 get upfront about fees and compare:
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the bottom line |
  set up, storage and event fees |
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PhotoReflect uses two fees and two fees only: a subscription fee of $9 a month and a transaction fee of 18% for orders placed using our system -- 3% of which is charged by credit card companies
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selling your photography online with other companies can get pricey and things can change on a whim depending on the level of service you are looking for ... or you are required to pay upfront for things you do not necessarily want
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the least expensive solution in the industry is free for your first 30 days ... it's well worth a try
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be aware of hidden fees
and never pay for
anything you do not need
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| time limits, image limits and event limits |
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PhotoReflect never charges by megabytes, number of photos, number of events or time frame; we think it's bad business for photographers to be cornered into only showing off their current work and not necessarily their best work
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other online photography solutions use a business model based on storage which means they only think of your photography in terms of space and not the subject or photography medium
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photography is your business; if you have to pick and choose which photos make the cut, that's bad business
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never pay to have your photos deleted from your account
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| contracts and trial periods |
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when you sign up for PhotoReflect you get access to everything for 30 days free of subscription fees and with no contractual obligation ... after the trial period, you will not sign a contract or be required to change your settings; everything is at your access on a month-to-month basis and you can cancel at any time |
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other online photography solutions will give you a "free trial" that will either give you limited access or only their most premium plan (costing upwards of more than $1,000 a year!) and then, when you are set up and comfortable, they surprise you with a huge contract after the trial period is over |
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if you have to sign a contract or pay up front to try exactly what you need, something is fishy |
contracts are for companies
that are not sure they will keep your business or will be around down the line
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| commissions |
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we at PhotoReflect are upfront about the sales commission you pay for each purchase using our end-to-end solution; 15% ensures that the ecommerce technology and options provided to your online customers are state-of-the-art and secure; 3% is charged by the credit card company used
PhotoReflect hedges this issue altogether by allowing you to price your work in a way that takes this in to account
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every company that accepts credit cards has to charge some sort of transactional fee; if you find a solution that does not charge you any sort of transaction fee it means they are leaving it to you to secure a credit card merchant account and deal with the hassles of negotiating your rate and managing those aspects daily |
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transaction commissions are a necessary evil in any industry |
PhotoReflect pools your merchant account with 35K other photographers, ensuring you get a great rate |
any company that prides itself for not charging a transaction fee is passing on to you very difficult business tasks; this also means they are not too concerned on how successful you are
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 click here to close this topic
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set up, storage and event fees |
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time limits, image limits and event limits |
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contracts and trial periods |
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commissions |
protect your customers and your credibility; look in to:
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us |
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others |
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the bottom line |
| secure online transactions |
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with PhotoReflect you receive a credit card merchant account and, because of this, a secure sales process is passed on to your online customers just as if they were shopping online at Amazon or buying airline tickets
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research how other online selling solutions manage transactions on your behalf; there are companies out there that require you to choose one of three utterly undesirable options:
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set up a merchant account yourself (which oftentimes is an arduous process to secure and manage), |
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use PayPal (which has its own fine print and fees, protections and credibility issues), or |
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they will email you the credit card number as part of their transaction process (which is so horribly un-safe it makes us shutter) |
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your choice in partner has implications to your customers
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sure, this choice will cost you 3%, but it is a matter of having a reputable business |
do not put your customers in any un-safe situation that could ruin their credit or make them vulnerable to online fraud |
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| fulfilling your online orders quickly and professionally |
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doesn't it freak you out when you buy something and you do not receive order confirmation right away, or the order arrived so late that you forgot you ordered it in the first place?
PhotoReflect is an end-to-end solution that manages the entire process for you; all you ever have to do is price your products, upload your photos and approve the order... everything else is taken care of for you with white-glove quality and service
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when comparing other solutions, look to see if you have to manually fulfill your orders, prode for info or shipping details, have to keep a spreadsheet aside for your tax purposes, or actually do anything outside of their system; then ask yourself what exactly would I be paying them for?
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think about how much your time and energy is worth
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then think about the value in PhotoReflect's end-to-end solution |
let someone else manage
the mundane for you;
wouldn't you rather
be taking pictures?
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| staying on top of trends and photography preferences |
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it is our job to be on top of photography product trends and to develop online technologies that always consider how your online customers are using your website and buying your photography
this means neat functions (such as password protections, watermarks and email notifications) and features (such as inventive and popular product offerings) are available for you to review, choose and price to your heart's content
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granted, it is pretty easy to force everyone to sell the exact same things so that all you have to do is create the same sales pages over and over again... but don't you demand a little (or a lot) more flexibility?
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PhotoReflect is scalable and completely manipulated to your exact needs
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just because you may not want to offer something now does not mean you will not need to meet a demand in the future |
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click here to close this topic
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ensuring secure online transactions |
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fulfilling online orders quickly and professionally |
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staying on top of trends and photography preferences |
know who you are doing business with; keep an eye out for:
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things that happen during the sign-up process that indicate who you are doing business with |
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see if the solution you are comparing to PhotoReflect is owned by a lab |
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photography-grounded organizations that support our tight-knit industry |
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technology requirements and limitations |
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