Online Photo Purchases

Montec · July 15, 2007

How are your images selling online? I find sales to be dreadfully low considering the amount of photos that have been viewed in July on my site.

I photographed a Provincial softball tourney on July 6,7 & 8th. Since then 32,236 photos have been viewed and only 80 purchased. The photos are good, I have had many comments about how wonderful they are and I must admit I did get some great action shots. I covered opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies etc. so there is lot's to look at. I even made separate galleries for each of the 16 divisions represented at the tournament so they did not need to sort through them all to find their teams photos.

I am thinking that since the photos are there for all to see with just a click of a mouse that maybe many people do not purchase when they have them for free.

I was thinking maybe putting up a notice that the photos will only be available until the end of July or something...

http://kootenay.smugmug.com/BC%20Girls%20SoftBall%20Championships

Matthew Saville · July 18, 2007

Montec wrote:

How are your images selling online? I find sales to be dreadfully low considering the amount of photos that have been viewed in July on my site.

I photographed a Provincial softball tourney on July 6,7 & 8th. Since then 32,236 photos have been viewed and only 80 purchased. The photos are good, I have had many comments about how wonderful they are and I must admit I did get some great action shots. I covered opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies etc. so there is lot's to look at. I even made separate galleries for each of the 16 divisions represented at the tournament so they did not need to sort through them all to find their teams photos.

I am thinking that since the photos are there for all to see with just a click of a mouse that maybe many people do not purchase when they have them for free.

I was thinking maybe putting up a notice that the photos will only be available until the end of July or something...

http://kootenay.smugmug.com/BC%20Girls%20SoftBall%20Championships

Montec, it's definitely a proven sales-increasing tactic to make it clear that a gallery will be removed after say, 3 months. You will definitely see more people order.

It is indeed interesting that you mention "the click of a mouse" availability, because I must admit I feel the same way: If I were them, unless it were simply the best photo in the world I would not care to do more than bookmark the page and go back to it whenever I want to show someone the photos.

Of course a 3-month time limit would defeat this tactic!

Good luck,
=Matt=

PS: Children's sports photography is a tough biz anyway. There are probably tons of parents with nice new DSLR's and cheap 70-300 zooms who take nothing BUT pics of THEIR kid. So unless you take truly amazingp photos, you may be hard-pressed to sell more than 80 images per tournament...

Dbl · July 18, 2007

You are not going to like what I have to say, but you are posting this in the pro sales area though this maybe would be better in Mind your Business? I am assuming you have a business that you trying to make money with.

1. How much pre-marketing did you do? If you show up start taking pictures and pass out a few cards you are setting yourself up for low sales. How do people find your web site? Pre marketing involves e-mail trees, event flyer distribution, meeting with event organizers to involve them in your marketing strategies. I'll be honest selling photos on line is about 5% taking photos and the other 95% on marketing them.

2. Did you have a presence at the tournament? Did you have table with information, a large banner with company name? A person manning it to answer questions? A form of multimedia presentation and examples of your work? On line sales is more a marketing tool, if you want high sales your best route is multiple viewing stations on site with people there to take orders. This means photos after a game that are available for viewing on site within minutes.

3. Please don't take offense at my next question, what type of equipment are you using? I spent time browsing your gallery, I saw evidence of the same equipment that any parent with a camera would use. Distracting background in focus, standing while taking photos, not getting low to include faces under those helmets. Do you have fast glass that allows you to knock the backgrounds out of focus? Maybe you do and you are not shooting at minimum apertures? Your photos have a photojournalism slant to them, telling a story so to speak. My experience has shown that doesn't translate into high sales. You may find differently in your market. Sportrait style shots along with peak action sells. Making your shots stand out from what mom and dad can take = sales. Don't misunderstand these questions a person with the consumer 70-300 zoom can sell photos, but using faster glass with shallow DOF is only one of the things that sets your shots apart from the crowd.

