Selling photos online

[fokker]

Greetings all,
I have the following situation. I have photographed a couple of events for a local school and a lot of the parents want prints or copies of the photos. What I'd like to do is upload all the shots to a website where I can direct the parents to who can then order the prints they want which will be printed and sent to them (after they pay by credit card online, all handled by the website). I'm not doing it to make money but obviously a small amount from each sale would come in the photographer's direction, some would go to a fee to the website and the rest would be for covering printing and postage costs. As far as I can see, there isn't anything in New Zealand covering this service, or is there? There is 'quickpix' (http://www.quikpix.co.nz/wa.asp?idWebPage=12457&idDetails=154) who pretty much do what I describe but they charge $150 a year subscription and you only get 100MB online space, which is a bit of a ripoff and doesn't give me enough space - plus I don't think I'll sell that many photos so I'd much rather pay a % on each sale.

Has anybody else been down this road and have some suggestions to offer?

Obviously there are a number of overseas based websites who do this, but they either don't ship to New Zealand, or the shipping cost and time, combined with headaches over exchange rate, makes it not an attractive option for me. If I can't find something already here in NZ that does what I want it to then I'm going to have a chat to my web developer mate about maybe getting something like this going. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on the subject in general and what kind of service you would use.

[jackinavox]

Greetings all,
I have the following situation. I have photographed a couple of events for a local school and a lot of the parents want prints or copies of the photos. What I'd like to do is upload all the shots to a website where I can direct the parents to who can then order the prints they want which will be printed and sent to them (after they pay by credit card online, all handled by the website). I'm not doing it to make money but obviously a small amount from each sale would come in the photographer's direction, some would go to a fee to the website and the rest would be for covering printing and postage costs. As far as I can see, there isn't anything in New Zealand covering this service, or is there? There is 'quickpix' (http://www.quikpix.co.nz/wa.asp?idWebPage=12457&idDetails=154) who pretty much do what I describe but they charge $150 a year subscription and you only get 100MB online space, which is a bit of a ripoff and doesn't give me enough space - plus I don't think I'll sell that many photos so I'd much rather pay a % on each sale.

Has anybody else been down this road and have some suggestions to offer?

Obviously there are a number of overseas based websites who do this, but they either don't ship to New Zealand, or the shipping cost and time, combined with headaches over exchange rate, makes it not an attractive option for me. If I can't find something already here in NZ that does what I want it to then I'm going to have a chat to my web developer mate about maybe getting something like this going. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on the subject in general and what kind of service you would use.


if it's going to be a long term thing, then maybe your own website might work, but the cost of getting one up and getting an online payment system might be expensive.

why not just host on flickr and if they like what they see, pay you cash or by internet banking? - mainly assuming that most potential buyers at this stage are local?

keep it simple..

[EGD]

try smugmug.com, i used to have my website servered by them, great customer support and fast connection. prints are good quality too.

[fokker]

try smugmug.com, i used to have my website servered by them, great customer support and fast connection. prints are good quality too.

I'm looking at them at the moment. From what I understand you can choose your own printing outfit that smugmug will pass the orders onto, is that correct?

if it's going to be a long term thing, then maybe your own website might work, but the cost of getting one up and getting an online payment system might be expensive.

why not just host on flickr and if they like what they see, pay you cash or by internet banking? - mainly assuming that most potential buyers at this stage are local?

keep it simple..

I don't want to go to the expense of setting up my own website - I'm not a professional, I'm mainly only doing this for the experience and to give the parents in the community some pictures of their kids. I thought of just hosting on flickr, but I really like the idea of having a website handle all the transaction and ordering as that could bequite a hassle to do the old fashioned way.

[Redal]

I found this site, i havent used them , but they might do what you want.

http://www.photocentral.co.nz/


Allan

[fokker]

Thanks Allan I just checked them out, they don't have much information available for potential sellers - you have to email them to find out which is a bit dumb but I've emailed them anyway and will see what they can offer.

[drspangle]

There is redbubble

http://www.redbubble.com/

[Quikpix]

Greetings all,
I have the following situation. I have photographed a couple of events for a local school and a lot of the parents want prints or copies of the photos. What I'd like to do is upload all the shots to a website where I can direct the parents to who can then order the prints they want which will be printed and sent to them (after they pay by credit card online, all handled by the website). I'm not doing it to make money but obviously a small amount from each sale would come in the photographer's direction, some would go to a fee to the website and the rest would be for covering printing and postage costs. As far as I can see, there isn't anything in New Zealand covering this service, or is there? There is 'quickpix' (http://www.quikpix.co.nz/wa.asp?idWebPage=12457&idDetails=154) who pretty much do what I describe but they charge $150 a year subscription and you only get 100MB online space, which is a bit of a ripoff and doesn't give me enough space - plus I don't think I'll sell that many photos so I'd much rather pay a % on each sale.

Has anybody else been down this road and have some suggestions to offer?

Obviously there are a number of overseas based websites who do this, but they either don't ship to New Zealand, or the shipping cost and time, combined with headaches over exchange rate, makes it not an attractive option for me. If I can't find something already here in NZ that does what I want it to then I'm going to have a chat to my web developer mate about maybe getting something like this going. I'd be interested to hear any thoughts on the subject in general and what kind of service you would use.

The 100MB of space is for the low res images that are displayed online. This equates to approx 4000 images. Most photographers find this adequate for their requirements. If more space is required, let us know, it may not cost you anymore.