what do you guys think? Time to completely abandon selling photos online?

Glort · June 2, 2012

mercphoto wrote: »

Note that you do not necessarily have to print on-site. You mainly want to show photos, take orders, and take money on-site. You can fulfill and ship later if you don't want to print on-site as well.

Couldn't agree more. I have done the sales only thing and it made NO difference to the bottom line even with a tribe of clients that were used to me doing onsite.
You need to be flexible and look at each event. If I was going to do something with 1000 paarticipants, it would be sales only because selling is the important part, not delivery.

Onsite printing is a personal preference of mine not a necessity. I like to have every job done when I leave as to having more homework through the week. Now If I had to hire someone to do that, The homework option would be more profitable.

The only time I've made real money at events is when I've either managed to get an up-front fee to shoot the event (handing over files within the week) or pre-sold CDs to entrants. Otherwse I've generally made hobby-levels of sales at the motorsports events I shoot.

Presold Cd's is the ultimate. Pre-sold anything is the ultimate really. Nothing like having a guaranteed income.

I'm slowly getting to the point I'm healthy enough to start the motorsports photography again (yeah!) and while I miss it, I do question if I want to get back into it. And I think I would only if I could either pre-sell CDs or get some money up-front for coverage (its worth it to hand over the files if the fee is good enough). Even handing over files, you can still sell speciality items that most people cannot get themselves.

Good to hear you are on the Mend Bill. No Fun being crook and I know that through ongoing personal experience. It's also no fun slaving away at events and making nothing out og them. Hard work is one thing, Nil return for it is something else. My experience here says you are in about the hardest market of all with motor sports. I only tried it twice and that was enough to tell me all I needed to know.

The horses to me was successful but very limited. To me it was like pocket money as well.
Now with what I'm doing, the money is soooo much better and so are the effects. I pretty much had to watch every penny through a lack of income as was the situation not being able to work full time put me in. Suddenly I have enough to go to Dinner on a whimsy or buy that thing I have wanted that costs all of $100 because I damn well felt like buying it. The effect on my outlook on life and the stress it relieves is amazing. Maybe you know the first part of what I'm talking about, I hope you don't because it's no damn fun but if you have had to endure what I have, I sure hope you also get to find something profitable so you can get the benefits of the other side which you deserve.

I spent too long on the other side of the fence, that's why I'm gung ho about doing it right now and not stuffing around. I look at it as either do something that will make money you can feel satisfied in yourself about or don't put yourself through the frustration and disappointment of the alternative.

Glort · June 2, 2012

[
[QUOTE=Pure Energy;1783375 everytime anyone goes off on saying onsite sales is the only way, I think everyone starts to assume the following:

tent for shade
many computers for viewing photos
able to purchase and pick up photos (prints or cds) within moments
photos may be saved but will not be posted online[/QUOTE]

No, I think that is YOUR assumption not everyone elses. I believe anyone that has had 12 months experience in the game is very aware of the different business models and alternatives.

And then the above notion of onsite sales is further ingrained as the only way to do things according to Glort when he further mentions:

In my opinion, ilumsden should only be doing online sales at the moment but I don't know enough of Larry's situation. Snowgirl shouldn't give up on online sales because I think there's more she can do but the whole market is changing or has changed. Some changes are that people are not wanting to freely spend money in this economy, better quality cameras are now in customer's hands and there's a lot of people thinking there's no rush to buy now. Doing only onsite sales solves the last problem but it isn't the only way.

HUH???
That's not a comment I ever made!
What the hell are you talking about??

I have said in differnt threads what I think is the BEST way, I have said what I do but I have never siad what I do or what I think is best is the ONLY way not that onsite printing is a necessity. I believe I have made the point many times that onsite viewing is far and away the best way but printing is not and is irrelevant to the sales generated. Once again for the slow kids up the back, Selling is the priority not delivery.

