Wedding Albums & Prints vs Shoot-N-Scoot?

[athomasimage]

I love photography and I also love making money. Therefore I'm always looking for new products and ways to make money.

The wedding photography business seems to be moving or has moved to what I call "Shoot-N-Scoot". I.E. - Shoot the wedding, hand over a CD of images, scoot and let the bride/groom print what they want.

Why do photographers leave print money on the table? If you're going to sell your services for the day, why not make more money selling prints? Why give up the print revenue by leaving a CD behind?

Let me know your thoughts.

 

[PhotoXopher]

Less work I'd imagine... I think my mindset would be similar, I'm pretty laid back so I'd probably give too much away to be honest.

 

[Christos_2006]

I love photography and I also love making money. Therefore I'm always looking for new products and ways to make money.

The wedding photography business seems to be moving or has moved to what I call "Shoot-N-Scoot". I.E. - Shoot the wedding, hand over a CD of images, scoot and let the bride/groom print what they want.

Why do photographers leave print money on the table? If you're going to sell your services for the day, why not make more money selling prints? Why give up the print revenue by leaving a CD behind?

Let me know your thoughts.

I totally hear you about the albums, why togs leave money on the table is beyond me.
So my assumptions are, they don't want to be bothered with albums or they just have no need for money.

But in reality i believe individuals find it to be a lot of work and i agree, but many fail to price albums accordingly to make it profitable.

 

[jess28]

I would imagine for a lot of people it is because less expensive photographers are offering the discs and they are trying to compete. It is difficult explaining over and over to clients why you charge the same session fee as Craigslist's newest photographer, but theirs comes with a CD and print release and you are selling pritns only.

That being said, I do think it is worth it. I am too much of a control freak to just hand someone a disc and set them loose with my images.

 

[ragu0012]

That being said, are you guys beginning to offer a CD for a certain price?
We are trying to figure out the right way to do it, because we have been passed over SEVERAL times (especially recently) because we do not offer the digital images. Its not even their fault... every wedding magazine out there tells brides to look for that option.

Is it smarter to include the CD with your top package, or offer it ala carte for a large sum? And for those of you who do it, how do you handle selling the CD for portrait sessions versus weddings?

We've decided its time to add the option to buy a CD... but are at a loss for how to price it.

ps: I'm talking about retouched high resolution images on CD... not RAW files.

I would imagine for a lot of people it is because less expensive photographers are offering the discs and they are trying to compete. It is difficult explaining over and over to clients why you charge the same session fee as Craigslist's newest photographer, but theirs comes with a CD and print release and you are selling pritns only.

That being said, I do think it is worth it. I am too much of a control freak to just hand someone a disc and set them loose with my images.

 

[loopy]

From a customer standpoint... I would not hire a wedding photographer that does not hand me over a cd with high res images. Why? If I ever need reprints in the future I don't want to have to track down the photographer. What if the photographer moved? Died? Or had a massive harddrive failure and lost everything. I feel much better knowing I had a copy.

My thoughts would be to include the cd in your packages and raise the prices, but I'm not a wedding photographer

 

[KmH]

why togs leave money on the table

What is a tog? Do you mean a photographer?

In my neck of the woods calling a photographer that to their face would get you slapped up the side of the head.

 

[athomasimage]

From a customer standpoint... I would not hire a wedding photographer that does not hand me over a cd with high res images. Why? If I ever need reprints in the future I don't want to have to track down the photographer. What if the photographer moved? Died? Or had a massive harddrive failure and lost everything. I feel much better knowing I had a copy.

My thoughts would be to include the cd in your packages and raise the prices, but I'm not a wedding photographer

Some comments:

If you're concerned about all those issues when hiring a photographer, ask how they deal with those issues. Be a good consumer. If you're concerned about tracking down a photographer, than you're getting what you paid for.

If we were still shooting film, would you want all the negatives?

If someone you worked with, took what you did as part of your job, completely ruined the final version, showed off the final version and told others it was your work would you be happy?

If you looked at shoddy prints by a discount lab, off color, bad exposure and knew who the photographer was, would you hire them? Probably NOT.

Most Brides/Grooms, usually it's the Bride demanding full res files, are complaining about price to begin with, let alone add more money to the package to cover the CD with files.

It usually comes back to the issue that photographers are percieved as just some person with a camera, and consumers have no monetary respect for quality or professionalism.

I've had prospects admit that I'm a professional but they just want someone cheap and go off looking for cheap!

 

[camz]

I think it's customer turnover too. Designing a layout for a wedding album is sooooooooooooo much work I think. Even with templates in place in photoshop, the back and forth efforts with the customer on 150 image spread - the order, the format, the size,album type, wording, dedications etc....I swear including printing in wedding packages demands alot of additional work from the photographer that takes out of marketing, editing and shooting time. Obviously there's also that option of outsourcing but just kills in overhead so on big jobs it feels like a no win situation.

it's so time consuming that it could be a perfect secondary business other then the wedding photography solely. I think that's why the Shoot N Scoot approach is picking up because photographers rather add revenue towards more gigs rather then print options.

