I would like setup a quick ecommerce website that customers can pre-order photos from?

Jojoman · June 6, 2017

Hi everyone. I don't have a good ecommerce interface on my website and I have an event in which I would like people to pre-order photos to be taken at that event upfront and then just pickup the printed pictures in 24hrs at the event. I was thinking of using smugmug and setting up a gallery with placeholder images which customers can select and order prints. However, I will use the Proof-delay feature to allow me upload the picture after it has been taken so it can be printed. My other issue is the turnaround time for the Smugmug labs, which might not make this work.
Is there better way for me to achieve this? Any websites or modules that can help? Have other people done this before?

Thanks

Cygnus Studios · June 6, 2017

I'm completely lost on what you're trying to do.

Is this a multi day event? You started off by saying that you want have customers pre-order (I'm guessing before event). But then you say photos taken at event. Then pick up photos at event, using proof delay.

Pre-order is simple enough although what will you do if people are not happy with the images?

The simple solution to this is to shoot tethered at the event and print on sight. Offer 1 or maybe 2 sizes and collect the money when they pick up the images. You'll get far more people willing to buy what they can see versus what they hope to see.

jmphotocraft · June 26, 2017

I suspect I'm too late, but anyway...

Your idea with placeholder images in a smugmug gallery won't work. One way to do this is to create a page (either on your smugmug site or elsewhere) to handle the pre-orders with PayPal buttons. Then you can either self-fulfill the print orders (BTDT, never again) or issue print credit coupons for people to use when ordering the prints from your smugmug site. I do this for team & individual youth sports photos.

I would like setup a quick ecommerce website that customers can pre-order photos from?

Comments