If I had to hire an assistant that wasn't a relative to do onsite sales only, I would want to nearly double the amount of money I took in from an event. Does that mean I should be comfortable taking in what I currently am which could be half or well below what someone onsite is taking in? What if it isn't half or well below? Doubling the amount I take in to pay an assistant would then be even harder to do, especially if my online sales were adequate or close to what I could be doing onsite considering I'm doing it with a heck of a lot less overhead in equipment. Think about it. A dollar spent on equipment to do onsite sales to make a dollar more seems foolish to me. But I'm not saying there aren't events worth doing onsite sales the way Glort does. It just doesn't fit every event worth shooting.

Getting lost here with most of this.

How about giving us some real numbers to make some informed decisions?

For the few team photos I've done, I was still amazed everyone didn't buy the group shot or any shot. What should the numbers be like these days? Should 75% of the people in the group shot spending a certain dollar amount be reasonable? What is that dollar amount?

What percentage is the number of participants in sporting events (by sport) who actually purchase photos if a photographers photos are available:
onsite only?

onsite and online?

onsite ordering only?

onsite ordering and online only?

online only?

What's an average dollar amount value per person or the number and size of prints per person for each of the above scenarios?

For those posting your photos online, what's your conversion rate from hits to sales? Are people finding your site, looking at photos and will never purchase a photo because they aren't in the photo (like people here)? How many days, months or years are your photos posted? Any sales of photos posted a long time? Are you also doing onsite printing or ordering? It might take time and a lot of work to get the ball rolling consistently from event to event with online sales so one shouldn't be posting one or two events and going... huh, where are the sales? What is needed to get online sales working for a particular photographer is another story. It's not going to be the same for everyone.

You keep asking for numbers without realizing that they vary wildly. You also seem to think that everyone anylises every detail of everything they do. They don't but that does not mean they are not diligent in the business side of things.

What else don't we know about online sales? How about how many decent photos of a subject does a client need to see and want before pulling the trigger? Are they waiting for photos from a previous or future event to be posted before purchasing?

How the fk would anyone shooting events know this??? More over, why would they want to waste their time finding out.
It seem that you have a lot of animosity towards they way I do things and the fact I say online is a poor selling model for events. You also seem to disagree with what Snow says and now Bill. We have all been in the game 3+ years, myself being the newcomer I believe. We have formed out opinions over this time and the many and varying events we have covered.

Your opinion and advise seems to be quite different the experiences we have had which brings us to ours.
How about telling us more about what experiences you have had that brings you to your opinion? Something in the work you have done is leading you to a different conclusion to what we believe and I'd be real interested to learn from that as I'm sure others would.

Soooo......
Could you tell us what types and size's of events you have covered and are doing presently, what sort of money you make per event or client, what your online hit rate is, your conversion of viewers to sales and all the other numbers you were asking about that supports your View that online selling is such a winner? Fill us in on all the things you were asking about so we can get some ideas from what we may have missed.

the devil's in the details. What are you doing to promote your photos. Nothing quite promotes your photos like a big tent full of computers for viewing and purchasing photos onsite at the event, Glort style... so of course onsite sales should really enhance one's pocket then to make it worthwhile.

This is EXACTLY why I went the way I did. I wanted to stand out with the tent, the computers the trailer the signs, the fluro vests with our names on them, locating ourselves right where people had to walk round us to get to the toilets, office, canteen, carpark etc. That's how you get the best returns for your efforts.

And you are right, the investment has to make itself worthwhile and in the case of what I did, the ROI was great even if I still wanted the overall returns to be higher. A lot of that was investment as well rather than expense and there is a huge difference in that as business people would understand.

First of all, here in Oz at least I wrote all that investment off on tax. It came off what I earned.
Secondly, Much of that expense I can now recoup outright. My trailer is $4000 plus. I paid a lot less for it and did some work on it myself but it will turn a profit outright now I'm done with it over and above the money I made out of the thing.

The main computers and servers I'm now using for my swim school work which I would have gone and bought if I didn't already have them. I actually went and bought some more hardware yesterday that I would not have needed for the trailer.
The printers I'm using for the SS work were ones I took from the trailer and had in my case for the corporate work.
The tent wasn't a great cost but it's an asset I have I can use on other work and I use for personal things like BBQ's and camping.
The laptops, I can ebay them and I'll make money there as well.
The routers, switches and network cables I had a lot of to start with but again they are an asset for other work. The rest of the incidentals will be sorted through, some kept for use in other work, some chucked. At worst it's been written off on tax and made me money already.

