Announcement : Addition To Bay Photo Products, And Pricing Update

mbonocore · April 12, 2013

When we launched Pricelists a year ago, it opened the door for us to make significant improvements to our printed product offerings. It allows us to add new products easier as well as change the pricing on existing products without you having to lift a finger.

We are planning on expanding and updating our current product offerings with all of the labs, but first on deck is Bay Photo. We will be adding 43 new print sizes and 3 new products for a total of 566 new product/size combinations through Bay Photo. We are also updating 500 product prices already in place.

While some prices are increasing minimally, (114 or 23%), most prices are actually decreasing. (386 or 77%). To give you an idea, if you bought one of each product/size whose price is being updated, you would save $2,479.89 compared to the previous pricing. The mean decrease in price is $4.89 and the median decrease is $2.47.

The new sizes include some gigantic panoramic layouts, going as large as 30x120. The new products include two new ThinWraps: a Lustre/Satin Float Mount and a Canvas/Satin Float Mount. We are also adding Satin Metalprints to the catalog in various sizes. We are aiming to add more new products to our Bay inventory, as well as the other labs in the near future.

Ok, enough talk Michael. Let's see the changes. Sure! They are in two spreadsheets, one for color correction (https://docs.google.com/a/smugmug.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai5eUJX94nSldE5lcWRRRWdFZ0Nqa0ZyaDctVzI1SVE#gid=1 and one without (https://docs.google.com/a/smugmug.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai5eUJX94nSldDVOaFRXOXM3YjhreTdEVHl1LTB6WGc#gid=0.

The tentative plan is to soon announce it on our blog (http://news.smugmug.com/), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SmugMug) and Google+ (https://plus.google.com/b/118357019708110162087/+SmugMug/posts). We wanted to give our most passionate customers here on dgrin advanced notice. After we announce via the platforms above, we will give everyone a week or two to prepare, before we flip the switch late at night after the 7-14 day period is over. Your public pricing will automatically adjust, depending on whether you set profits and/or profits as well as whether or not you have rounding on. When we figure out a solid date, we recommend looking through your Bay Pricelists, Bay Packages, and coupons following the change and make any necessary changes. The new products and sizes will not be priced automatically, so you will need to add them if you want them available to your customers.

We hope you are as excited about these new sizes and products as we are.

Please feel free to let me know if you have an questions or suggestions.

Thank you from SmugMug!

Michael

mbonocore · April 12, 2013

MakeMeShutter wrote: »

Fantastic!
Another price increase!

Shawn,

As I said above, "While some prices are increasing minimally, (114 or 23%), most prices are actually decreasing. (386 or 77%). To give you an idea, if you bought one of each product/size whose price is being updated, you would save $2,479.89 compared to the previous pricing. The mean decrease in price is $4.89 and the median decrease is $2.47."

Michael

smurfy · April 12, 2013

Thank you for the advanced notice.

if at all possible, would SM please use this opportunity to offer Bay flat, Folded, and accordion cards? The current cards from EZP look so very sad in comparison; in appearance, in texture, and in packaging. They are not of high enough quality to look and feel like a professional product.

mbonocore · April 12, 2013

smurfy wrote: »

Thank you for the advanced notice.

if at all possible, would SM please use this opportunity to offer Bay flat, Folded, and accordion cards? The current cards from EZP look so very sad in comparison; in appearance, in texture, and in packaging. They are not of high enough quality to look and feel like a professional product.

Thank you for your feedback Smurfy! Those would not be in this upcoming batch of product additions, but we will continually be adding new products down the line.

Thank you again!

Michael

Andy · April 13, 2013

MakeMeShutter wrote: »

Fantastic!
Another price increase!

Shawn - at this point you are just being a troll. You should either keep your pointless posts to yourself or you should move on.

Seriously.

Andy · April 13, 2013

MakeMeShutter wrote: »

Wow,
I comment about a price increase and you call me a "troll".
Last I checked, I was a paying SmugMug customer.
I have just lost all respect for you Andy.
Have a nice day.

