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Why I'm leaving Smugmug
chrismoore
Registered Users Posts: 1,083 Major grins
A few days ago I pointed my custom domain away from SmugMug to my own servers. I'll be allowing my membership to expire when it runs out later this year.
I joined Smugmug around 2009 when I started out in photography. It was an inexpensive site to host my photos, I learned basic html to customize my site, and the customer service was top notch. I was around when we waited a long time for upgrades such as coupons, ecommerce, etc. I remember the endless "Stay tuned..." posts by Andy and the smugmug crew while these features were implemented, and it seemed to take forever, but I didn't mind because the price was right, and I was just starting out anyway. Last year they raised prices for Pros, big time. I felt with the price hike, the pros especially should be more demanding with feature being implemented more quickly and without bugs that seem to plague the new releases. But I stuck around. I began generating more and more print sales, completely redesigned my site to make it unique, and was still relatively happy. Then they unveiled the new Smugmug, which forced me to give up complete control of the look of my site. Yes, it is customizable, but only to an extent. I stuck around in legacy mode for awhile, but my site had been behaving funny lately, and I decided it was time to move on. From someone who has reasonable experience with photography and selling photos, here are my suggestions for improvement in the future. This will likely be my last post on Dgrin.
1. The Shopping Cart- when someone gets to the checkout page, most of the site's branding is lost and clients find themselves on a page with Smugmug Pro as the header, and a cart that is labeled "The Goods." Seamless branding would be nice, and please replace "The Goods" with something more professional. I find the checkboxes, product videos, etc, a distraction which many serve to drive a customer away who can't figure it out immediately.
2. No purchase on mobile devices. There is no way to disable the mobile site. I currently rotate my work around various galleries. Currently I have prints on display at an international airport. If someone sees my print and likes it, the hot time to buy will be right there! They will take out their mobile phone, iPad, etc, and make the purchase. If they cannot do that, the likelihood that they will get home and go to their desktop is less likely. This is a major deal breaker for me.
3. No self fulfillment of prints. If someone orders an 8x10, fine. I sent the jpg to BayPhoto and its done. If someone is paying $400 for a 24x36 in print, it is a crime for me to send a jpg in native resolution and sRGB to the lab. A proper print would be upsized in photoshop, re-sharpened, and send to the lab as a tiff in Adobe RGB. Trust me, there is a huge difference in quality. I don't see why this would be so difficult to implement. Someone makes an order, I get an email notifying me of the order and I take care of sending it to the lab. Smugmug still takes a cut, big deal.
4. The New Smugmug. The interface is great, relatively easy to use, and I'm sure will work well for most people who want to share photos. Without allowing javascript, and without allowing me to modify the CSS in its entirety, I can customize to a degree, but for the most part I feel like the resulting sites are cookie cutter.
I had been poking around these forums to try and get an idea of where this was all going before I decided to pull the plug, and I notice that many of these features have been requested, but there seems to be nothing but silence from Smugmug, or the repeated "We will take note and request that for future releases." I know from experience this may or may not happen, and if it does will take a long time.
On a more positive note, I owe a lot to Smugmug. They were really the springboard that got me going. When I have emailed for help, I have always received a quick, helpful response. Their customer service is top notch. I just need more than they are offering at this point. Cheers.
I joined Smugmug around 2009 when I started out in photography. It was an inexpensive site to host my photos, I learned basic html to customize my site, and the customer service was top notch. I was around when we waited a long time for upgrades such as coupons, ecommerce, etc. I remember the endless "Stay tuned..." posts by Andy and the smugmug crew while these features were implemented, and it seemed to take forever, but I didn't mind because the price was right, and I was just starting out anyway. Last year they raised prices for Pros, big time. I felt with the price hike, the pros especially should be more demanding with feature being implemented more quickly and without bugs that seem to plague the new releases. But I stuck around. I began generating more and more print sales, completely redesigned my site to make it unique, and was still relatively happy. Then they unveiled the new Smugmug, which forced me to give up complete control of the look of my site. Yes, it is customizable, but only to an extent. I stuck around in legacy mode for awhile, but my site had been behaving funny lately, and I decided it was time to move on. From someone who has reasonable experience with photography and selling photos, here are my suggestions for improvement in the future. This will likely be my last post on Dgrin.
