Albums - how do pro photographers get to retail them?

[ted_smith]

Hi

I am interested in the possibility of being able to offer my clients an album to go with their photos (currently I'm just doing friends, family and charity events and so only charging for printing costs until I fatham everything out and learn more about the business). I want to be able to say "Here is a catalogue - I charge £X for that album, £X for this album..." but I don't want them to know how much the album costs me to buy.

How do you pro photographers get the arrangements you get with album suppliers? Wedding photographers especially. When I got married (before I was into photography) I remember being given a booklet with a series of album of various capacities. It looked like a catalogue that the photographer had produced himself, but I expexct he perhaps had an arragement with a stationary\album retailer who sent him a 'trade catalogue'?

For example, bureau-direct.co.uk do some nice albums. But to Joe Bloggs they are quite pricy. But I cannot see any information about them having arrangements with photographers.

How does all this work?

Cheers

Ted

 

[Christie Photo]

There's no real trick to this. I remember Art Leather professing that their product was sold "only through your professional photographer." I don't know if they still do that, but I suspect it doesn't take much to meet their standards.

Pete

 

[Big Mike]

Figure out how much it will cost you to buy the album (or any other product), then double or triple the price and that's what you should sell it for. That may seem like a lot, but remember that you are charging for your time, expertise, overhead etc. If you are charging them another fee (sitting fee etc) then maybe you don't need to have a huge profit margin on the album.

 

[JIP]

If you are a professional photographer lot of times the companies will sell you "studio samples" so you can showcase your work and their products. They will (for the right person) often drastically discount these items just to get their products in fron of your clients and to get you to buy more. Any place you see that sells albums it might be a good idea to ask them for this kind of item.