Shawn, look at all your posts. Micheal made a very thoughtful and insightful post into new products and price changes on Bay Products. With a full and complete explanation - and yet all you can come up with is "Fantastic! Another Price Increase!" I'm sorry if you don't respect me anymore - that's your choice. I'll just ignore your trolling from now on.

jwcoffee · April 13, 2013

In particular thanks for the new panorama sizes. Much appreciated.

jasonscottphoto · April 14, 2013

If we set prices instead of profits, will our prices stay the same? Or will we need to adjust them?

denisegoldberg · April 14, 2013

Thanks for the early heads up, and for the additional products!

--- Denise

McQ · April 14, 2013

I, for one, like having the problem of "too many" things to choose from. This is excellent.

Sheaf · April 14, 2013

jasonscottphoto wrote: »

If we set prices instead of profits, will our prices stay the same? Or will we need to adjust them?

It depends. If it's one of the items where our list price decreases, the price you set will remain the same. If the list price on an item increased in price, we won't change your set price unless it would make your profit on the item go negative. If that's the case and your profit would have gone negative, we will bump up your price to return to the previous level of profit.

So let's look at an example. The 10x16 metallic with color correction is going up from $9.00 to $9.72. If you had originally priced it at $9.50, we would change your price to $10.22.

And for others who set profits instead of prices: your profit per item will remain constant unless you have rounding turned on.

RKnecht · April 15, 2013

This is great news for some I guess, but I still don't see the option for license plates from Bay. Bummer as I do sell these using Bay ROES.

McQ · April 15, 2013

RKnecht wrote: »

This is great news for some I guess, but I still don't see the option for license plates from Bay. Bummer as I do sell these using Bay ROES.

I didn't even notice they were still missing after looking over the new stuff. Hmmm...
And you probably sell a whole bunch of those because of your customer base.

mbonocore · April 15, 2013

RKnecht wrote: »

This is great news for some I guess, but I still don't see the option for license plates from Bay. Bummer as I do sell these using Bay ROES.

Hi Rick,

We will be adding more and more products to all of the catalogs of our print labs. I have created a new forum in our feature request library that will be used for print lab product request only. I have taken the liberty of creating this request for you. You can add your votes at http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/202722-print-lab-products/suggestions/3855299-add-license-plates-to-the-bay-photo-products

Hope this helps!

Michael

OffTopic · April 15, 2013

I am very happy to see larger panos and satin metal prints added to the mix.

That being said, I really really wish you would send out e-mail notifications to your pros about things like changes in pricing and not just announce it on social media sites. Most do not check dgrin on a daily basis (the only reason I popped in today was because I received another alert from google and I wanted to check on the status of that issue), not everyone hangs out on Facebook and Google+ all day long and unless they are looking at the exact time you post they probably won't see it anyway, and you are going to catch people off guard when you implement the change. It doesn't matter that the overall change is a decrease, the prices on some products are going to increase and that is going to impact profit percentages. There is still some sting over the price increase on accounts; blindsiding the pros with any change that has the potential to impact their profits without giving them proper notice is just not a smart thing to do, especially right now when it seems that many are still wondering if they made the right decision to stay.

I don't think it is realistic to expect us to hang out on social media sites all the time to know what is going on with our accounts.

But I'm still happy to see larger panos and satin metal prints added to the mix.:)

McQ · April 15, 2013

OffTopic wrote: »

I am very happy to see larger panos and satin metal prints added to the mix.

That being said, I really really wish you would send out e-mail notifications to your pros about things like changes in pricing and not just announce it on social media sites. Most do not check dgrin on a daily basis (the only reason I popped in today was because I received another alert from google and I wanted to check on the status of that issue), not everyone hangs out on Facebook and Google+ all day long and unless they are looking at the exact time you post they probably won't see it anyway, and you are going to catch people off guard when you implement the change. It doesn't matter that the overall change is a decrease, the prices on some products are going to increase and that is going to impact profit percentages. There is still some sting over the price increase on accounts; blindsiding the pros with any change that has the potential to impact their profits without giving them proper notice is just not a smart thing to do, especially right now when it seems that many are still wondering if they made the right decision to stay.

