I'm looking to leave pictage!

$99 per month is too much to spend for what little I use on Pictage... I do not rely on print sales at all, and am going to be outsourcing color correction for weddings this season.

Basically, I'm looking for a company that will host online, and take care of printing and credit card transactions (for the few orders I receive) for a more reasonable price than pictage.

I've tried searching a few combinations of "online hosting" on osp, with mixed results, so I'm asking you guys... thoughts?

I am thinking about using Lab Prints. I have not seen their store front but I know they have a program that is like $40 a month plus a 12% commission for credit card orders. I also think when someone orders online that the order comes in to Lab Prints ready to go so all you have to do is check it and then send it to the lab to be printed.

I would recommend you check out www.Labprints.com to be sure. I am considering moving to them but I am not sure yet, it looks good but you will have to check it out.

Hope this helps.

I'm just starting out so I'm afriad to commit to the $99, at least right now in the winter. For now I'm using photoreflect(.com) as my online proofing and online shopping cart. They take out fees for each order and CC fees. Then I just get an email of the order and order the prints myself through WHCC. At least it forces me to keep up on ordering prints of my own family as I always throw a few in when I place an order.

It's laborious, but so far it works for little 'ol me.

I haven't seen anybody else use photoreflect on here. Anybody out there using it?

I started with Photoreflect 6 years ago and was happy in the beginning, but then had a whole lot of mixups between Photoreflect and the lab I was using. I did a whole order of school photos, and got the emails that said the orders were shipped, and they were never shipped. Months later I was printing locally instead & Photoreflect never helped me much with the problem! I had to do a lot of backpeddling and sucking up to those parents that waited 2 months for no photos!

So I do use Pictage now & have been VERY happy!

So that helps Betsy's question, but NOT Megan's! BAY PHOTO has a pretty good system.....

Wow... I was just looking into this very thing when I came across this thread. I think PhotoReflect may be the way I go until I get enough business going to justify a Pictage account.

Thanks!!

You might want to check out these guys

Oh wow! Digilabs is cooool!! Thanks!

We've been using Digilabs after a brief stint with Pictage and have loved them ever since. Our clients love the print quality, and I like the client interface - What I didn't like about Pictage and some others was the interface the client went to wasn't user friendly and not all people going to our sites are computer geeks - they just want to get in, look, order, pay and get out.

There are some things I think they could do to improve their interface and they've been receptive to hearing improvements ideas. I think any company will lack something as they have to design it to work with everyone, but so far we've been pleased.

Photoshelter!

It's free! ( sort of )

Thanks for the responses guys, I'm surprised not to hear many of the common names like exposure manager or... other ones that I forgot about.

Digilabs sounds pretty good. I'd go for the turnkey, I don't want to have to do anything other than upload.


Since I don't do a lot in print sales, it seems like the last Turnkey option would be the best one for me... am I missing something? It seems too easy:

"17% of sales + cost of prints (no monthly hosting fees, up to 25,000 images, $150 annual
fee, 1 penny per image>25,000 images)"

Check out ProDPI. They have an agreement with Digiproofs and it works out great.

Do any of these store your files like pictage does?

Hey Megan:

We have never been Pictage users, so I can't comment on their actual quality, but I can say that $99 is a HUGE amount of money that you are flushing down the drain every month. I know the pitch is that it is full service, and they are doing all the work for you...but really?! It seems like they are actually making money off of you at that price! WOW!

We use the Skooks Kart -- some folks have been very critical of various circumstances surrounding the product, but we have been absolutely, and I mean 100%, thrilled with ours since we first purchased it in April 2006. We paid $750 at the time due to a huge discount Brian had on the Kart. Right now it is selling for $799...and that is the brand new version with all of the upgrades (we just paid another $299 to get the upgrades).

http://www.skookskart.com/

So using the number of $750, our monthly cost has been $32 per month for the Kart. We didn't have to increase our hosting plan AT ALL, so there was no cost there. We pay $5 per month for a credit card terminal from Midwest Transaction Group (they have an awesome deal for WPPI members), plus roughly 3% of the transactions on average in fees.

Overall, the savings have been huge for us since we were working with PhotoReflect previously at 18% of all sales PLUS we had to pay cost on the prints on top of that.

I would HIGHLY recommend looking at a custom hosting solution. It has been such a great business tool for us to be able to host all kinds of galleries, and have tremendous control over the appearance & style of our kart. You can take a peek here:

http://clients.megphoto.com

I hope this helps!
~ Charles

Thanks Charles, I'll probably look into having my own cart sometime down the road, but right now I am not interested in annnny sort of self-fulfillment of orders or prints.
I just don't have time, and it's the kind of thing I hate so I would definitely procrastinate.

Point taken. That is definately the tought part of the DIY model. Ultimately it is a choice of profitability versus labor.

In that case, you check out PhotoReflect as an alternative to Pictage. That is the company we left. the upside there (last I checked) is that they don't charge a monthly fee...only a percentage when you actually make a sale. So you wouldn't technically lose ANYTHING.

~ Charles

Stay away from Skooks Kart.....I speak from experience!

I'm totally going to steal Cory Parris' thunder and say to check out the upcoming version of RedCart.

www.prodpi.com

You pay per upload and they are awesome.

I have and always will be a Collages.net member! (www.collages.net)

PickPic yo!

***edit***
Oh I saw you want them to do printing... wait till they've got the love setup with WHCC

In my opinion... None.

The ones that are free charge between 15% to 17% from your sales.

If you only do a few orders and only need an online presence to show your images (like I do) you may just do it yourself using a lab that would do drop shipment for you.

If you only sell a few online print a year I would suggest Photocart. One time payment and with a Paypal account you only pay 1.9% of your sale. Paypal handles the CC and you use Roes to place the lab order and they drop ship. I use WHCC but there are many good labs out there that do a great job too.

www.exposuremanager.com