portfolio gallery/ client area

happycocco2796 · Jan 19, 2011

Hi, I shoot events+weddings and for many of them they purchase only the digital copy of the photos. I would like to have a members-only system / area on my website; where they can just download their images, eliminating the hassle of burning a cd and traveling/shipping to the client. Are there any solutions available for this, I am not shy with website coding but really wish to just purchase a website template with these features, has anyone come across such template?

thanks
first time posting a thread

Big Mike · Jan 19, 2011

Welcome to the forum.

I use an application called 'Photocart'. It was loaded right onto my website and it is a fully featured on-line photo store. Clients can access their gallery (option to make it private with a password) and they can view the images and order prints etc. If I choose, I can allow them to download the image files, for any price I choose.

I believe you can also get similar features from websites like Smugmug (Pro), but I like that Photocart resides right on my website and I don't have to send clients to another site.
Also, some websites will charge you a fee or commission for selling prints/files etc. With Photocart, it was a one time purchase and I don't have to pay any fees or commissions.
Pictures Pro - Photo Cart

RyanLilly · Jan 19, 2011

That sounds like a pretty good idea, however, make sure you have plenty of bandwidth to support the downloads. It would be unfortunate for a clients download to stop midway and give them am message about your website exceeding its max bandwidth for the month.

Is also a good Idea to continue to offer a disk, in rural areas, and even in bigger cities, there are places with limited internet access. In some of the older parts of St. Louis DSL is still limited to 384k, because the lines have not been upgraded yet.