4. Volume of shots available. Most of your galleries contained considerably less than 75 photos per game, many of those were not action shots. My average for a softball game is around 500 shots per game. I shot a baseball tournament this past weekend with a 600 picture average per game for 8 games.

Out of those teams did you get a shot of every player? If you didn't you're missing out on potential clients. Maybe the one who will buy $200 worth of photos. You won't know that unless you try to cover every player in the game, and that includes both teams. Not an easy task.

5. How long have you been doing this? What is your past history with these type of events? How do your sales compare to past events? I think if you sold 80 photos you did well based on your galleries. Everyone with a camera feels that they can make money putting up some shots of a game. What a great way to make some money and pay for more equipment! Unfortunately that most often is not the case. On line sales on its own is not a way to get rich quick or even buy that 300/2.8 by next month. If this is just a way to make a little spare money than by all means be satisfied with the sales you received and move on to the next event. A constant re-evaluation of what works and doesn't work is really a key to increasing your revenue.

Having time-limited galleries is something I have long debated. I think there is some proof to only having it on line for a certain amount of time, on the other hand I had a sale from an event shot last fall the other day. I know one pro who has not removed one photo in 5 years of shooting. He is still getting sales off old photos. I think a time limited gallery translates into more quick sales but I wonder about the long term ramifications of that. I need a longer history of sales over time for my own decision on that.

You need to decide what you are willing to put into your work and what expectations you want from that effort. Unless you are willing to bust your rear preparing, marketing, selling the product don't expect high volumes of sales. You need to offer pictures that the average PWAC can't take, make your work stand out from the crowd.

The vast majority of my sales never make my web site. I look at it as a marketing tool more than a sales tool. I do more pre-sales shoots, CD shoots, and T & I than spec shooting, why? Because I have a higher return for less effort than time spent in on line work. I hope I have given you some information that will allow you to take a good hard look at your event and see what could be done differently next time out. Good luck with your future shooting. __________________

Montec · July 18, 2007

Dbl wrote:

You are not going to like what I have to say

I posted to get feedback, I can take criticism, let me answer your points in order.

How much pre-marketing did you do?

I had flyers sent to each team before the tournament, the players 'goodie bags' had promotional material. I had a location set up with 24" monitor playing slideshow of photos, the table had a stack of business cards (500) that all went out. I printed 30 8x10's that were displayed as well. The table was manned by my assistant. We received nothing but good remarks all weekend, all 30 of the 8x10's sold at the event.

Please don't take offense at my next question, what type of equipment are you using?

D80 with 70-200VR 2.8, 17-55 2.8 Nikkor lens.

I spent time browsing your gallery, I saw evidence of the same equipment that any parent with a camera would use.

Really? You are not as observant as you think you are then, I shot at 2.8 a great deal of the time. I also shot at slightly smaller Apertures to get more in focus on action shots. And btw, there were parents there with D200's and 30D's....they bought my photos on site.

Distracting background in focus, standing while taking photos, not getting low to include faces under those helmets.

There was no way to get a good clean background like you have in most of your photos, the location just did not provide for it. All angles were totally cluttered with cars, buildings and fans on the main fields. You could not get a clean shot unless you were up high. As for getting down low, that was also not possible, all fields were fenced off and no one allowed in, I had to shoot over 4' fences. I asked to be let in but the umpires refused.

Your photos have a photojournalism slant to them, telling a story so to speak. My experience has shown that doesn't translate into high sales.

That is good advice, I did shoot in the PJ style and galleries reflect that. I might need to change.

Volume of shots available. My average for a softball game is around 500 shots per game.

Hmmm...not really feasible. I had 72 games to cover in three days. I was moving from game to game as they were in progress. If I used your 600 per game average that would be over 40,000...even 100 per would be out of the question. I shot over 4000 photos on the three days. I have about 1000 on my site.

I shot a baseball tournament this past weekend with a 600 picture average per game for 8 games.

Almost 5000 photos? How on earth do you process them? I see that you have Photoshopped many on your site, surely you cannot be serious.

Out of those teams did you get a shot of every player?