1. The Shopping Cart- when someone gets to the checkout page, most of the site's branding is lost and clients find themselves on a page with Smugmug Pro as the header, and a cart that is labeled "The Goods." Seamless branding would be nice, and please replace "The Goods" with something more professional. I find the checkboxes, product videos, etc, a distraction which many serve to drive a customer away who can't figure it out immediately.
2. No purchase on mobile devices. There is no way to disable the mobile site. I currently rotate my work around various galleries. Currently I have prints on display at an international airport. If someone sees my print and likes it, the hot time to buy will be right there! They will take out their mobile phone, iPad, etc, and make the purchase. If they cannot do that, the likelihood that they will get home and go to their desktop is less likely. This is a major deal breaker for me.
3. No self fulfillment of prints. If someone orders an 8x10, fine. I sent the jpg to BayPhoto and its done. If someone is paying $400 for a 24x36 in print, it is a crime for me to send a jpg in native resolution and sRGB to the lab. A proper print would be upsized in photoshop, re-sharpened, and send to the lab as a tiff in Adobe RGB. Trust me, there is a huge difference in quality. I don't see why this would be so difficult to implement. Someone makes an order, I get an email notifying me of the order and I take care of sending it to the lab. Smugmug still takes a cut, big deal.
4. The New Smugmug. The interface is great, relatively easy to use, and I'm sure will work well for most people who want to share photos. Without allowing javascript, and without allowing me to modify the CSS in its entirety, I can customize to a degree, but for the most part I feel like the resulting sites are cookie cutter.
I had been poking around these forums to try and get an idea of where this was all going before I decided to pull the plug, and I notice that many of these features have been requested, but there seems to be nothing but silence from Smugmug, or the repeated "We will take note and request that for future releases." I know from experience this may or may not happen, and if it does will take a long time.
On a more positive note, I owe a lot to Smugmug. They were really the springboard that got me going. When I have emailed for help, I have always received a quick, helpful response. Their customer service is top notch. I just need more than they are offering at this point. Cheers.
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-hangin in there for now
I've deleted a short string of posts that added nothing to the discussions, except inciting trouble.
Moderator of: Location, Location, Location , Mind Your Own Business & Other Cool Shots
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Matt, you are exactly right. SM does have to identify their market and choose which direction they will go when making new releases, and sure can't be all things to all people. I'm sure I won't be missed, and am happy with what I have now. I just feel that if they are going to continue offering Pro level accounts, and charging $300 a year plus a percent of profits, there are certain core features that, in my opinion, should be offered. I outlined those above. At some point in the not so distant past, there was a real drive to improve the e-commerce end of things, and this kinda fell by the waste side recently. No hard feelings from me, really, I think Smug is a wonderful organization. Instead of just saying "Im outta here," like many did when they raised their prices, I thought I would give some suggestions for improvement, even if I represent part of a small share of who they are marketing to.
Crescent City Prints
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? Do you actually have your website through SmugMug? I'm sorry if I missed it in your signature:)
Hey, I thought that was your last post! If I had known you were going to check in on this topic I'd have debated the usefulness of actually uploading TIF versus JPG. Since while I believe that re-sizing and sharpening "from scratch" can have a huge effect, I highly doubt that sending a TIF really makes a difference even at 36", and I have innumerable incredibly colorful sRGB prints out there, too. Which is why I'm perfectly happy with SmugMug's current print delay system that allows me to re-evaluate a print size and scale / sharpen as necessary, even though I still have to use sRGB and JPG.
I think SmugMug knows very well why certain people such as yourself are leaving here and there, the "suggestions" or "missing features" are extremely consistent. Which is why I thank you for putting the pressure on SmugMug, in a sense, because in the long run it will benefit ME lol.
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Yeah it's somewhere in there. http://photos.matthewsaville.com.
