Hard Copies Of Pictures Taken

[CHOSEN]

Hello All,

I'm looking to get some guidance on where I should go to print out hard copies of images for my customers. The only place I know of is Shutterfly. Also, what would you charge to provide these printed images to your customers? I know it depends on the size of the image, but would I charge, say double, what Shutterfly would charge me? Any guidance you can provide would be appreciated. Thanks in advance...

 

[tirediron]

There are a multitude of on-line print labs, some of which such as Mpix are very well regarded, however, I always prefer dealing with a local bricks & mortat establishment so that I can actually talk to a PERSON if there are issue. Grab your local yellow pages, see how many labs there, send a half-dozen samples to each, and go with the one you like best! As for cost, well, that is entirely up to you. Cost of goods sold (COGS) is based on your cost of doing business (CODB) calculations, and can range from a 40% mark-up to a 100% mark-up.

 

[KmH]

It's really hard to make money with only a 40% to 100% markup on prints, particularly on small prints.
If an 8 x 10 costs you $1.99, a 40% markup makes the selling price $2.79 and a 100% markup makes the selling price $3.98

Consider this.
Print labs don't sell photographs.
Print labs sell paper and ink.
The customer has to provide the photograph.
Either a photograph the customer made themselves, or a photograph a customer paid a photographer to make for them.

Charge for your time and talent that went into creating the photograph you make, not for the paper and ink the photograph is printed on.

Desktop size prints need to be marked up at least 500%+.
Wall size print markup works best as a scaled markup. The bigger a print is, the less markup it has.

Actually, there are many was to price prints.
Some retail photographers price by the 'sheet' (8x10) and by the pose.
Some offer 'collections'. Collectons are usually offered at 3 levels, designed such that a vast majority of your customers will be attracted to the middle collection.

Another way is to have a set $ amount per square inch of print.
An 8x10 is 80 square inches. At $0.50 per square inch an 8x10 is $40, and a 20x30 is $300.
A $1.99 print lab 8x10 sold by a retail photographer for $40 has a 200% markup. A $26.99 20x30 print @ $300 has a 110% markup.

 

[Gavjenks]

If you're not selling based on the ink and paper (which I agree with), then it is a little silly to make your prices based on "markups" at all.

If you're conceptualizing it as "Paper + art" then you should just add a flat fee for the creative art cost to whatever the paper is, not try to confusingly figure it out as a scaling percentage.

So for example, the artistic and equipment effort that goes into one pose might be $200 for you, or whatever.

if it's a 8x10, then the price is $200 + the paper and ink for an 8x10 + fixed markup on paper only (for shipping etc.)
if it's a 24x36, then the price is $200 + the paper and ink for a 24x36 + fixed markup on paper only.
if they want to buy two of the same pose, one in 8x10 and one in 24x36, then the price is $200 + the paper and ink for a 8x10 + a 24x36 + fixed markups for paper only. Or $200 on each print (stingier, and kinda ridiculous, but at least justifiable by some logic)

I'm not saying that's the only way to price it. But if your philosophy and reasoning is that you're charging for "art and paper separately" then flat fee is the logical conclusion, and as a customer, that's the only thing I would expect without it seeming fishy if your explanation was "art and paper separately"




or if the contract is such that it says I am purchasing X many photos with my original shoot fee, then i would find it pretty questionable to charge an artistic fee for any prints at all. I would expect my original fee to have been the art fee already (what else is it for??), and prints should just be price of paper + small markup for handling and such, on the order of 50% ish.

If you're charging for art by the pose in prints or digital copies, then i would expect the shoot itself to have been almost free (a small "deposit" charge makes sense, but should be way lass than regional rates for people who just give you a CD of all your images).

Charging people twice for art is something I routinely advise my friends to not accept when they are shopping for photographers for weddings, etc.

 

[Gavjenks]

Note: if you are actually selling people wet prints, then that's a whole different story. That requires skilled and artistic effort on a per print basis to produce. And larger ones are a lot harder to work with. Therefore, traditional methods of charging large artistic markups per physical print, and charging more markups for larger prints, makes sense.

Carrying those methods over to digital doesn't make sense, and people realize that. You don't earn an extra $400 in artistic markups simply by typing in a "3" into a quantity checkbox on a print delivery website, versus typing a "1."

 

[tirediron]

Ehhh... I wasn't clear; I meant a 40-100% mark-up on the materials; of course there is a creative cost to the image as well, so if the lab charges you $10 for your 8x10, your print cost to the customer might be $17.50, but the actual price they pay for the image will be much greater (but of course while it's difficult to give advice on hard/fixed costing, it's absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to give advice on the creative pricing).