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- | ====== Selling Prints Online ====== | ||
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- | How does a photographer begin selling their pictures online as prints? | ||
- | One of the many choices that comes up is SmugMug. | ||
- | I know professional photographers who sell a few prints through | ||
- | it, but they say they dont sell too many. But they probably don’t | ||
- | do a lot to push the exposure of their SmugMug site. What if you | ||
- | want to do more to market your prints, like through Facebook ads, | ||
- | Google Ads, landing pages, or creating a subscription prints | ||
- | service? | ||
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- | Some photographer blogs, such as | ||
- | [[https:// | ||
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- | So what are the choices to pursue more aggressive marketing of your art? | ||
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- | Private notes: | ||
- | * Features no one has thought of in the existing photographer platforms | ||
- | * Manually operating an affiliates program | ||
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- | ===== Some of my example galleries ===== | ||
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- | * Trying PicFair - https:// | ||
- | * Bible verses set to my photography - https:// | ||
- | * | ||
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- | ===== How to evaluate an online art prints sales choice ===== | ||
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- | * How easy is it to put the pictures online? | ||
- | * How do people find your pictures? Search engine with tagging? Only your own visitors see your pictures, or is there a global marketplace offered on the site to let other visitors find your work? | ||
- | * Can you build your own email list from the site? | ||
- | * Getting others to market your art - Is there an affiliate program? | ||
- | * Costs? Setup fees? Monthly fees? Commissions on sales? | ||
- | * How many pics can you put on for free to try out? What features do you lose in the free try out? | ||
- | * What is the profit model? How does the artist get paid? | ||
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- | ===== Creating an online Photo Gallery with prints ordering and affiliate program ===== | ||
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- | Options: | ||
- | * Use a photo hosted platform like SmugMug, and try to do the affiliates program entirely outside of SmugMug | ||
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- | * Use Wordpress with plugins for ecommerce (e.g. woocommerce) and print-on-demand | ||
- | * | ||
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- | * Go with a gallery software like PIWIGO and write plugins for ecommerce / print-on-demand / affiliate tracking | ||
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- | * Write a completely custom gallery software targetted at Lightroom Classic users that includes workflow including LR | ||
- | * Best option in terms of building in an affiliate program, funnel tracking, etc., right at the base | ||
- | * How realistic is the option of an affiliate program motivating others to go out and sell an artists photos? | ||
- | * Most existing affiliate programs are very small percentages, | ||
- | * Training: How will you train salespeople to effectively sell memberships to the photogallery | ||
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- | ===== Totally Do It Yourself Art Print Sales ===== | ||
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- | One possibility is to buy your own wide format printer, create your own portfolio book of prints, and start selling them in the real world: Showing the portfolio book to real people in real life, getting their reactions, asking for the sale. This is guerilla, boots on the ground, marketing at it’s simplest. | ||
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- | One photographer I know is always advising “Think Big!” As in wall sized prints. He wants to someday afford wall sized metal prints of his own work. | ||
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- | What about software? | ||
- | * You will need art gallery software. | ||
- | * You will need e-commerce software, payment gateways | ||
- | * Sales tax calculation (ArtSpan advertises that they worry about this) | ||
- | * eMail marketing - MailChimp, Constant Contact, or self managed such as Sendy | ||
- | * Affiliate tracking system? | ||
- | * Custoemr relationship management system | ||
- | * Backend system for tracking fulfillment | ||
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- | ==== Image Security ==== | ||
- | Color1Photo touts their “IMAGE SECURITY YOU CAN TRUST” | ||
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- | * No Right-Clicking - Your images are protected. | ||
- | * Watermarks - Protect Image Previews with Watermarks. Create your own custom watermarks. | ||
- | * Resolution - The software automatically creates a very small version of your image file for web viewing. | ||
- | * Amazon Web Services - We use Amazon Web Services for safe file storage. | ||
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- | Make sure that any image that can be downloaded does not have adequate resolution for a quality print, so nobody will make any money off your work. | ||
