[Clavius]

I've been receiving increasing requests from people of different parts of the world who want to buy prints of my work. That's a very flattering compliment of course. But it's something I had never ever expected to happen. So, I've been looking around on how to set such a thing up, but I quickly ran into a maze of options: 500px, smugmug, zenfolio, lulu, etsy, fotki, redbubble, etc... All with their own, difficult to find and decifer features and services.

Can anybody with some experience help me out here?

What I would like:
- Have an online customizable page with the work that I have available for sale.
- Outsource the printing and shipping.
- International drop shipment delivery; because I've noticed some only tend to the US market. There's got to be a few that have the print done locally closest to the customer.
- Preferably the possibility to integrate that "store" into my own already existing website that I built myself. But if it can't be done, then there are also other ways for me to handle that.
- Budget friendly! Whilst I've received flattering request from people, I also don't get 10 requests a day.

[carrrlangas]

Well, I ave no expirience selling online but I think it would help if you could post some of the pictures you intend to sell.

[amoringello]

I can't say I can recommend one over the other 100% because each has its own set of features, some good, some not so great.
Most have very easy to set up set of templates.
If you're at the level of using only the built in templates, you'll want to shop around to see which service fits your liking.

I use Smugmug. You can pretty much completely customize the look if you know CSS well or can pay someone to do it. I know Zenfolio is/was very similar.
One thing SmugMug has that I use and other services keep promising to get, is package pricing. i.e. I can set a special price for someone buying an 8x10, an 11x14 and four 5x7, for example. Dunno if Zenfolio has this yet but they strung me along with "We'll be getting that soon, maybe in a month or so" for about a year and a half. Finally went with Smugmug.

I don't think you'd be disappointed in either Zenfolio or Smumug. But they are far from free and you need to make some significant sales to get the most out of their top of the line services. Although both have less cost options that may or may not be too limited for your use and desire to make money on sales.


Best thing you can do is to make use of those free trials.
Create three or four sets of images, and create some galleries on these services.
I would pick two services and run a shoot-out test on each. i.e. set up a simple website with both and see which one is easier to use.

Selling photos is great, but if you cannot get your images on the site in an easy manner, you're F'd.
Remember you may be working with this portion of their service on a weekly or even daily basis.

[thechumpen]

I'm nowhere near selling photos but did research this stuff out of interest and problem I found was that all the decent sites (that do gallery and printing) are US focussed. If outside the US it might be worth finding a generic shopping cart type website and then managing the prints yourself with another supplier. For example in the UK Photobox are good for online prints but don't have a store that photographers can use and customise like Smugmug do. Therefore you could just find some standard provider to host a photo based website with a shopping cart facility and then once you get the orders you would drive that via something like Photobox or a local printer etc.

Shame Smugmug don't have a UK presence/Photobox don't do websites.

[Clavius]

I'm nowhere near selling photos but did research this stuff out of interest and problem I found was that all the decent sites (that do gallery and printing) are US focussed. If outside the US it might be worth finding a generic shopping cart type website and then managing the prints yourself with another supplier. For example in the UK Photobox are good for online prints but don't have a store that photographers can use and customise like Smugmug do. Therefore you could just find some standard provider to host a photo based website with a shopping cart facility and then once you get the orders you would drive that via something like Photobox or a local printer etc.

Shame Smugmug don't have a UK presence/Photobox don't do websites.

Yes, this is the problem I run into most of the time during my own researches. Either shiping outside the US isn't an option, or it's so expensive that I can't imagine anybody paying it.

I took a look at Photomoto. Very interesting! They enable you to just add a "buy" button with java-script to your photos on your own website. From there, the customer can order prints or download. Photomoto snags the high res file from a location you specifiy and the printing and shipping is then outsourced to a company nearest to the customers destination. "BRILLIANT!" I thought... But Photomoto as a company seems to be in terribly bad weather right, it's questionable if they're even going to be online for much longer.

So now I'm searching high and low for photomoto alternatives. Or just any 500px or smugmug clone that also has some international presence.

[RonHendriks1966]

I sold one image true 500px, but not the intention I started there. So it is possible. I also sold one image that I printed at home and put in a tube and sended it around. I also got one image from the states that way.

[northcoastgreg]

I sell through fineartamerica.com. I've made about $500 is sales over the last year through the site. They do all the printing, which is done in one of their three American locations. They do, however, ship abroad (either through FedEx or UPS). Cost of the service is $30 a year. Integration with personal site is possible through their stand alone shopping carts.