As the major expenses were paid for 3/4 the way through my first season, I have made great returns on my investment and a HELL of a lot more than if I had spent nothing and just done online.
I reckon I'd have been lucky to make 10% of what I did with onsite had I only done online. My trial with it indicates more like 1%
That's the real important part, The return and PROFIT, not what I invested into the business. The business was highly profitable for what it was and put money in my pocket that went a long way to keeping my head above water when I needed it. The fact I took it as far as it could go and have become aware of more profitable work is irrelevant.

I get the impression you seem to think that money spent is money lost. If that is the case, you would be very wise to take the advise I have suggested to you before and bone up on your business skills and knowledge.

Of course, Glort will probably say onsite sales doesn't have to be viewing under a tent and picking up onsite within moments... but that is what everyone is thinking onsite sales are contrary to what mercphoto mentioned.

I could be wrong on this but it also seems that Glort doesn't think posting of any photos online is a good idea even if one was taking onsite orders. So, what do you guys think? Time to completely abandon selling photos online?

You are right.
My most profitable event by about a factor of 4 was indoor so we didn't have a tent and I didn't print a single disk or CD onsite. I did have over 30 View stations there though!

You are also right in that I think online is not a good idea with or without onsite so you have that 100% correct.

I don't believe everyone is thinking as you suggest because any experienced shooter knows I am one of a great many in this game and there are a number of different ways people approach this work.
It seems to me your overall knowledge of the event business is very limited. You refer a lot to what I do with seemingly ignorant bliss to what others are doing.
I'm no Einstein but I am smart enough not to try and re-invent the wheel. When I started out in this, I looked up who the big hitters in the game were ( few if any of whom post here) and looked at what they did and followed their experienced advise.
Franky, this seems somewhat at odds with your own outlook.

People were most generous with their time and info and this gave me the ability to make good money first time out. Without the great help I got from people, especially the guy that is by far and away the biggest in the world at this, I'd be no where.

The king of events, Hammy runs a little over 100 ( yes, 100) Vstations. He custom built them into cases which I loosely copied originally and he spent a significant fortune doing so. He hammered into me that you never have too many Vstations and it took me one event to see that beyond doubt.
He also hammered into me that you didn't need to do onsite printing and hammerd me some more when I did it but I do it as a matter of convenience and that my event participant numbers are little different to the amount of staff he was working most weekends. :cry
When I did have problems on a couple of events, i was not in the least surprised to find out it made no difference, exactly as he told me from day 1.

He also does CD's on site and produces over 25,000 in 3 days at the worlds cheer event. To put that in perspective, that is PALLET loads of disks, 4 he said from memory.
He doesn't print onsite but he does put the images online. I have a trailer for my gear, Hammy rents truckS to take his around.

I followed Hammys advise pretty much with blind faith. Why wouldn't I? The guy is the worlds biggest and best and has more than 10 years experience. I don't need to do the thinking, he's given me all the answers already. Fortunately I was smart enough to put it into practice and reap the rewards his generosity allowed me to have.

Luke whom is also a big player in the game I believe has 40+ V stations and does print onsite. That is a point of contention between him and Hammy although I believe they help one another out on events and are both highly successful. Hammy makes SERIOUS money from what he does and the pics I saw of Lukes new boat a few years back tell me he isn't exactly cashing in food stamps.
Luke has also been kind enough to share some real valuable advise with me over the years and was also helpful in my events business. Others along the way have shared info and benefited me as well.

My suggestion to you would be to start looking way beyond this site because if you are thinking I'm a tall poppy in the game and have a big setup, you are sooo far away from the real world it isn't funny. I'm about as tiddly winks as it comes.
I was laughing at Hammy when he came to visit a while back that the events he blows off on the phone as a waste of his time are bigger than anything I had ever heard of here! He does individual events that have more participants than the number of people registered in Popular sports here!