Tried to...with 400+ players that was difficult.

How long have you been doing this?

Second season, hence the question regarding sales.

A constant re-evaluation of what works and doesn't work is really a key to increasing your revenue.

Good advice once again, I am doing this now.

You need to offer pictures that the average PWAC can't take, make your work stand out from the crowd.

Ok, second reference to anyone with a camera can shoot what I did. So you don't think the photos are very good, fair enough you have a qualified opinion. However, that is not the feedback I received from parents, so I will take your opinion as coming from someone in the business with more skills than myself.

In looking at your galleries I see some great exposures and see that you shoot almost exclusively wide open from a low perspective., these make great shots I agree but I choose to not shoot that way 100% of the time. Possibly a mistake. On the other hand I also see some very poor composition in your pictures, Image 70616_ATB_14 and related series for example, nice exposures but why do you have her looking out of the frame? Hands and feet should not be cut off like that. I might not have taken the best photos but I would not have let these be posted.

Not trying to start any kind of a war here but we alll have our nuances that determine our styles. I wasn't really looking to have my style criticized like this as I was just asking how other were making out with sales. The general gist of your comments are that I am complete amateur with a P&S...or at least my photos look that way. I am not unhappy with the photos.

One thing I will say in my defense is that the location was poor. I found the best positions possible to shoot from considering the light which was bright over head sun all day as games were from 8AM until 4PM. These were also 11 year olds, much less dramatic action at this age.

Good luck with your future shooting.

Thank you and thanks for the advice, you made some valid points. I have now sold over 120 prints but still not what I was hoping for. I will think about what you have suggested and maybe change my style somewhat, you never did anwser my question though, how are your online sales doing? Are you satisfied with the selling rates?

__________________

Cheers!

cardon · July 18, 2007

Montec, Great that you are now up to 120 pics sold, hopefully you'll get even more sales. If its not too intrusive, what percent of those are small 4 x 6 prints vs 8 x 10 or some other size? Also, does the 120 pics sold include the 30 onsite sales or did you get 120 sales online?

I sell some pics from horse shows, not too many though-I don't market it much. I just show up,take pics, hand out a few cards and the horse show posts on their website that pics of the event can be seen/purchased from my website. Not a good way to go but I sell a few pics. Mostly 4 x 6 but some 8 x 12 and a few digital downloads. I do show some large poster sized pictures of past show for the riders to check out. One day a husband of one of the riders came up to me and asked if he could purchase one of the photos on my poster from the website and I said "sure, there are lots of photos there". I had to laugh when he thought no one was watching when I saw him take a close-up picture of my poster with his cell phone camera. I guess crap was all he needed cuz he never bought the good clear picture from my website.
Good Luck with your sales,Craig

Dbl · July 19, 2007

Montec, I appreciated the time you have taken to respond to my questions. I was merely trying to obtain answers to some information on how you approached your event. In order to compare sales you need to be comparing apples to apples. If someone goes out and shoots and posts to the web hoping for sales, that is not the same as someone who went to the trouble to pre sell, market, etc as you have certainly done. Let me try to answer your main questions in turn.

I had flyers sent to each team before the tournament, the players 'goodie bags' had promotional material. I had a location set up with 24" monitor playing slideshow of photos, the table had a stack of business cards (500) that all went out. I printed 30 8x10's that were displayed as well. The table was manned by my assistant. We received nothing but good remarks all weekend, all 30 of the 8x10's sold at the event.

Sounds to me like you have all the basics covered here. I do most of the same things you do. You should be getting the most for your efforts.

There was no way to get a good clean background like you have in most of your photos, the location just did not provide for it. All angles were totally cluttered with cars, buildings and fans on the main fields. You could not get a clean shot unless you were up high. As for getting down low, that was also not possible, all fields were fenced off and no one allowed in, I had to shoot over 4' fences. I asked to be let in but the umpires refused.