 

[droyz2000]

There isn't that much money on the table that is the issue. Other than albums, no one spends extra money on prints. I am a wedding photographer that works for myself and with another studio. I have found that most of the time, customers are not willing to shell out money for extra prints, and if they do it is only for 2 5x7s. Albums on the other hand people are willing to pay for. If someone is willing to spend $1000 on an album or $500 on a canvas print, they will not try to do it themselves regardless if they have the hi-res prints or not. It takes too much time to get the album and the large print correct for them not to go with the studio. I see it all the time.

 

[jazzodin]

My wife and I are fairly new to the wedding business. The one thing we have found is that younger couples absolutely want a disc. This was not want I wanted to do at first but I realized if we wanted the work we pretty much had to sale a disc.I have the same problem as stated above ...once you hand a disc over you lose control over your work.You have no idea what they are going to do to with them or where they are going to get them printed With that being said we do charge 600.00 for a disc for a full day wedding. We do still get print sales but not to much. Usually it's the parents or grandparents that want a print.We even still get couples who want a book.Go figure.Lets face it the younger generation is an online ,digital kind of group who would rather have a disc than prints.I think soon enough if you don't offer a disc in a few years your going to start losing weddings.

 

[tirediron]

For me it's about giving the client the most value for their money. If they want prints, I'll certainly provide them, however if they want to take them to Wal-Mart, Costco, or wherever, that's their business. I normally print out a couple of 5x7s and show them what they should look like; after that, it's up to them.

 

[Christos_2006]

why togs leave money on the table

What is a tog? Do you mean a photographer?

In my neck of the woods calling a photographer that to their face would get you slapped up the side of the head.

No disrespect intended Kieth, tog is just internet shorthand for photographer. Well only in photo forums that is otherwise people have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[loopy]

If you're concerned about all those issues when hiring a photographer, ask how they deal with those issues. Be a good consumer. If you're concerned about tracking down a photographer, than you're getting what you paid for. If we were still shooting film, would you want all the negatives?

Yes, I would try to find a photographer who would release the negatives, but I wouldn't expect them to be free.

If someone you worked with, took what you did as part of your job, completely ruined the final version, showed off the final version and told others it was your work would you be happy? If you looked at shoddy prints by a discount lab, off color, bad exposure and knew who the photographer was, would you hire them? Probably NOT.

No and I've had to deal with this before, so I can understand your arguement.

However can't same can be said if they view the photos on a crappy old monitor? Bad color, exposure, ect?

I'm a graphic / web designer and clients usually want the final files, high res and sometimes the source. They'll try to update the content themselves, ruining the piece. Ugh. But, I'm not going to get too bend out of shape about it as that is what they hired me to do. Besides if my client is happy, word of mouth generally outweights the occational ruined piece.

I agree with jazzodin, this is the way that the industry is headed - and you either have to adapt or risk losing business.

 

[FavillePhoto]

Just thought I'd input my 2 cents on the topic...

My best advice would be to work with a printer. You can work with your printer to establish prices with him/her. Then you mark up those prices 10-20% and offer a la carte, or package printing to your clients. You can still make a decent amount of money, and there is relatively little work involved. You just work with your client on which prints they want, send the order to your printer and they do the rest. Another added bonus, is that you can still control how the images look, because your printer should be knowledgable about colors, exposure, etc. And, you can offer some truly unique printing options that most photographers don't offer. Most photographers can offer photo prints, usually up to about an 8x10. Working with a professional printer, you have access to so much more - like canvas prints, and other specialty media.

The reason I'm suggesting this is because I actually own a small print shop in Mesa, AZ. I work with a few photographers in the area (and 1 in california) using this exact setup. We've established the prices they pay, and most of them have marked up my prices about 15% on average and offer prints to their clients. They're happy because they get to collect a little extra revenue from the mark-up without having to do any extra work. And their clients are always very happy with having alot of specialty printing services available to them, without having to go and do the search themselves. And the quality is always SO MUCH better than they'd get at print labs like walgreens or costco.

Anyway, just my recommendation. I've used the setup and it seems to work with the photographers I work with. If you have any questions about how to get something like this setup with a printer in your area, just respond here, or PM me, and I'll give you some helpful tips. Or if you are interested in working with us, you can check out Faville Photo - Giclee Printing for some more information or our personal contact info, and we do offer shipping to anywhere in the country. We can even ship directly to your client, if you wish.

Sorry about that little snippet of advertising. If we can help you directly, though, we'd love to do so. Otherwise, like I said, just message me if you have questions about this setup and I'll help you figure out how to get started with a local printer in your area.