But anyway, Please let us know about what you are doing, making, site hit rates, onsite sales and conversion rate and all the rest. It would be very informative not in the least to see what experiences the work you are doing are having on your position being rather different to others here.

ilumsden · June 3, 2012

Hey PE,

First off, let me explain that I am in no way a professional photographer or even consider myself as one. I am a father of two who enjoys capturing family moments and who recently plunked down a few bucks for a camera setup that is a step-above a PAS. I take my camera with me at every opportunity I get. I enjoy taking candid photos of the life events happening around me, not necessarily of the event itself. I like to bring the viewer as close as possible as if you are sitting next the subject. I think the pros call this life photography. Anyhow, I may get one good shot in a thousand (thank you digital). I use SmugMug as a way to share my photos with other families and the local community and prefer it over other sharing sites. I have a passion for photography (read hobby), personal history and everything technical. And as I read the threads here and through my other readings, I really appreciate the depth of knowledge you and the other professional’s possess.

Anyhow, in that context, let me begin by saying… Yes, I am holding back, but I felt my post was a good starting point to see what responses it would get.
The sporting events that I attended recently have been equestrian in nature and at different skill levels, which in turn would stand to reason, different level of pro-photographers hired for the events.

At one event, the pro just simply stapled signs around the event (all handwritten), reading something on the order of “photos $10” with the location where you could find him at. Basically, you give him the riders back tag and class (event) and he would take photos of those riders. You settled up later with him. I’m not sure what services or products was offer beyond this. He was busy though, in the dozen or so classes where we shared same real estate for taking photos, I noticed he had at least 3 customers between events. (3 customers per event, $10 each, 12+ events = $360. I don’t know how that compares, but seemed pretty good given there were 35+ events that day and 20+ the next.

At another event (upper-scale) the pro’s sold by what I call the traditional method. You viewed and ordered the photos from bank 12 large 23” monitors; they printed them on site and delivered them to your stable. Those “large” printers were definitely not your every-day run of the mill color printers. Single photo started a reduced price of $35 with online purchases available.
At an event two weeks ago, it was a team approach. A pro was hired to take the photos and different company hired to sell the digital and printed photos. I don’t know what the financial arrangements were, but this was the first time the pro and promotional media company worked together. They used two pro-grade photo printers on site, one for 8x10 and the other for 5x7. On the first day, they had a setup of printing on shirts, but there were issues with this, and they discontinued this on the second day. You could still order them, but they didn’t do them on site. You viewed and ordered the photos from a bank of eight “small” 15” monitors. Digital photos came on a 128MB flash drive $25 for the first photo, $1 each additional. My observation was they sold more digital photos than printed.

As for myself, I feel there is a void that needs to be filled, between the photos offered by the professional photographer and the random parent taking a photo with their iPhone or iPad. This is why I have taken an interest in how photos are being sold. The void may not be a profitable one, but a void to be filled non-the less. More or less, an opportunity to offset some of my expenses. I’m still working through the price-points and method of delivery.
Thanks for reading and your comments and thoughts are welcomed.

Pure Energy · June 11, 2012

Glort wrote: »

Pure Energy wrote: »

... everytime anyone goes off on saying onsite sales is the only way, I think everyone starts to assume the following:
tent for shade

many computers for viewing photos

able to purchase and pick up photos (prints or cds) within moments

photos may be saved but will not be posted online

No, I think that is YOUR assumption not everyone elses. I believe anyone that has had 12 months experience in the game is very aware of the different business models and alternatives.

Now who's making assumptions? Do you honestly believe that ilumsden and people that are coming to dgrin for the first time will know exactly what you are talking about?

Glort wrote: »

HUH???
That's not a comment I ever made!
What the hell are you talking about??

So, you never made the following comment?:

Glort wrote: »

As far as go big, I was the biggest of all with the Horse's and it wasn't enough to make it worthwhile for me either. I have my trailer up for sale atm and re assigned the servers and work stations and have a whole pile of laptops I'm not sure what I'm going to do with.

Seriously? I know where you're coming from but do you honestly believe that ilumsden and nearly everyone else thinks of a trailer with a bunch of laptops is anything but onsite printing?

