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08/10/2004 06:24:17 PM · #1 |
Unfortunately, I have some very specific needs when it comes to printing my photography and artwork. The most important, by far, is shipping abilities. If any of you know of any online shipping companies that can fit my needs, please tell me! And if you have any personal experience and/or knowledge of the service, that would help me a lot as well.
Shipping Needs
I need a printing service that can ship to my customers. Here's the thing though: I would actually like to make a profit off of my hard work (go figure, haha), so I need to be able to mark up the prices from the base price that is required in selling. Basically, this is what I need:
- The base price of a print is $7 to make and sell
- I want to sell it for $18
- A customer buys it for $18
- The print is shipped to the customer
DeviantPrints is very close to what I need, but the print pricing seems absurd. To make a meager profit (and I mean _meager_), I would have to mark up prices to an absurd amount, or so I feel.
I would like to print with Shutterfly, and I've heard good things about them, but as far as I can see, I can edit prices. People buy from my prints...at base price. I make no profit for my work.
So...any ideas? I'll really appreciate the help!
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08/10/2004 06:31:57 PM · #2 |
Ummm. have you looked into dpcprints to see if it meets your needs? It seems like I saw a forum post the other day (or week) about the shipping thing, and it is possible to ship to someone other than yourself.
I have found that the base prices are comparable to any of the print places around where I live, so to make a profit isn't impossible.
Of course, you do have to pay the $25 membership fee to dpc (then you can enter as many challenges as you want, as well.)
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08/10/2004 07:32:41 PM · #3 |
| If you can wait a few more weeks, the new DPCPrints may just what you are looking for... |
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08/10/2004 07:46:31 PM · #4 |
Check out smugmug. Their backend provider (i.e. printer) is ezprints as well (from what I can tell) and they're fairly well established. Unfortunately, for the full feature set you require (sell prints for a profit in particular), you'll have to pay USD 100/year.
But, like EddyG mentioned, you might want to wait for the new DPCPrints and compare it with smugmug. |
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08/10/2004 07:48:09 PM · #5 |
New DPCPrints?! Is there a thread about this?
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08/11/2004 02:23:24 PM · #6 |
Thanks so much for all these awesome replies! :)
I will look at DPCprints today and again in a few weeks. I can easily do that. I'm not ready to start selling, but I am definitely ready to do my research. ;)
Dwoolridge, I checked out smugmug and it seems very promising. Thank you! HOWEVER, part of their terms of service concerns me:
smugmug does not claim ownership in the photographs, videos or other media created or uploaded by Subscribers ("Media"). smugmug will not resell Media to third parties. Unless we indicate otherwise, if you upload Content, including any Media, to the smugmug site, you grant smugmug a nonexclusive, royalty-free right to publish, distribute and display the Content as we deem appropriate in providing the Services authorized or requested by you, including the right to use the name that is submitted in connection with such Content.
Isn't that a bit like I'm selling them my rights? While they may not "steal" or unlawfully resell my artwork, they have the right to republish, redistribute, and display it? That seems strange...
The copyright on smugmug is 2004...does it have any earlier copyrights that you know of? I don't see it in their meta tags or anything.
Again, thanks everyone!
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08/11/2004 02:54:52 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by wwwavenger:
New DPCPrints?! Is there a thread about this? |
Drew and Langdon haven't let too much "out of the bag" yet, but they did post this request to the forums a while ago.
I know they've been busy with "real life" (DPC is just a little thing they do on the side), so I'm not sure of an actual time frame, but hopefully some more details will be available soon. |
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08/11/2004 03:38:21 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by leliathomas:
Thanks so much for all these awesome replies! :)
I will look at DPCprints today and again in a few weeks. I can easily do that. I'm not ready to start selling, but I am definitely ready to do my research. ;) |
With DPC Prints, you not only don't have to do the shipping, you don't have to do the ordering. People follow a link to your photo and order it; you get a commission (50-75% of the markup). You CAN also order for someone and have it drop-shipped to them, in which case you can order it at the base price, and bill the customer for whatever ... |
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08/11/2004 06:08:12 PM · #9 |
Originally posted by leliathomas:
Isn't that a bit like I'm selling them my rights? While they may not "steal" or unlawfully resell my artwork, they have the right to republish, redistribute, and display it? That seems strange... |
IANAL, but I think this is so they can use your images to promote smugmug (like the images on the front page for instance). I'm not sure if there's something similar with DPC/DPCPrints or not.
DPC/DPCPrints may indeed be a "little thing they do on the side", so their responsiveness may reflect that sometimes. Smugmug operates first and foremost as a business. Because of DPC's roots, there is a greater sense of community here, whereas smugmug is all about providing a specialized web presence service for tens of thousands of customers/photographers. I'm looking forward to DPCPrints' unveiling. |
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