I agree with you on fields, I shoot on crappy ones often. I do what I can do to minimize backgrounds, move garbage cans that are in the shots, change position slightly to get a better background. They are what they are and you do the best you can. The reason I have soft backgrounds in many of my shots is because I only shoot at 2.8 or wider. You have to decide what works best for you. I do shoot many games through chain link due to the same issues you encountered with umpires.

http://www.prepsportography.com/gallery/3013964#163617907

This recent game was shot completely through a chain link fence from the stands under a high noon sun.

Hmmm...not really feasible. I had 72 games to cover in three days. I was moving from game to game as they were in progress. If I used your 600 per game average that would be over 40,000...even 100 per would be out of the question. I shot over 4000 photos on the three days. I have about 1000 on my site.

I based my question on the fact there were around 50 shots per game on your softball gallery. I am a believer in posting as many shots as possible of an event. The more you shoot the more your customers have to choose from and buy. You mentioned you shot 4,000 photos but only have 1,000 on line. If you shoot them...they will buy, but only if they are available for sale. That works in my market, it may not work in yours. You will have to find that out in your area.

Almost 5000 photos? How on earth do you process them? I see that you have Photoshopped many on your site, surely you cannot be serious.

I am serious, I have shot as many as 10,000 in a two day tournament. I do choose to process most of my shots so they are print ready. Most feel that is a complete waste of time, and it mostly is. It is how I choose to represent my work. Photoshop is great for batch processing. I normally have three computers running to process high volumes like that. I'm sure you have your own thoughts on what works for you.

Ok, second reference to anyone with a camera can shoot what I did. So you don't think the photos are very good, fair enough you have a qualified opinion. However, that is not the feedback I received from parents, so I will take your opinion as coming from someone in the business with more skills than myself.

In looking at your galleries I see some great exposures and see that you shoot almost exclusively wide open from a low perspective., these make great shots I agree but I choose to not shoot that way 100% of the time. Possibly a mistake. On the other hand I also see some very poor composition in your pictures, Image 70616_ATB_14 and related series for example, nice exposures but why do you have her looking out of the frame? Hands and feet should not be cut off like that. I might not have taken the best photos but I would not have let these be posted.

Not trying to start any kind of a war here but we all have our nuances that determine our styles. I wasn't really looking to have my style criticized like this as I was just asking how other were making out with sales. The general gist of your comments are that I am complete amateur with a P&S...or at least my photos look that way. I am not unhappy with the photos.

One thing I will say in my defense is that the location was poor. I found the best positions possible to shoot from considering the light which was bright over head sun all day as games were from 8AM until 4PM. These were also 11 year olds, much less dramatic action at this age.

No, not everyone with a camera can get the shoots you did, you sold shots to people with cameras! One of the things I have learned over the past few years of sports photography is that what the client says to you at the job doesn't necessarily translate into sales. Please, I am not trying to question your skill or equipment, I am trying to find out what you were doing that separates you from everyone else that is in the crowd taking photos. You said yourself that people with nice equipment bought photos from you. I have found that the PWAC misses the shots you get because they are emotionally attached to a player in the game, their son or daughter. That is what will make this a viable business in the future, I hope.

Back to the start of my response, asking how peoples sales are is just not a fair question to ask unless there is some background information that is useful to us and can provide you with information that is useful to you. I could say that I sold 800 photos at my last tournament, but how would that help you if you had no idea of what I did to get those sales? That is why I asked some of the questions I did.

I won't get into a debate over shooting skills or styles either, its not relevant to who is right or wrong. What is relevant is how what you are doing is translating into sales. If your style is not giving you the sales you expect, change and find what style does meet your sales expectations. The small body of my work on my web site I have found works for my market. Tight shoots, including cutting off limbs, sportrait type shots, these are what sell in my market. They also set me apart from the competition, and I am in a large metropolitan area with a lot of competition. My thought is that sports photography doesn't necessarily follow the same composition rules that other areas of photography do. Your volume of sales will help you determine what works for you, my sales surely have defined my style to a degree.

