Order Fullfilment Services

[mjs1973]

Just wondering how others handle order fullfilment. Currently, I'm doing all of this type of work myself. I build a gallery and send it to my clients, then have them email me thier orders. I then place the order and have the prints shipped to me. Then I deliver the prints to my clients.

I know there are sites that will take care of all the ordering and money and then ship the prints directly to the customer, but I haven't gotten to the point where I NEED that service yet. If I continue down this road, I can see using one of these sevices in the future.

So what services are you using for order fullfilment and how do you like the service?

[Photo-John]

I'm using Printroom. I think it's great. I've been using them since about 2000 for printing and started using their pro service about a year ago. I paid about $100 to get set up. And with pretty much no marketing or effort I've made my money back with one event. I'm a poor businessman - I should have made a lot more. If I promoted better I know I would have done much better with it. But since it works so well, I'm starting to see the opportunity. I'm going to go shoot another event this weekend and see if I can sell some of those photos, too. And I know the orders will keep trickling in from other stuff.

The real benefit for me is turnaround time. I am terrible with the mail. This service takes that piece out of the equation for me. That keeps customers and me happy. And the quality is very good. Storage is no problem because I only upload thumbnails. When an order is placed I get an e-mail asking for it to be approved and for me to upload the high-res file(s). Here's a link to my page on Printroom:

http://www.printroom.com/ghome.asp?d...name=photojohn

I'm planning to put up some fine art mountain bike images for the Holiday season, too. I think that represents the largest opportunity for me. And it will require less effort in the long run and pay better.

[mjs1973]

Thanks for the info John. I knew you were using printroom, and I have checked them out in the past after reading what you had to say about them. At the time, I didn't have a use for this type of service, but I can see that changing now. I will deffinetly be looking into them again.

How do they handle cropping? If a customer wants a 5x7 or an 8x10, do they get to crop it to their liking, or do you make that choice?

[Photo-John]

How do they handle cropping? If a customer wants a 5x7 or an 8x10, do they get to crop it to their liking, or do you make that choice?

I have it set up so that I have to approve the order and upload the high-res file. The customer doesn't get to crop. I batch process all the images and upload those small files. They only look ok and aren't cropped. When an order is placed, I do the final processing, sizing, and sharpening and then upload it. You can actually upload a separate file for each print size. And that's what I do. The final product is cropped how I see fit and processed to my satisfaction. Quality is always my top priority.