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- | ==== Affiliate softwares ==== | ||
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- | Good article about what is affiliate marketing from the point of the affiliate network: https:// | ||
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- | https:// | ||
- | * A more embedded offering of affiliate products, 20% commission, and keeping traffic on own site instead of sending to the affiliate site | ||
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- | https:// | ||
- | * Pay per lead affiliate network | ||
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- | Article - [[https:// | ||
- | * Discusses the basics of affiliate or referral program | ||
- | * Mentions affiliate plugins | ||
- | * Affiliates Manager Plugin | ||
- | * Ultimate affiliate pro Wordpress plugin | ||
- | * AffiliateWP plugin | ||
- | * How to setup the affiliate or referral program on WordPress | ||
- | * | ||
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- | LeadDyno affiliate solution - [[https:// | ||
- | * Pricing - https:// | ||
- | * Always unlimited affiliates | ||
- | * supports multi level - " | ||
- | * $49 per month minimum | ||
- | * $59/mo. if 4500 unique visitors per month | ||
- | * $79/mo. for 7500 unique visitors per month | ||
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- | Useful queries: | ||
- | * add affiliate program to your site | ||
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- | ==== Shopping Carts / ECommerce Software ==== | ||
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- | OSI Affiliate says it includes tracking up to 200 affiliates for $47/month - https:// | ||
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- | **NOTE: Read this more indepth to get all the options listed here...** | ||
- | Good article on choices: | ||
- | * Indepth info on WooCommerce | ||
- | * NextGen Pro - $139 - Wordpress plugin offering print lab interface - NextGEN Pro is now the ONLY WordPress plugin with automatic print lab fulfillment (meaning that when someone orders a print on your site, a professional print lab will automatically print that image and ship it directly to them, without you having to get involved in the process, as opposed to traditional “self-fulfillment” methods). | ||
- | * Basic review of a large number of photography portfolio sites | ||
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- | ==== Photo Gallery software ==== | ||
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- | PIWIGO | ||
- | * https:// | ||
- | * No information about using it for sales | ||
- | * [[https:// | ||
- | * Comparision with ZenPhoto = https:// | ||
- | * https:// | ||
- | * CONS: | ||
- | * Can not find any reference to use for eCommerce or for link to print-on-demand | ||
- | * Forum help messages | ||
- | * Forum request for cart integration - unanswered - https:// | ||
- | * Dealing with security - https:// | ||
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- | Useful queries: | ||
- | * Need to try: | ||
- | * fine art print-on-demand | ||
- | * Tried: | ||
- | * open source photography gallery with print-on-demand | ||
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- | Questions: | ||
- | * Why is BayPhotoLab not coming up in print-on-demand lists? Is it because they focus only on photoprint fullfilment? | ||
- | * Remember to compare costco pricing to BayPhotoLab - Big different: CostCo will not drop ship | ||
- | ===== Fullfillment Vendors | ||
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- | https:// | ||
- | * Free upload library | ||
- | * Products include fine art prints, photo prints, metal prints, acrylic prints, canvas prints, and more. | ||
- | * Offers sales website: Uses ArtStoreFronts, | ||
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- | Best Print-on-Demand websites: The Definitive 2020 Guide - https:// | ||
- | * Note that many of these are about printing on all kinds of products other than making fine art prints | ||
- | * In-depth descriptions of the alternatives: | ||
- | * End focus is on t-shirt marketing | ||
- | * Article mentions: | ||
- | * Bonfire | ||
- | * Redbubble | ||
- | * Teespring | ||
- | * Society6 | ||
- | * Spreadshirt | ||
- | * TeePublic | ||
- | * Threadless | ||
- | * Zazzle | ||
- | * Teefury | ||
- | * Design by Humans | ||
- | * SunFrog | ||
- | * Printful | ||
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- | Print on demand websites for photographers - https:// | ||
- | * Article mentions: | ||
- | * Red Bubble | ||
- | * Zazzle | ||
- | * Fine Art America | ||
- | * Society6 | ||
- | * Printer' | ||
- | * CowCow | ||
- | * Deviant Art | ||
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- | Other possibilities: | ||
- | * BayPhotoLab | ||
- | * AllInOne - mentioned elsewhere on this page | ||
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- | ==== BayPhoto.com ==== | ||
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- | Integrated partners: | ||
- | * http:// | ||
- | * Basic - use their printlab? Might not offer right click protection, may need power - $55 annual | ||
- | * Power - $85 annual | ||
- | * Portfolio - fulfill with BayPhoto, options for frames, mets - $200 year | ||
