Which pros make sales?
I sometimes like to look through the checks we mail out at smugmug to see if I can figure out who is most successful at selling prints online.
The key things seem to be (1) getting shots of people during a moment they never want to forget and (2) making it really easy for them to find their shots online.
I take shots every year of Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance as a favor to a friend, who runs the show. It’s not something you’d want to shoot because it’s a non-profit and by contract you can’t make money from the prints. But having him direct people to the site makes all the difference, and it’s amazing how many people want big prints of them and their award-winning cars.
We see a lot of event photographers who shoot horse shows and youth sports do well. Also, photographers who arrange sittings, do bridals, engagement, child portraiture, etc., do great.
Much as we all love breathtaking landscapes, they seem to be the hardest to sell. There has to be some mechanism like shows to drive traffic to the site.
What do you think?
June 26th, 2005 at 8:43 pm
How about listing the top five selling smugmug sites, just to see how they may be set up, and look.
Thank you,
Erik
July 6th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
I’m sure that everything you say is entirely accurate. I guess I’m an oddball. I’ve purchased 2 pro photos from the site. Both landscapes.
You’ll know I’m an oddball, too, when I tell you that I read an article on decorating the door to one’s fridge in appropriate feng shui style. So… I needed a photo of the sun for the upper right hand corner. Got it, too. It’s a beauty.
July 14th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
I tend to agree that there is an element of “presale” in taking pictures of an event and then directing folks to your web site to buy the pictures. The people who come are already conditioned to want a memento of the event and so the sale is a done deal if the photos are halfway decent. Conversely, I random surfer, is really not planning to buy anything, just to be a lookyloo, so they are not the big spenders. IMHO.
August 25th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
I have the same request as Erik.
Could I get site of any of the top 5 please?
I would like to see what kind of shots are popular.
October 4th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
So the request to list the top 5 “earnings” sites on SMUGMUG was made on June 26th of this year…We are moving up on the fth month since the request was made and there seems to be absolutely NO RESPONSE to the request…not even an acknowledgement of the request having been made!
Why such a delay in a response to such a completely simple and straightforward request – it cannot be because the information is so difficult to obtain, because it just can’t.
Post the information requested. It would serve everyone.
Jay Sigal
mgbjay@mailsnare.net
October 20th, 2005 at 11:33 am
Duly noted about the desire to know who the top 5 is. I’d love to post away, but I somehow cringe a little, hoping I’m not violating anyone’s sense of privacy.
So I’ll post a few here who do well, but not necessarily the top 5 in order or anything like that.
We have a few who sell thousands of dollars/month, hundreds who sell in the hundreds/month range, and a few thousand who have set prices but get occassional sales. Here are some semi-random examples from the first two categories:
(Note that for some of these they have many more galleries than are showing because they place photos in private galleries.)
http://bodley.smugmug.com/
http://polaroidpat.smugmug.com/
http://expressive.smugmug.com/
http://leebrubaker.smugmug.com/
http://savannahga.smugmug.com/
http://erv613.smugmug.com/
http://markus.smugmug.com/
Amazing how quickly they’ve picked up on themes!
November 27th, 2005 at 9:46 am
A big thank you Smugmug for allowing me a (small) window to show the world the horse shows in my (expanding) area. If money was no object I’d own a lot of these pics myself! Beautiful animals!
Jim
January 22nd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I checked out the list that you gave and found it impressive. I have had smugmug for three years and only last year did I allow pics to be purchased directly from the sight. I have had fair results. Wish I had done it earlier.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Can you please update your list of successful sites? It looks like two of them are no longer in business.
thanks…
November 15th, 2009 at 3:44 am
/2005