Is Photoreflect Too Expensive?

This is one of those personal questions. You know, like boxers or briefs. Only you can decide this in your situation, but is 18% too much? Lets look at a few things that separate Photoreflect from the places that appear to be charging you less:

1. No fee to upload. Nothing. Upload as many events as you want to as often as you like. Other services charge a yearly fee, a straight upload fee or even worse (Pictage, ProShots) they charge both along with a percentage of the sale.
2. No fee to store. Again, upload as many events as you want to as often as you like. There are no fees at all to do so. Other services charge a fee over a certain number of galleries or total space used. Some mask this in their annual fee and allow you “unlimited storage”.
3. No time limit for catalogs. Post it and leave it. There are a great many photographers that have catalogs that are 4 or 5 years old still posted for sale at Photoreflect.com. You don’t have to take your job down after 3 months or 6 months or any other months. Some services do allow “no time limit” storage as long as you either buy additional storage space for the increased space usage or as long as you renew your annual membership. If you don’t pay, your files don’t stay.
   I could stop right here, but won’t.
4. Free software. Web Edition is by far the most powerful piece of software in the online image hosting business. Use the built in editing tools to adjust white balance, color, contrast, brightness, focus and crop. Apply effects and borders. Use it to set up package groups limited only by your own imagination and password protect the gallery. All from within this >free< application. If you use one of the network Labtricity labs <plug>like BB Color, Inc.</plug> all of your edits are transmitted to the lab for printing. If you don’t use one of the Labtricity labs, you can still use the software to copy out your ordered images and edit them in Photoshop to send to any lab in the world that you like. If you are ready for the next step the Core Edition of the paid software brings you a lot of additional tools and capabilities for only $500.
5. Sell borders online, including multi-node borders like all in one memory mates. If anyone else does this I am totally unaware. I am constantly amazed by the number of people that don’t take advantage of the border features in the software to create custom memories for their customers. I do understand that without Border Workshop it can be difficult. Go see our fine friends over at LimitlessBorders.com and buy some borders that you can easily modify for any group or have custom borders created for your customers. A little bit of effort and money spent to create a custom product for your customer will pay off in the long run in higher sales and repeat customers.
6. Promotional codes and discounts.
7. Built in support for over 25 labs. <plug>BB Color</plug> happens to be the one that I love the most, but there are other choices that you could settle for. If none of the labs suit your fancy, you can easily assemble the order for any lab that you like.
8. Tremendous third party support. All joking about plugs aside, most of the network labs provide a high level of personal support (none quite like BB Color, Inc.) to their print customers. Regardless of what some say you are not put in a position to deal only with the support of one company. You can select a partner lab that is as interested in you making a lot of money as you are and will go to great lengths to see to it that you are well prepared to do so. If your lab isn’t providing software and sales support to you perhaps you should look around for a better choice.

Services like Printroom (16%), SmugMug (15%) and ExposureManager (10%) all have annual fees that range from $99 to $149. $100+ and you haven’t posted or sold anything. Add to this some percent of the sale as well as storage fees over a certain amount in some cases and the percentage gap is not as wide as it appears to be.

Further, a good number of services (Printroom, SmugMug and Shutterfly. ExposureManager does this as well but they at least give you the option to self fulfill.) don’t offer you the option of having your work printed at the lab of your choice. They use a third party lab (usually EZ-Prints, BWC for Expman) where they get a discount over published rates. They then mark this print price up and sell it to you. This may not be a direct percentage of your sale, but it is a cost that must be factored. Last I checked every single one of the services were 15 to 40% higher than the price that I charge for same sized prints.

There is an awful lot to be said for being able to edit your site template and give it more of a look and feel that is consistent with your own web site. But at what cost? How long will it take you to learn HTML, or to make these changes if you already know it? How much time and effort will you spend creating your “look” instead of shooting images, meeting with league directors or spending time with your family?

Is 18% too much? I say it isn’t. If there were a better service out there for me and my business or for this lab we would be on it. I would look forward to hearing any feedback that you might have on another service. bbcolor (@) gmail.com.

Technorati : Exposure Manager, ExpressDigital, Photoreflect, Printroom, Shutterfly, Smug Mug

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