- | * Pro - allow assistants access - $360/yr. | ||
- | * http:// | ||
- | * Allows mix of self fullfilment / labs | ||
- | * 1500 photos - $10/mo. | ||
- | * 5000 photos - $20/mo | ||
- | * 100 photo plan - Free - But it says it is a 14 day trial | ||
- | * http:// | ||
- | * $0 option takes 15% sales commission - unlimited galleries | ||
- | * Collects email from visitors | ||
- | * Testimonials | ||
- | * Strong marketing | ||
- | * works with clients of photographer | ||
- | * Client galleries | ||
- | * Album proofing comments | ||
- | * Client photo selections | ||
- | * Art Galleries | ||
- | ===== Various online gallery sites ===== | ||
- | * Directory of art gallery sites: https:// | ||
- | * https:// | ||
- | * FASO - $99 for first year Gold plan, $320/yr after [[https:// | ||
- | * Lots of marketing advice | ||
- | * Artlimes | ||
- | * Artpal | ||
- | * Crevada free online portfolio | ||
- | * ArtSpan | ||
- | * Adobe Portfolio - no shopping cart, $10/mo. | ||
- | * ArtBridge (EU Site; Print on Demand) This site specializes in selling prints. Sign up, upload your images, and earn 20% of every print sale that is made | ||
- | * ArtCloud | ||
- | * Artist.com | ||
- | * ArtistBe - online gallery / print on demand | ||
- | * ArtistShops - print on demand | ||
- | * ArtOfWhere - 3 tier commission? | ||
- | * ArtPal - online gallery / print on demand | ||
- | * TurningArt - focuses on renting reproductions of art to residential and commercial clients | ||
- | * PicFair | ||
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- | ==== ArtPal ==== | ||
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- | ==== ArtOfWhere ==== | ||
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- | Set commission, like 25% | ||
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- | Wall Art - https:// | ||
- | | Ratio | In inches | In pixels | | ||
- | | 1:1* | 24' x 24'* | 7200px x 7200px* | | ||
- | | 3:2* | 30' x 20'* | 9000px x 6000px* | | ||
- | | 4:3* | 32' x 24'* | 9600px x 7200px* | | ||
- | | ----- | 8' x 10' | 2400px x 3000px | | ||
- | | ----- | 11' x 14' | 3300px x 4200px | | ||
- | | ----- | 16' x 20' | 4800px x 6000px | | ||
- | | ----- | 20' x 24' | 6000px x 7200px | | ||
- | * Those ratios can be sized down, but the specified sizes are the biggest available since your artwork must display correctly up to those sizes. | ||
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- | ==== PicFair ==== | ||
- | Https:// | ||
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- | ==== SmugMug ==== | ||
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- | ==== ArtSpan ==== | ||
- | https:// | ||
- | * Less expensive than ASF. Claims ASF wants $2800 for AR feature! | ||
- | * Also includes an AR function like ASF | ||
- | * Comparison of costs: | ||
- | * Artspan has a 30 day free trial and the three plans are all-inclusive. No extra charges for any feature. | ||
- | * $20/mo - 150 artworks | ||
- | * $10/mo - 21 artworks | ||
- | * FASO pricing: from $8 Intro Plan to $35/month. Free trial. No set-up. | ||
- | * ASF has a set-up charge from $1,000 to $2,800 and a monthly fee of $44 to $59/month. Commissions on art sold run from 5% to 15%. | ||
- | * Squarespace: | ||
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- | https:// | ||
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- | Example product: | ||
- | * https:// | ||
- | * $12 for size, plus %7 for printing - for 7.5 x 8 plus $7 s&h | ||
- | * https:// | ||
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- | ==== ASF: ArtStoreFronts ==== | ||
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- | * [[https:// | ||
- | * Do not publicize their cost: Other reviews say: $500 setup fee, plus monthly, plus commissions | ||
- | * https:// | ||
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- | * Advantages | ||
- | * Trying to provide all in one solution including marketing training | ||
- | * Education that can probably be applied to other sites - Of course they are very big on their Augmented Reality AR showing what your prints look like on the customers wall, and having a smooth shopping cart experience. | ||
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- | === Others commenting on ArtStoreFronts experience === | ||
- | * Green Man Design Studio | ||
- | * Competitor comparing SmugMug to ArtStoreFronts - https:// | ||
- | * “implement Art Store Fronts and other best practices into a SmugMug site that maximizes fine art print sales.” | ||
- | * https:// | ||
- | * Problem of branding - people have to see a message 10 times or more to make a decision, to understand what they are seeing | ||
- | * Big decision - customer buying your art to put it on their wall and daily life | ||
- | * Email list - getting their permission to send them more work, develop their interest and trust in you | ||
- | * He uses MailChimp. He also mentioned “My Emma” | ||
- | * You must have peoples permission to email them! | ||
- | * Videos click through rate is even better than images or articles | ||
- | * Coupons for 30% off is a good sweetspot | ||
- | * Raise prices to offer more than $2 off | ||
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- | [[Breakthrough Prints Monthly Subscription And Commission Structure]] | ||
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