Questions about selling photos from websites

[wmvaux]

I have had a number of people ask me about buying some of my photos and setting up a website to view other photos.
I have started a trial with smugmug and although found it a bit more complicated than it should be, I think it could work ok for me.
There are a number of other websites I've heard about like 500px, squarespace and zenofilio for example which I believe are quite good too. One of the reasons I decided to try smugmug is I have heard they have a bigger audience, so possibly more sales.

I have also heard some people suggest I should take control over the whole process when selling my work and number and sign each individually.

Now I'm not suggesting I'm the next Ken Duncan or anything, but can understand that having control over what goes on can be important knowing that the person at the other end is getting a quality product that I would be happy to send.

My concerns are with websites selling my work are how can I be sure of the quality? Do they have printing labs that check the image and let you know if the image quality isn't right before printing? Also things like frames, not sure if I'm happy with some of the frames offered at some places.

If I wanted control over the whole process, I guess I would need to find a printing lab that would let me know if an image wasn't right. Find someone with a good range of frames that I like.
I'm not sure how the process would work either, so if someone does have experience with this I would love to hear from them.

[ricktas]

If you want complete control, yes you need to be in charge of finding a lab, etc, getting the prints done, ensuring they are packaged well for courier etc.

Along with all your sites named above, you can also try redbubble, they used to do excellent prints etc, but I have not had an account on there for several years now. The issue I see with these sites is that you are not only competing with thousands of other photographers, you are also competing with often dozens of other photos that look similar. Yes you can get a few sales, but don't expect to get enough to buy a new lens..or tripod.. for quite some time.

[wmvaux]

If you want complete control, yes you need to be in charge of finding a lab, etc, getting the prints done, ensuring they are packaged well for courier etc.

Along with all your sites named above, you can also try redbubble, they used to do excellent prints etc, but I have not had an account on there for several years now. The issue I see with these sites is that you are not only competing with thousands of other photographers, you are also competing with often dozens of other photos that look similar. Yes you can get a few sales, but don't expect to get enough to buy a new lens..or tripod.. for quite some time.

I don't have a problem competing with other photographers or similar photos, I do a bit of research and notice most are poorly represented, meaning most people don't use the real name of locations and have made up names for their photos, so people searching for a photo for a certain spot will more likely find mine based on keywords, than something with a made up name. Also I can see what other photos are out there for shots at the same places and feel mine are generally different to others, so if someone likes my version they might choose to buy mine.

I'm not expecting to make a living from sales, but would hope that I would make enough to cover costs and hopefully a little more.

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I think Smugmug is quite different to the other sites like 500px and redbubble. It's not really a networking site, but more a personal/business website. Meaning that you won't get incidental traffic - the only traffic you will get on your smugmug website will be from people who are specifically visiting your website via a link. Which may or may not be what you want.

If I choose to go with smugmug or not, I think I would also use 500px and maybe other sites like redbubble. I would have links to my website and 500px... etc off my facebook site.
Personally I would be happy for people to find my website via facebook and also have 500px more for networking.

[nimrodisease]

I think Smugmug is quite different to the other sites like 500px and redbubble. It's not really a networking site, but more a personal/business website. Meaning that you won't get incidental traffic - the only traffic you will get on your smugmug website will be from people who are specifically visiting your website via a link. Which may or may not be what you want.

[Redgum]

If you do a little more research on sales based websites, in particular Smugmug, you'll find the sales return on membership fee is in the negative. In other words, the minimum membership fee for a professional site is I think $US60 per year. Some may earn more than that but the majority far less. If you're convinced that your photography and style is consistently better than 99% of other photographers I'd give it a shot. It's not really such a big business investment other than the time spent in preparing your work.
As others have pointed out just make sure Smugmug cater for your potential clients.