I don't think it is realistic to expect us to hang out on social media sites all the time to know what is going on with our accounts.

But I'm still happy to see larger panos and satin metal prints added to the mix.:)

Another vote for email notifications!

mbellot · April 16, 2013

OffTopic wrote: »

It doesn't matter that the overall change is a decrease, the prices on some products are going to increase and that is going to impact profit percentages.

This.

There is still some sting over the price increase on accounts; blindsiding the pros with any change that has the potential to impact their profits without giving them proper notice is just not a smart thing to do, especially right now when it seems that many are still wondering if they made the right decision to stay.

And this.

I don't think it is realistic to expect us to hang out on social media sites all the time to know what is going on with our accounts.

And especially this.

I have a full time job outside photography and three young kids, I don't have time to be lurking around Farcebook, Twithead or any of the other sociopath media outlets hoping to glean the latest SmugMug announcement.

If it impacts me and my Pro account then send me a freaking email.

mbonocore · April 16, 2013

Hi All,

I do appreciate your feedback. We also were planning on sending an email notification. I apologize that I did not mention that in the original text.

Sorry!!

Michael

Michael Bonocore
www.mb-photography-sf.com
www.facebook.com/mbonocore
plus.mb-photography-sf.com

Andy · April 16, 2013

OffTopic wrote: »

I don't think it is realistic to expect us to hang out on social media sites all the time to know what is going on with our accounts.

It's pretty simple to NEVER ever ever miss an update from SmugMug - simply subscribe to updates to the SmugMug News Blog. For years, every update has been added, in detail, to this blog. http://news.smugmug.com Take control of your own information and subscribe to the blog, you won't miss a thing.

McQ · April 16, 2013

Andy wrote: »

It's pretty simple to NEVER ever ever miss an update from SmugMug - simply subscribe to updates to the SmugMug News Blog. For years, every update has been added, in detail, to this blog. http://news.smugmug.com Take control of your own information and subscribe to the blog, you won't miss a thing.

I have to respectfully disagree with you on this, Andy. A blog, even this one, can often be a complete mess of information. Some of it is what we need to know, a lot of it is junk. When I look at that blog, I see a page full of everything from what looks like advertisements (not sure what they are) to stuff I don't even know how to describe, with some "articles" tucked in.

I think what people really want from email notifications is meat and potatoes info. Like, "Here's update 5.4", or "We've just changed pricing options. Go take a look."

That's so much more sensible from a standpoint of separating the noise from the important information.

Important changes to a photographer's business end need to be communicated concisely, quickly, and clearly - devoid of background noise.

I don't want to sift through things like, "Sizzling Panda Farts! Camera Awesome Could win a Webby…", or the latest tip of the week, when looking for information on how my pricing options have changed. It's asking us to do the job of the SM communication gods, rather than just having them disseminate the info to all of us via email. If a company makes a major change that affects its customers, it's incumbent on the company to quickly and clearly announce those changes, with explanations on how it will affect the customers.

I don't know if that makes any sense, and I do read the blog anyway, but I wanted to at least put that perspective out there.

mbonocore · April 17, 2013

McQ wrote: »

I have to respectfully disagree with you on this, Andy. A blog, even this one, can often be a complete mess of information. Some of it is what we need to know, a lot of it is junk. When I look at that blog, I see a page full of everything from look like advertisements (not sure what they are) to stuff I don't even know how to describe, with some "articles" tucked in.

I think what people really want from email notifications is meat and potatoes info. Like, "Here's update 5.4", or "We've just changed pricing options. Go take a look."

That's so much more sensible from a standpoint of separating the noise from the important information.

Important changes to a photographer's business end need to be communicated concisely, quickly, and clearly - devoid of background noise.

