Looking for software/service to allow me create online site for proofs and sales

[BK553]

Hey, I do like smugmug. here are a few things:

(1) It does cost per month/year, but I look at it as a backup service as well. Upload full-res images, and it functions as a last-ditch backup if I lose the other two i have (onsite and offsite).

(2) as far as hosting your site solely with them, it can take some work. if you don't know anything about web design, it will take some time to figure things out. The way you makes pages, like contact or other info, is to make a blank gallery and edit the "about me" section with html. You can read about it on the forums:

(3) The community (like this one) is really, really great. Their forum is called Digital Grin (dgrin.com) All of the people who run smugmug participate and help out. There is a sub-forum just for pros and pro issues, and they will help you with just about anything.

(4) They make it easy to order prints, and there are a lot of options for you. You can choose to send out promo material straight from their labs, have your customers orders shipped directly to you so you can hand-deliver it. One thing that may help with order is to get rid of some of the options. They offer probably about 70 different print sizes. If you go in and put "0" as the price, it removes it as an option. It makes purchasing much simpler for the customer if you limit the options some.

So, In the end, I like it for the sales part of my business. Ultimately I went with squarespace for website hosting because it's really simple to use, but for the photo hosting, smugmug gets my vote handsdown.

[theosus]

My sister-in-law got married several years back. The photogrpaher gave her a CD with her pictures on it, but they were part of a program. Each picture had a number under it. She was supposed to write down the numbers of the pictures she wanted, and fill out this order form for the photographer. The CD stopped working after 30 days. It was really strange. Not sure how it knew - I mean, couldnt you just set the time on the computer back? I poked around on the CD - there didn't seem to be a seperate picture library, you couldnt pull up individual shots as jpgs or anything, it was all some sort of encoded database. Pretty cool, though. Not sure what it was called, but it seems a good way to help prevent theft, and still give clients that CD.

[BK553]

Cool, but what benefit does this have over an online gallery? It seems more limiting than anything. Nice big watermarks have worked well for me. I'm moving to using flash drives, you can pick up a 2gb USB drive for about 6$ in bulk, and clients like it. Make them write-protected, and include links to the online ordering, and you can increase orders by a lot. they can take it to work/family and share it for as long as they want.