Glort wrote: »

Pure Energy wrote: »

How about giving us some real numbers to make some informed decisions?

For the few team photos I've done, I was still amazed everyone didn't buy the group shot or any shot. What should the numbers be like these days? Should 75% of the people in the group shot spending a certain dollar amount be reasonable? What is that dollar amount?

What percentage is the number of participants in sporting events (by sport) who actually purchase photos if a photographers photos are available:
onsite only?

onsite and online?

onsite ordering only?

onsite ordering and online only?

online only?

What's an average dollar amount value per person or the number and size of prints per person for each of the above scenarios?

For those posting your photos online, what's your conversion rate from hits to sales? Are people finding your site, looking at photos and will never purchase a photo because they aren't in the photo (like people here)? How many days, months or years are your photos posted? Any sales of photos posted a long time? Are you also doing onsite printing or ordering? It might take time and a lot of work to get the ball rolling consistently from event to event with online sales so one shouldn't be posting one or two events and going... huh, where are the sales? What is needed to get online sales working for a particular photographer is another story. It's not going to be the same for everyone.

You keep asking for numbers without realizing that they vary wildly. You also seem to think that everyone anylises every detail of everything they do. They don't but that does not mean they are not diligent in the business side of things.

Yes, I keep asking for numbers because it would be a better frame of reference in order to make an informed decision instead of just blindly following the pied piper. I'm pretty sure you have some idea of participants to the number of sales to expect before you decide to shoot an event. If you didn't know that, you'd know how many prints/cds you've sold before at a similarly sized event. If you didn't know that, you'd know how much you grossed per an event. If you'd didn't know that, you'd have some freaking clue before loading up the trailer and giving it a try, wouldn't you? Your numbers are yours. Share them if you want but don't turn the question back onto the one seeking information and answers.

I think most people posting online might be curious at some point in regards to how many hits they get per month, of course you wouldn't know any numbers on this. Snowgirl mentioned a high? or low? number of hits per month. For her and anyone else wanting to improve sales, it might be helpful to take a look at the number of hits per month. Combine this with any marketing techniques to notice trends of traffic being driven to your site and you might be able to figure out what increases quality traffic to your site. Why give up on online sales if you don't know where you are and where you need to be?

Glort wrote: »

Pure Energy wrote: »

What else don't we know about online sales? How about how many decent photos of a subject does a client need to see and want before pulling the trigger? Are they waiting for photos from a previous or future event to be posted before purchasing?

How the fk would anyone shooting events know this??? More over, why would they want to waste their time finding out.

Sorry to put some ideas out there for Snowgirl to ponder why she has less than expected online sales. If you don't want to know your clients better in order to serve them, that's your prerogative.

Glort wrote: »

It seem that you have a lot of animosity towards they way I do things and the fact I say online is a poor selling model for events. You also seem to disagree with what Snow says and now Bill.

You got me wrong on this. I only had animosity towards you shoving onsite printing down our throats as the only way at the start of this thread. I have no problems with mercphoto and on the contrary, I was giving ideas to Snowgirl so that she wouldn't lose faith in online sales.

I don't know the extent of what Snowgirl does to drive online sales at her site but of the two galleries I remembered viewing... one of them, if it was online only and she never received an order, I'd be very surprised. I'm even tempted to buy a print. If the other gallery was also online only, it wouldn't surprise me at all if she ever received an order for quality reasons. That doesn't mean someone won't buy a print if there are other photos worth buying at the same time nor does it mean someone won't buy one if it's the only photo someone has to choose from.

Glort wrote: »

I get the impression you seem to think that money spent is money lost. If that is the case, you would be very wise to take the advise I have suggested to you before and bone up on your business skills and knowledge.

You got me wrong here but I thought we agreed on this same idea elsewhere but okay, let me further clarify.

If I'm shooting the same events as I did last year:

Will spending one dollar more to make one dollar more be worth it? Hell no.
Will spending one dollar more to make one dollar more be an investment worthwhile to help me retain an event? Possibly
Will spending one dollar more to make a Return on Investment (ROI) ratio greater than 1:1 be worthwhile? Most likely.