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
Matt,
I'm gonna stick around to keep the dialogue going with this post if others are interested, just no more new threads. I used the tif example as one example of why I would prefer to have a self-fulfillment option. There are other reasons- what if I want to print on Fuji Pearl, FujiFlex, or some other paper not offered by Bay through SM. I think with the current UI the way it is, it would be a relatively easy feature to implement- instead of sending the order to the lab, the order is sent to the photographer who then takes care of the rest. SM can still take their cut for acting as the transactor. In addition, with newer cameras, even jpg file sizes can become quite large when upsized, and SM does (or at least they did as of a few months ago) have a limit on file size. No doubt that large sRGB jpgs can make beautiful prints. I can think of many examples of photographers who have gorgeous galleries with prints at 72dpi, or prints that when you look closely they are a noisy mess and still look good. But as you know there is a large difference in the color gamut between Adobe RGB and sRGB. Taken with the jpg compression, if I submit a large photo for printing that the customer is paying several hundred dollars for, I want to have the upmost control. But again, as you said earlier, this is probably only important for a small percentage of SM users, which is why it has not garnered much attention. Other suggestions I made, such as purchasing from mobile devices, have, and I hope that is something they work on.
Crescent City Prints
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You're wrong to think that you won't be missed. I am fairly certain that I would have never seen your wonderful work if it wasn't for SmugMug. I would think that the exposure you get from SmugMug is worth what you pay for it -- even it is just admirers who will never purchase but still enjoy a certain enrichment that viewing your photography affords them.
I don't want to make you angry but really, what is 300 dollars to someone like you? I would think that to someone at your level that is not a lot of money. When I see your photos, I think that this is someone with the resources and ability to go just about anywhere and do anything to get a photograph that they want. I have this idea of you being a well worn traveler who isn't all that concerned about money.
I am only throwing in my 2 cents because I hate to see you leave thinking you wouldn't be missed.
-Steve
http://steveandbecky.smugmug.com/
Steve,
Some of the nicest words I've heard. Really, really thank you. It's not about the money, $300 is a very fair price for the services SM provides. It's about the features I feel I need at this stage that SM does not provide. While many may not see them as all that important, I do. Thanks.
Crescent City Prints
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I think the one main item of contention of the the past few years, self-fulfilment, is simply a matter of SmugMug wanting to keep at least a small handle on overall quality control. They put their own name on the line, and use up huge amounts of their own customer support, as the print lab for us. Simply put, I am guessing that SmugMug just doesn't think it is feasible for their business model to totally relinquish quality control. Of course that's just my random guess at their opinion, and in my opinion they would be wrong actually; I think that most people who are willing to pay $300 per year for a professional photo hosting solution are responsible enough to handle this. But what do I know lol, I've never owned a company this large and customer support has never been my forte!
All in all, like I said, it seems to me that your standards require a more customized solution. Honestly though depending on how much content you have online, if I were you I'd probably actually just leave it online, as SmugMug is in fact a great visibility tool even if you have to send people to a different source for high-end prints. Forget $300 per year, the base account is $40 per year and the customizable account is $60 per year, isn't it? Even if I retire and never want to sell another print, I'll be doing something with my photos on SmugMug till kingdom come! Having everything all in one place, from private family events to landscape-y adventures, since 2003 all in one place, ...I just can't say no to. :-)
=Matt=
My SmugMug Portfolio • My Astro-Landscape Photo Blog • Dgrin Weddings Forum
This saddens me to hear :cry
There was actually a group of employees huddled around my computer the other week scrolling through your jaw dropping beautiful work. You were a great customer who always provided incredible photos for us to gaze on.
I do understand your position. Obviously, as Matt said, those aren't feature requests that are catching us off guard. We know what we do great, and we know what we need to improve on...and every single one of your points is something we need to do better. We are not resting after the release of the New SmugMug. In fact, I have never seen so much motivation and incredible ideas and progress in the engineering 'pit'. We do have some pretty cool stuff coming, and I hope you come back and check up on the product and let us know what you think! I hope you do decide to take Matt's advice. Even if you don't plan on selling prints through Smugmug, just using us as a nice backup and sharing service is well worth the $40 or $60 a year.
And you always have a home here in DGrin. Please come back and say hi anytime.
Michael
P.S. To clarify, You actually can purchase prints on the iPad and tablets.
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Sad to hear that you are leaving, but I totally understand your reasons.
Hi, yes my domain is all the same. I just copied my code from legacy mode to pages I host on my own servers now, I just use different services to sell my photos. Thanks
Crescent City Prints
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