Selling photos online (own website not stock type)

[steveatesh]

I have built up a selection of photos that people are asking for to print and hang on their wall, and this has led me to consider selling photographs online via my own website.

I am not expecting to make a fortune from this, it’s more about putting them to good use rather than living on my hard drive, although if I can sell a handful a year then great.

So I guess I’m looking for the best (cheap lol) way to start a website for the purpose of selling some of my photos as prints.

I would need to design my site, have a suitable domain name and have it hosted.

Any suggestions as to a suitable host/website builder please?

[paul.deitch]

Are you sure you want to go there? Building, maintaining websites, payment systems etc is totally different to photography and can take a lot of time and resource to get right. Secondly obtaining customer exposure on a known platform might be a lot easier.

If you are really determined then you will get hundreds of hits for this on Google. My advice is let someone else take the strain.

[Craikeybaby]

I am a web developer, but when it came to needing a site to sell images, I went with Photoshelter, although there are many similar sites about.

It isn't the cheapest way of doing it, but even as someone who could have developed something similar, I just didn't see it as worthwhile.

[StevieBee]

I'm doing the same and researched this quite a bit.

Most of the many 'third party / white label' resources that are out there all use the same basic common back-end template. They all act and behave in much the same way as one another. Simply put, when you subscribe to Zenfolio or Pixieset or whoever, you are a third-generation white labeller. There's not really much to choose between them.

I've gone for Pixieset - based on the recommendation of someone here. Had to call upon their customer services a few times and very impressed with the speed and quality of response.

Still a work in progress but this is what it's looking like so far

Getting your images up on a site is only half the battle though. Unless you are going to invest in SEO, visibility will be difficult so you need to actively promote via Instagram, Facebook, etc. Just about to enter into that phase so will let you know how I get on!

[Simpo Two]

My first sum would be the cost of running it vs how many sales you need to break even. So unless it's a vanity project (no harm in that) it will come down to numbers.

My record (exhibitions) is a spend of £500 and a shedload of mount-cutting for a return of £17 - beat that!

[steveatesh]

StevieBee said:

I'm doing the same and researched this quite a bit.

Most of the many 'third party / white label' resources that are out there all use the same basic common back-end template. They all act and behave in much the same way as one another. Simply put, when you subscribe to Zenfolio or Pixieset or whoever, you are a third-generation white labeller. There's not really much to choose between them.

I've gone for Pixieset - based on the recommendation of someone here. Had to call upon their customer services a few times and very impressed with the speed and quality of response.

Still a work in progress but this is what it's looking like so far

Getting your images up on a site is only half the battle though. Unless you are going to invest in SEO, visibility will be difficult so you need to actively promote via Instagram, Facebook, etc. Just about to enter into that phase so will let you know how I get on!

Thanks for this one, have never heard of them! I can’t see how they get paid, I presume they take a percentage like Apple etc?

[steveatesh]

Simpo Two said:

My first sum would be the cost of running it vs how many sales you need to break even. So unless it's a vanity project (no harm in that) it will come down to numbers.

My record (exhibitions) is a spend of £500 and a shedload of mount-cutting for a return of £17 - beat that!

Lol, to be honest it’s probably more of a vanity thing, I’m certainly not expected no to sell many or make much from it! If I break even I’ll be happy, if not I’ll simply stop it.

I I’d it with an ebook which I wrote in response to hearing somebody say “you need to make money when you’re not there”. I work in a niche market as well as providing the service personally I thought I’d do a ciput down version for people who wanted to have a go themselves. I wasn’t expecting much but sold over a couple hundred copies a year, and it’s still selling lol.

With pictures I’d be happy with £17 lol

[mudnomad]

Check out format.com

I'm very happy with them for three websites for over a year now and they do work extremely on mobile devices, which is how majority of people will see your page