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Photo Storefront
Photo-Sharing For Profit
Sell your digital stock photos
with an e-commerce-enabled website.
Perfect for portfolio stock sales,
wedding photography and event photography.
By Andrew Hudson
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"I want to make money from my professional-quality (wedding/event/stock) photos. I want to control the prices and the presentation, but I don't want to code my own e-commerce site. What do you suggest?"
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Once again, the Internet rushes to your help with a wonderful concept: The "photo storefront." This is your own, online, stock photography site, hosted by a company that provides all the tools for you.
Previously, professional photographers -- in order to sell their stock photos -- had to join a big agency and submit photos for review, or hire staff to send out marketing letters and precious slides to potential buyers. That's a lot of work. Now there's an exciting solution inbetween: the photo storefront, a simple way to show and sell your photography.
Who is this good for? New photographers, who don't have the vast stock needed to be accepted by a stock agency; part-time photographers who haven't got the time or resources to set up a custom solution; photographers (like me) who want to stay individual and not employ other people; event and wedding photographers who want an easy way to share, show and sell groups of photos.
What Is A Photo Storefront?
A photo storefront is a hosted website that displays and sells your photos. An Internet company will host (store) your digital photos, display them on webpages for you, and provide the e-commerce payment and fulfillment services. You can add a seamless link from your own site to this storefront site for customers to follow. Once set up, you don't have to do anything other than upload your pictures, pay (usually) a monthly fee, and receive the income.
How Do I Set Up A Photo Storefront?
It's easy to set up and you don't have to code anything -- just select from a menu of options. You can pick a professional-looking layout, include your business name in the domain address, choose which print and gift items you want to sell, and set the pricing (or markup). Simply upload your photos into galleries and your work is immediately visible worldwide. You can even have digital watermarks automatically added to your photos for copyright protection.
In a short time, you'll have a smart-looking, online portfolio where customers can see your photos and order a selection of prints, gifts, or, if you like, digital downloads. Best of all, your photo storefront is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and you don't have to do anything to process the sales -- just sit back and watch the money get deposited into your bank account. Ahh, the professional photographer's dream.
Here are some popular sites:
And from photo finishers:
Learn more with
Links to Photo Storefront Sites
Isn't This Like Flickr?
Yes, but with money. It's photo-sharing for profit. After all, how else are you going to afford that nice lens?
How do photo storefronts differ from similar approaches?
- Photo-Sharing sites, like Flickr.
You can make money. Photo-sharing sites allow you to display your photos for friends and family, and sometimes visitors can buy prints, but the sites aren't designed for you to sell and license your work. You want money, darn it, real revenue!
- Stock sites, like Getty and Corbis.
You can get in. Big agencies can be, and are, very selective about who they work with. They generally only accept big-time, long-time, professional photographers with lots of stock. Us newbies aren't likely to even be considered as contributors. Even if you do get accepted, the agency will likely only take a fraction of the photos you submit -- most of your stock will still be unrepresented. And they dictate the prices, giving you less than half the revenue in many cases. You want to show and sell everything, and set the prices!
- Microstock sites, like iStockPhoto.
You can stand alone and get more money per sale. With stock sites, your work gets mixed in with the work of many other photographers, and the agency dictates the sale price (which is very low with microstock). You want your own, private, professional site, all to yourself, without the confusing competition; and you want to set your own prices.
- Coding Your Own Site.
Less work. You can build your own website, but it takes a lot of coding to implement e-commerce, searching and fulfillment. A photo storefront does all the tedious back-end work for you. Plus, do you really want to be printing and shipping the work yourself? Don't take stuff to the post office -- just take money to the bank!
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