What is SmugMug and how does it work?

[Alice Morrison]

I'm just now hearing about this. What's the deal? How can it generate sales?

Are there competing "services"?

Thanks.

[Mr. Pickles]

I have a professional SmugMug account. The term "generate sales" is weird. Smugmug is an online portfolio, and if used as a portfolio is basically the same as PBase. You can make different "folders" under your account, to group images, and so forth. You can control the look and feel of your account by using CSS, which they explain well.

If you have the Professional account, you can post your images in your SmugMug "profile" portfolio, and SET prices for others to buy them. Smugmug has default prices set for each print size, and there are a bunch of them, and a 3 different paper types (matte, glossy, and lusture) for each size.

An example is a 4x6. Smugmug charges 0.29 for a print. You CAN charge whatever you want. The 0.29 is the cost of the print, and you have to have that charge. Smugmug WILL charge you 15% of your profit to keep the site up and host your pics, etc. While that might seem excessive, you have to draw your own conclusions .

Anybody that wants a print (or other gift items available like mugs, mouse pads, shirts, puzzles, etc) puts it in their shopping cart. Once it is there, they choose the size, and other options. The purchaser pays Smugmug, not you. Smugmug keeps an account open for you, and will automatically send you a check every month if your profit exceeds $100. If it does not, you can request a check, and they will send you one. The purchaser enters their address (billing and shipping) and Smugmug handles the shipping to them, so you don't get involved in any of it.

If you want more info, or I didn't explain it well enough, ask me and I'll do better.....

[Alice Morrison]

Thanks. That was very informative. I'm surprised that something like that can become so popular.

How does SmugMug differ from Flickr.com?

[Mr. Pickles]

Can people buy photos off of Flickr? If so, do you set the prices, or are they set by Flickr?

The only real advantage to Smugmug over other "site post and view" sites, is you can set the pricing and it appears like it is a site you own. Smugmug in this mode is pretty much like having your own hosted site, but they handle all the real work.

[Michele]

Does SmugMug do any advertising in promoting the site or do you have to do your own?

Michele

[Kevin Barrett]

Originally Posted by Michele

Does SmugMug do any advertising in promoting the site or do you have to do your own?

Michele

Having a website will not automatically generate sales for photographers. Websites
work well in conjunction with other advertising and marketing efforts. A website is
an important piece of an overall promotion.

[Mr. Pickles]

No, Smugmug does not "sell" or "promote" your site. Thus the weirdness of the original comment about "generate sales". Only YOU, the photographer, can generate sales. Same as if you hosted your own site, without it being under Smugmug.

Kevin is right in the post right before this. If YOU don't "sell" your site, and your pics, nobody gonna know to buy them, or even where to go to buy them.

All Smugmug is, is a web host in one sense. The benefit to them hosting, is all the photo printing, sizing, shipping, is handled by them, and not you. You are the only one that knows if all that is worth 15% of your profit. To me it is. All I do is post process, upload, and tell others where to go...so to speak

Ohhh, if anybody wants to try it, let me know. I can give you a referral code or something. If anybody is interested, I'll look it up and see what it is exactly and what it means to each of us.

[bavanor]

How do the prints look? Do they meet your standards?

Aaron

[metalstorm]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pickles

An example is a 4x6. Smugmug charges 0.29 for a print. You CAN charge whatever you want. The 0.29 is the cost of the print, and you have to have that charge. Smugmug WILL charge you 15% of your profit to keep the site up and host your pics, etc. While that might seem excessive, you have to draw your own conclusions .

Is this on top of the $99 dollars they charge you per year for the pro account?

[Mr. Pickles]

The prints look professional. And yes, it is in ADDITION to the $99 per year. The $99 per year is for hosting and such (storage). The percentage off the top is to cover the fact that they are doing all the work, I guess.

[davenelsondotcom]

I have been using SmugMug for just over a year and have sold 190 prints directly from the site (I mostly sell CDs of the images, but SmugMug is antoher option.) They are hosting a total of 2868 photos for me with a disk size of 8.06GB and I get roughly 60,000 image views a month (and growing.) For the $99 a year you get 16GB of bandwidth for an unlimited number of photos and I use around 300MB a month so my traddic could grow 500% without incurring any additional cost.

The prints are from EZPrints.com who have recently ruined thier web site, but the prints are very good and are shipped very quickly.

I consider all of that money well spent and know of no other service that offers anything comporable.

Most of the complaints about the website I have had in the past are being addressed in the redesign they are in the process of implementing.

Check out my web site http://photo.smugmug.com and if you enter my code you get $5 off and I get a $10 referral credit (antoher great way to reduce the $99 fee).

[Mr. Pickles]

Dave is correct. I use Smugmug to post images of events I took pictures at, and so my distant family can order their own prints. The folks who want to see the images can go there, and browse, just like any number of viewing sites, like PBase. With SmugMug, you can group your images, and if they like the image on the screen, they can simply add it to a shopping cart.

YOU set the prices for the images, and any gifts you want to offer. SmugMug tells you what they charge, so you can set the price to whatever, and SugMug will tell YOU what your profit will be. You can set pricing for each image seperately, or each gallery, or your whole site. YOU set the different print sizes and paper types that are purchase-able. YOU can set your site up to look like whatever you want, using CSS tags, whcih they tell you about. YOU can do a lot with SmugMug, and you don't really have to do anything.

Ohhh, uploads are done several different ways, for different OS types, including BATCH, and it makes it very easy to do.

Just like Dave, you can use the link below to save $5 off of your Professional account...unless you don't want to save $5
http://www.smugmug.com/?referrer=L5xvhn5DEtHqs

[Mr. Pickles]

Pretty close to perfect in your thoughts bauerman....

[Halliday]

I have a Pro account too. It works well. Very customizable. I have hidden galleries for storage of personal photos.

www.lanceshuey.com

[Jon Foster]

What is the format to upload images to SmugMug? Are there set sizes and resolutions you need to use etc?

Thanks, Jon.

[ohenry]

Originally Posted by Jon Foster

What is the format to upload images to SmugMug? Are there set sizes and resolutions you need to use etc?

Thanks, Jon.

Smugmug is very flexible and you're not limited to sizes or format (I think). Once they're loaded, you have choices of small, medium, large, original for display. It is a very flexible site and you can alter it to fit your needs (depending on your level of experience writing CSL)

[Jon Foster]

Thanks. I'll have to thr them out...

Jon.