smugmug / shutterfly pro / printroom

[vdschoor 0]

All,

I am shopping around for a site to sell photos online.
I've been using Shutterfly for the last 5 years, but I am thinking.. there has to be something better out there, what you can do as far as customization on shutterfly is extremely limited.

What do you guys use, and why?

[pilotdave 0]

I've been using smugmug since 2006. There are some things that I don't like, but they are minor. Overall, it just keeps getting better and better and will continue to do so.

I post new pictures every week. My original goal was just to make things easy for me. I didn't want emails or phone calls saying "can you email me that picture you took on that jump 3 weeks ago?" I spend a lot of time captioning and keywording each photo so people can find the pictures of themselves that they might want. I keep my prices low because this is more for convenience than making money. 2009 was my first year to make a profit (over the $150 yearly fee)... primarily through selling small digital downloads for 25 cents each.

Smugmug recently added the capability to give coupons to customers. So far I have only used that for christmas gifts in the form of gift cards. But I can see potential for increasing sales.

You can take a look at my site. I don't have a huge amount of customization, but there's quite a bit of little tweaks. Let me know if you have any specific questions or happen to want a $5 off coupon code. Smugmug also just added almost 30 new themes (pre-set color schemes). They look really nice. I'm trying to figure out how to steal some of the new elements to add to the theme I'm using. I'm no CSS expert, but I am really good at copying and pasting.

There's a 14-day trial. They don't even ask for a credit card number, if I remember correctly. Give it a try.

Dave

[PhreeZone 15]

I am looking at Zenfolio but have not put too much time into it.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[Icon134 0]

I too use smugmug and also use it for the same/similar reason that Dave uses it for...

I have yet to earn much if any profit and haven't gotten a great workflow to ensure that every picture has keywording... although last summer was more of a cluster as I spent most of the summer helping plan my wedding and picture/video uploading/processing took a back seat...

I would like to experiment with additional customization (and there is a lot that can be done) additionally I would love to be able to make it possible to charge for digital video downloads... (or be able to burn them to DVD for a cost)

which would be wonderful to distribute videos in addition to photos.

overall I like Smugmug a lot... you can check out my site if you like:

www.scottgunstills.com

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

[AHoyThere 0]

I use Photo Reflect.
https://www.photoreflect.com/default.aspx

There is no annual or monthly charge. They take a percentage of each sale.
So, if you have no sales, there is no cost to you.

[vdschoor 0]

Quote

... although last summer was more of a cluster as I spent most of the summer helping plan my wedding and picture/video uploading/processing took a back seat...

Hmm.. that sounds familiar to what I went through last summer But it's all worth it.. so it's ok..
This year I am getting back on the horse though, that's why I am asking.

I am really liking smugmug from what I can see so far.. a lot more options than shutterfly.. and 50 bucks cheaper a year!

[linestretch 0]

Iwan, that photoreflect is free...from what I can see. What's your thoughts on that one? I do it all myself, and do it all through costco. It's sooo much cheaper, no middleman but I have to do all the running around.

my pics & stuff!

[lewmonst 0]

I used Shutterfly Pro for 4 years and switched to SmugMug about 8 months ago. There were several glaring issues that Shutterfly did not address. I emailed the Pro gallery manager at Shutterfly asking if they planned to upgrade or improve the user interface of the site, and got a reply of basically "no".

The most important thing to me is cropping. On shutterfly, the customer had no choice or control over cropping. I had many customers not understanding how the preview function shows the final print cropping, and ended up with formation photos with people cut off. I ended up cropping and saving single images in 3 different aspect ratios so the automatic crop wouldn't ruin the photo. Or, I had to leave so much dead space around the image that it didn't matter how it was cropped. Also, this meant I had to put my name several inches in from the edge of the image to assure it wasn't cropped in half...

SmugMug shows the cropping at checkout and allows users to move the crop box, scale it or choose "none" for cropping, which assures the entire image is printed (with possibly unexposed white strips above and below the image if necessary). SmugMug also offers far more print sizes, odd sizes, and other products. (Almost too many)

Shutterfly has an obvious brand identity on your pro site, and all pro sites look the same. SmugMug has several option for gallery style and allows the Pro gallery owner to take off all SmugMug branding and upload their own logo. I also prefer the options for viewing on SmugMug over Shutterfly. Users can see larger previews of the images and the slideshow is better.

I was happy with the quality of prints from Shutterfly and the photobooks. I made many photo books for gifts. I think Shutterfly was one of the first to offer photobooks, now, everyone does, even Walgreens.

I looked into Printroom and a couple other sites, but they too did not handle the cropping issue as well as SmugMug.

Go SmugMug.

http://www.exitshot.com

[chuckakers 370]

Quote

Iwan, that photoreflect is free...from what I can see. What's your thoughts on that one? I do it all myself, and do it all through costco. It's sooo much cheaper, no middleman but I have to do all the running around.

No need to run around getting photos printed cheaply. I use www.winkflash.com. Super cheap, good quality prints and delivered to my customers without my wholesale price on them.

8x10 delivered for about a buck fifty.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[ncskydive 0]

I am looking for more info on this photoreflect.com. Anyone else use it? if so can you give me more info. Looks like it would be a good option. Keeping overhead low is always nice while still offering great services.

blue skies