My point being, that money spent is not money lost... it just might be money not well spent.

Glort wrote: »

When I started out in this, I looked up who the big hitters in the game were (few if any of whom post here) and looked at what they did and followed their experienced advise.
Franky, this seems somewhat at odds with your own outlook.

On the contrary. I'm looking for answers here on dgrin and so far it appears there are no successful online only shooters here. That's hard to believe but that doesn't mean I'm going to "go big or go home."

I never thought you were a really big fish and you even admit there are bigger jobs for you that bigger fish consider too small for them. Does that automatically asininely mean that online only shooters are smaller fish to you? That does seem to be the consensus (and your belief?) but then again, we're taking people's words for it without any real numbers for people to gauge their level of success or for seeking help with improving sales. What I've read far too often in these forums is that online only shooters are just doing it for "hobby sales" and onsite printing is for pros. If you think I'm here asking questions for "hobby sales" which apparently is anything less than what you make or do (whatever those numbers are), then you have me wrong.

Here's something to think about:

What if you were the only person with a camera of any kind at an event or even multiple events. You might not do so well selling online only after the first event or two but do you honestly think that people would not eventually adjust their habits to buy from you and make it worth your while? It's similar to the person that refused to buy a cell phone or to share his email with you. If you really wanted to reach that person, you'd find a way to communicate with them the way they prefer.

mercphoto · June 11, 2012

Seriously? I know where you're coming from but do you honestly believe that ilumsden and nearly everyone else thinks of a trailer with a bunch of laptops is anything but onsite printing?

Its called on-site order taking. You should the pics, the customer makes their choices, they make their order and fork over the money. Later you make the prints and ship the product. But not on-site. Only orders and money on-site. Its not uncommon.

I'm not sure why you are hanging on so forcefully to your belief that there is a way to be very profitable doing only online.

Glort · June 12, 2012

Pure Energy wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glort
HUH???
That's not a comment I ever made!
What the hell are you talking about??

So, you never made the following comment?:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Glort
As far as go big, I was the biggest of all with the Horse's and it wasn't enough to make it worthwhile for me either. I have my trailer up for sale atm and re assigned the servers and work stations and have a whole pile of laptops I'm not sure what I'm going to do with.

Please don't go back 10 days later and modify your comments to make me look like I'm in the wrong. The timestamp on the post and my quotes clearly show your original comment and when you posted it. They also show when you modified it. I take trying to shift blame like that to win an argument point to be a very poor sign of a persons credibility and integrity. At least have the guts to admit your mistakes not try to make out others are in the wrong when you were.

As for the rest, Yep, you're right, I'm wrong.
I was only trying to make you aware of things that will bring you undone. Clearly you are going to find reason to disagree with everything you want to hear and think you know better so I hope that works out well for you. I have grave reservations that you will be able to make an online Photo Biz or any other biz any sort of success. I have tried to point out your over anylising of every aspect and endless irrelevant questions and that you should study business principals but again it is apparent you only want to hear what you want to hear.

Just for the record, how long have you been shooting events and how many have you actually done? Just so we can compare in 12 months time to gauge your success.

I am very certain that you won't be here in 12 months but if you are, please come back to this thread and tell us how you are getting along and how you have managed to achieve what no other shooter has with online sales so far.

Pure Energy · June 14, 2012

Glort wrote: »

Please don't go back 10 days later and modify your comments to make me look like I'm in the wrong. The timestamp on the post and my quotes clearly show your original comment and when you posted it. They also show when you modified it. I take trying to shift blame like that to win an argument point to be a very poor sign of a persons credibility and integrity. At least have the guts to admit your mistakes not try to make out others are in the wrong when you were.

What the hell are you talking about? I did not modify my comments (currently post #10).