I don't want to sift through things like, "Sizzling Panda Farts! Camera Awesome Could win a Webby…", or the latest tip of the week, when looking for information on how my pricing options have changed. It's asking us to do the job of the SM communication gods, rather than just having them disseminate the info to all of us via email. If a company makes a major change that affects its customers, it's incumbent on the company to quickly and clearly announce those changes, with explanations on how it will affect the customers.

I don't know if that makes any sense, and I do read the blog anyway, but I wanted to at least put that perspective out there.

Understood Glenn. We will be emailing this news when it is ready to announce outside of dgrin.

Thanks!

Michael

DawnyaLynn · April 21, 2013

Thank you.
Thank you for the information. I don't know if email notification was just implemented or some received and some did not. Because I received an email.

mrhoni · April 21, 2013

I'm a bit confused on this. From the spreadsheet it shows 4x6 glossy going from .38 to .49.
I'm confused because on April 5th I paid .25 for this size, so why I the price difference?

rainforest1155 · April 22, 2013

mrhoni wrote: »

I'm a bit confused on this. From the spreadsheet it shows 4x6 glossy going from .38 to .49.
I'm confused because on April 5th I paid .25 for this size, so why I the price difference?

The price you name is the not color corrected one. See Michael's other chart for the not color corrected prices.

WaterfallRich · April 27, 2013

Thank you!
Just finished adding some new products and adjusting my prices. I noticed that most of my base prices came down which allowed me to keep the same selling price while increasing the profit

The best additions to the product list for me are the satin finish metal prints (I really don't like the high gloss - sorry Andy) and the new thin wrap finishes. I prefer the lustre/satin, but all are nice. Thanks SM!

mrhoni · April 28, 2013

rainforest1155 wrote: »

The price you name is the not color corrected one. See Michael's other chart for the not color corrected prices.

I paid $.25 for color corrected.

rainforest1155 · April 28, 2013

mrhoni wrote: »

I paid $.25 for color corrected.

I would suggest that you contact the HelpDesk with details, like your order number and the item number, so we can take a closer look.

mbonocore · May 2, 2013

WaterfallRich wrote: »

Just finished adding some new products and adjusting my prices. I noticed that most of my base prices came down which allowed me to keep the same selling price while increasing the profit

The best additions to the product list for me are the satin finish metal prints (I really don't like the high gloss - sorry Andy) and the new thin wrap finishes. I prefer the lustre/satin, but all are nice. Thanks SM!

Glad to hear Rich!

I like the satin finish as well, but for me, it really depends on the photo. People and b&w look great on the satins, but I love the look of the high gloss with my landscape work. But that's the beauty of it...we have alot of options.

Michael

digitalpins · August 8, 2013

Thank you Smugmug!
Thank you for the announcement!! I really love smugmug and panorama prints are awesome now!! I noticed a couple of days ago panorama prints was available, been a while since I checked your new Labs!! Very excited and once again thanks!!

sueseas · August 9, 2013

mbonocore wrote: »

Glad to hear Rich!

I like the satin finish as well, but for me, it really depends on the photo. People and b&w look great on the satins, but I love the look of the high gloss with my landscape work. But that's the beauty of it...we have alot of options.

Michael

I'm ordering three Metal Prints to send to people who contributed to my crowdfunding campaign, trying to figure out whether to order Glossy or Satin finish. One image is going to be an 8x12; it's a picture I took in the morning, of brightly-colored hot-air balloons inflating on the ground, and one in the air. The other two prints are going to be 4x6s. Those two are (indoor) concert photos with very-dark to black backgrounds and a single performer in the foreground. I gather from what you said, mbonocore, that it makes sense to get the glossy finish for the balloon pic (but correct me if I'm wrong.) For the concert photos, does Satin make more sense, or, in spite of the fact that they're people photos, might glossy be better for some reason? I wouldn't want the concert photos to come out looking dull, given that they're darker than a standard portrait image.

(Reposting the comment I made a couple days ago, since I think you may have missed it, given that it wasn't a direct reply to you)

southeasternphotography · August 30, 2013

+1 on email pricing.

Announcement : Addition To Bay Photo Products, And Pricing Update

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