Lighthouse in Half Moon Bay
Chad McCoskey, kaymeephotography.com
To move from an amateur photographer to a pro, selling photos is the key. While selling photos live, one of the best ways to get your work out there is to sell online.
There are many sites, hundreds and maybe thousands, online where photos can be sold. There are websites where you upload your photos and the site does the rest including printing and shipping photos to a customer. Other websites host and sell your photos and then the photographer controls printing and shipping to the customer. The former being called full-fullfillment and the latter being self-fullfillment. In both cases, these websites typically handle all monetary transactions sending the photographer the profits after reaching a certain amount.
Other options include server installed software that the photographer controls on their own hosted website. This software is basically just the gallery viewer and the shopping cart with everything from printing, shipping, and money transactions handled by the photographer.
Below is a very short list of some of the most talked about online photo sales options:
- Shutterfly:
- Hosted account
- $99(5gb) or $199(unlim)/yr
- 15% commission on all print sales
- Full fullfillment(printing/shipping)
- SmugMug:
- Hosted account
- $39.95 standard,$59.95 power,$149.95 pro/yr
- Unlimited storage
- Full fullfillment (EZ Prints/Bay Photo)
- Site customization with power/pro
- Set prices for profit only with pro
- Instaproofs:
- Hosted account
- No setup fee
- 15%-8% transaction fee (depending on item price)
- Self fullfillment
- Photos online 9 months
- Exposure Manager:
- Hosted account
- $99.95(unlimited),$249.00(unlim),$64.95(1GB)/yr
- 10% transaction fee
- Full or Self fullfillment
- $.50 extra fee for self-fullfillment
- Pictage:
- Hosted account
- $99($199)/yr, or $9.95($99)/month
- Request price list
- Full fullfillment
- Web site customization
- Collages:
- Hosted account
- $9/event/100 photos, $39/event/unlim, $70/month/unlim, $699/yr/unlim
- No info on full fullfillment pricing
- Full or self fullfillment
- PickPic:
- Hosted account or use own host
- $99/month+$129 setup hosted account (10GB), $1249/one-time own host
- No commission
- Website Customization
- Self fullfillment
- Ktools:
- Use own host
- Server installed software
- requires php4.3 and mySQL
- $295 one time charge
- Self fullfillment
- Photocart:
- Use own host
- Server installed software
- requires php4+ and mySQL 3.23+
- $329 one time charge
- Self fullfillment
- Website customization
Just for reference, I use Photocart for my online sales gallery which can be found here: Kaymee Photography Event Gallery. It is a great program with a lot of custom options, including pricing customization and more.
If there are other websites and online selling site options, send a comment.
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