Yes, I admit it shows that I modified my comments but I did not modify my comments. I would not modify comments to make anyone look bad or change the context of what I said after someone comments. I am not trying to make you look bad. And here are some facts to further clarify what happened:

Feel free to do a long reply like I last made and see how much fun it is on a small computer screen to have long quotes within long quotes and to edit. There's so much scrolling and going back and forth in browser tabs that I did not even know if I wanted to send my message until I would walk away from what I had written for a few days and then hopefully read it with a clearer head. Well, guess what? My browser crashed so I lost that message to send.

So, I wasn't going to bother writing a new message to post here. However, I wanted to make a comment elsewhere and I felt I had to clear some things up here. So, I wrote the message again. Some things might be clearer but I didn't wait much longer than after it was written to send it.

Maybe you can imagine the going back and forth from tabs I took to see what was written, what I had to write next, to get the quotes just right, and to show the proper intent to clear the air... and of course, to not hopefully write a book. I went to great detail in that post and I think it shows I did not want to misquote you. On the contrary, I wanted to get things cleared up.

Anyways, from all this going back and forth I noticed some sentences in my post (currently post #10) weren't grammatically right or even conveyed what I had wanted to say. They were sentences well below whatever the hell you were referencing though. (To be honest, I think something didn't transfer over when you posted your post and thus your intent may have been lost or you may have assumed I was putting words in your mouth. I get how you could see that and I'm sorry you read it that way.)

Back to my explanation: From the screwiness of switching tabs and "going advanced" to edit my new comment... I noticed the comment I was editing (post #10) was actually wrong in the new post I was writing and NOT in the original post. So I changed it back and thought nothing of it even though I knew there would be a modified date. So, please admit it to yourself (if not here) that there is nothing that was changed in the post at all. That means the only thing that was added to post #10 is the modified date at the bottom.

To make a long story short:

I take great offense to that type of libelous remark that I would change my comments to make anyone look bad or to make your words look like you took them out of context.

The moment someone comments after my remarks in any forum thread of any kind, I am only going to edit it for grammatical reasons and typos in order to make it easier to read. The original intent and context will not be changed. Even if I wanted to delete a line to make a long story shorter without changing the original intent and context... I'm most likely not going to do that because it's too late: someone has already commented after me.

Glort wrote: »

As for the rest, Yep, you're right, I'm wrong.
I was only trying to make you aware of things that will bring you undone. Clearly you are going to find reason to disagree with everything you want to hear and think you know better so I hope that works out well for you. I have grave reservations that you will be able to make an online Photo Biz or any other biz any sort of success. I have tried to point out your over anylising of every aspect and endless irrelevant questions and that you should study business principals but again it is apparent you only want to hear what you want to hear.

Yes, the simplicity of onsite printing sounds good compared to the over-analyzing and fine tuning that can take up hours and hours to get our websites on SmugMug to look just the way we want. That's me. Over-analyzing, fine-tuning and asking lots of questions. Some rhetorical... most not. I think we're at opposite ends of photography in that you're as far from online selling as I am from onsite printing. You're also at the other end of photography in regards to what you shoot in that I am much closer to shooting what I love (like Snowgirl) then like you that shoots for the most bang. That doesn't mean I have nothing to learn from you. On the contrary, your advice is welcome and appreciated. Sometimes, I just feel the need to jump in and speak up for all of the voiceless successful online only shooters.

Glort wrote: »

I am very certain that you won't be here in 12 months but if you are, please come back to this thread and tell us how you are getting along and how you have managed to achieve what no other shooter has with online sales so far.

Lol. Here we go again. I have no frame of reference to better gauge my success because the requests for numbers are ignored. Could failure for you be success for me?

What is successful for shooting a team picture? Having x amount of orders with an average sales amount of y to equal z net profit. What is x, y and z? And do they differ from sport to sport and how?

What about shooting a two hour game? What is x, y and z? And how do the different sports differ?

And then there might be a difference in print prices so success maybe should be based on prints sold... just like how I prefer to know the number of tickets sold when comparing great movies. For me, it just doesn't mean as much to me anymore when a movie breaks the $100 million mark when movie ticket prices costs $14-$20 in major metropolitan areas.

mercphoto wrote: »

Its called on-site order taking. You show[sic] the pics, the customer makes their choices, they make their order and fork over the money. Later you make the prints and ship the product. But not on-site. Only orders and money on-site. Its not uncommon.