You mentioned location and time of day, you will have to endure these challenges everytime you shoot, that is what makes this so much fun. The 11 year olds may not provide you with the best action but they give you the best sales. Parents at this age I have found are more willing to buy because these most likely are the first action photos of their child.

I mentioned in my earlier post most of my income is not from on line sales, actually I think it only accounts for around 5-10% of my revenue. I will say I think you have done well based on what I have seen in my market to get 120 sales from the good effort you have put forth and the amount of shots on your site. I personally think you are right on track to be successfull. But I think you will eventually find that on line sales will not generate the revenue that is possible in other areas. The point of my response is to constantly re-evaluate your success and your failure and make changes to your strategy based on your experience, not others that may not market and sell as you do.

I wish you all the best in your endeavor to pursue business success.

photogmomma · July 25, 2007

Problem #1: You have not watermarked ANY of the photos I saw! How easy is it to do a print screen, grab the shot and put it on MySpace? Takes two seconds! When doing thigns like this, watermark it enough so that you can't even see faces. I hate saying that, but these kids will take the photos without a second thought. They aren't being jerks, they just dont' realize they shouldn't!

Problem #2: I can look at Larges with no problem, screen print and even PRINT them (at low quality, but still passable if I'm a teen). Turn off Larges unless they have a horrid watermark across the faces.

Problem #3: Give them a time frame. If you take it down after 30 days, you'll force them to order immediately. If you don't, by the time you try to get an order after more than that, you'll lose money. You could go 3 months, but my kids look totally different after that time and I'm not generally as interested in photos after then. I "archive" photos - put a password on with a hint that says "Your photos have been archived. Please contact me if you'd like to purchase. A minimum $75 order is required.". You change the minimum amount. Takes me 2 seconds to change the password temporarily for a sale, though. I never delete old shoots.

Do those three things IMMEDIATELY and I bet you see your sales jump!!!

Good luck!

(Oh, and don't be surprised when the parents start saying, "I can't get Johnny's photo off there! You're making it hard for me to get it for free!"

! )

photogmomma · July 25, 2007

PS I think your photos are good and certainly better than many parents so I don't actually think that's your problem.

Matthew Saville · July 30, 2007

photogmomma wrote:

Problem #1: You have not watermarked ANY of the photos I saw! How easy is it to do a print screen, grab the shot and put it on MySpace? Takes two seconds! When doing thigns like this, watermark it enough so that you can't even see faces. I hate saying that, but these kids will take the photos without a second thought. They aren't being jerks, they just dont' realize they shouldn't!

Hi Andi! Thanks for sharing your particular policies, it's so nice to have this place here to collaborate and discuss...

I sort of shoot for the opposite when it comes to watermarking, here's my theory:

I watermark a bar across the bottom of the photo, and just put my website in it. No giant "C" right in the middle of the photo, just the bar. I think that this inclines people to take the photos (I allow right clicking) and plaster them all over their myspace, but wherever the images go, my website goes with it. I consider it a fair trade. To some extent, I believe we as professionals need to embrace the effect that the internet is having on communication, and allow a LITTLE bit of downloading. (I'm still debating whether or not to allow L size pics, I think maybe I should disable them for small events and stuff.... :-( )

I have numerous brides who have my photos on their myspaces, actually, and it's great because each photo is an ad screaming my website, and I don't have to pay a dime. I'm probably not losing many dimes either, because the way I see it, they're not going to purchase a 4x6 ANYWAY if I were to disallow them from myspacing their photos. They don't want to steal an image and print it, they don't want to bother cropping out my watermark, (IF I am a nice friendly guy) ...all they want to do is share the pics with their online friends.

So, a different twist on the whole watermarking thing, and definitely children's events are different from weddings, so I'm still testing the waters when it comes to that. However I find that a simple 25-50% off promotion and a deadline are far more effective at generating sales, and you come across as a great person because you're offering them a discount instead of being a meanie about image theft.

Take care and good luck,

=Matthew Saville= (almost 2,000 print sold, shooting children's theater every now and then...)

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