I'm not sure why you are hanging on so forcefully to your belief that there is a way to be very profitable doing only online.

Thanks for hammering this point again. I've shot lots of things, done things lots of different ways (including onsite ordering and very limited prints made-up beforehand for onsite sales but never onsite printing) and I do think that making some onsite orders and sales is satisfying at times. Online only galleries is just the way I'm going to go for some if not most of my images.

Being "very profitable" is a subjective frame of reference and it's hard to not be objective in comparison to those that do onsite printing like Glort or onsite ordering like you or anyone else without numbers as mentioned above.

I thought I mentioned it in this thread but I guess I did not... (perhaps, in the comment I did not post before my browser crashed) so I'll pose the question here (again?): To get away from the hobby type sales (whatever amount that is) that you seem to associate with online only shooters, a photographer should be doing onsite ordering. How does one do that effectively to get away from the "hobby type sales" you refer to when at certain (2 hour) sporting games the photographer has a choice between shooting photos or showing photos but not both? Quite frankly, I'm not about to have any computers near water related events without me being next to them. And at other events, there is no good place to trust the computer won't walk away without having an assistant to stand watch. And if there was a spot I trusted, it could be too much awkwardness of trying to sell and shoot at the same time. Not to mention there might not be any photos to show of certain people until how much time after the event is over?

Quite frankly, it sounds like you agree with Glort in the sense that a photographer "has to go big or go home" in the sense that a photographer has to hire an assistant to make sales for onsite ordering. That doesn't seem likely for a lot of photographers, hence I'm speaking up for the voiceless successful online only shooters without assistants.

Don't get me wrong... please tell me how I can get away from hobby type sales (whatever amount that is) and do onsite sales (without an assistant) by showing pictures I'm currently shooting when I go shoot a (two hour) swim meet, water polo match, a basketball game in a jam packed gym, a football game when I'm down on the field, and other sports I might want to shoot.

Glort wrote: »

I am very certain that you won't be here in 12 months but if you are, please come back to this thread and tell us how you are getting along and how you have managed to achieve what no other shooter has with online sales so far.

Lol. I'll still be here in 12 months. Until I admit you're completely right about me, I'll be advocating for the voiceless successful online only shooters. I might even start a little spreadsheet for quickly referencing many of the numbers I seek that you surprisingly have no clue about.

What's funny is that last night, I was thinking about numbers and I totally think being successful by matching what I think you've done at some equestrian events is possible. I mean really, who wouldn't want to sell x amount of orders at y average sized sales amounts to match the number of one size fits all for prints you sell at events. Here's the kicker... some "what ifs" don't worry me as much when I think about the number of prints I have to sell all thanks to when I thought: "what do I have to do to match Glort's gross sales amount?" --- Unfortunately, I probably have no real idea what that number is for you or anyone else and how any numbers and results should honestly compare considering the sport, location and size are probably all completely different.

But hey, I'll be more successful in the next 12 months than I was in the last 12 months. And I might even share some numbers along the way.

Now, that we have that settled. Care to share some numbers?

Glort · June 14, 2012

Wow!
I really mean WOW!

All I will say is I can't give you numbers that I believe are totally and utterly irrelevant in the first place and therefore have never bothered with. You may see from other posts that I am not at all adverse to sharing numbers. That said, honestly, I'd need to employ at least one full time statistician to keep score of the endless numbers you constantly ask about.

Maybe you could put up your own numbers for the myriad of things you have asked about... if you have actually bothered to keep them yourself of course. Some numbers are relevant, 99.9% of the ones you ask about are useless.

Just two things I'll ask for interest that I hope you can reply to with just a single straightforward answer ( like in a number range....
1.What sort of net hourly rate do you think is worthwhile or do you want to achieve. A one line answer or less will suffice adequately thank you.
2. How old are you?

Given the differences in our respective approaches and beliefs, it's clear to me that there is no further assistance I can offer you that I have not already tried to pass on.

Good luck with whatever you do.

How are you selling your goods...

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