Customer order fulfillment of photos? Any pro-photographers out there?

[realityinabox]

Hi all,


I am starting to do some paid portraits shoots (hopefully getting my first print order in today), so I am trying to figure out the best way of delivering the prints to the customer. I have been using myphotopipe.com for my own personal use and have been more than satisfied by their print quality and customer service, so I plan to continue to use them as my lab.


They offer the option of "white label drop shipping", where they don't put any of their branding in the package, nor an invoice or their normal promotional material, and they offer the option of shipping directly to the customer instead of me. It is this last part that makes me a little weary. I'd ideally like to be able to look over the prints and make sure everything is in order before giving them to my customers, but the only way to do that is to open the package and inspect, thus making itnecessaryto repackage.


Am I being a little too anal? Should I just trust the photolab that I've never had any problems with, or should I go the more expensive and tedious route of inspecting the orders and having to pay twice for shipping and materials?

[Iguide]

Hi Reality:


While I do not make my living with photography I have sold my work over the years. I also have been an entrepreneur since leaving school. I decided early on in my career that no matter what I was always going to be/do the best that I could be at what ever I was undertaking. If I could be better than my compatition at a competive price all the better, but I was never going to be known for anthing but the highest quality work that I or my companies could produce. This was also the way that I trained all of the people worked for me over the 30 + years of my career. Second best or B quality work was just not acceptable. That is why I personally looked over all of my/our work befor it went to a client. It is a fact that in the business world that a bad word travels ten time further and faster than a positive word. It is just human nature like it or not.


It really comes down Reality on just how you want to be know by your perpective customers and existing clients. Do you want the reputation of always doing nothing but the best work that you can do or do you want to take the chance of someone else making that decision about your reputation for you. If you ever read a mutual funds persective there is alway a disclamer that past performance does not garentee future prosperity/returns. Personaly that it how I would view this company you have been using for your personal development.


I would have the photos come to me, look them over myself to see if they were up to my standards, reject any that were not and have remakes done if necessary. Then if the client was local I would make an appointment to take them over to the clients so that we can go over them together and get their feelings first hand. If there were rejections I would have the corrections done & then return them to my clients. If they were not local I would send them either by parcel post or by common carrier like UPS or FedEx with a personal note telling them to look them over and send any rejects back to me to be redone at my cost which is what I would tell all my clients before they go over my material.


Myself Reality, I would never ever let someone else have carte blanch over the quality of my work or reputation no matter what they have done for me in the past. I speak from personal experience here. I want to be the one that makes my reputation! Not someone else. You have to decide what you want your reputation to be.


You will probably get other responses that will tell you that what I say above is not necessary, to me that just says it all about what their work ethic is and what they want for a reputation. I myself may not be the best in anything I do, but I will always make sure that I do my personal best for myself and my clients.


The rest is up to you Reality, what do you want to be know for???


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[Iguide]

Hi Reakity:


So what did you end up deciding and how did you handle it? I am very interested.


Thanks, Godspeed


Wayne


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[realityinabox]

Hi Reakity:


So what did you end up deciding and how did you handle it? I am very interested.


Thanks, Godspeed


Wayne



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I've quickly learned that online photo proofing isn't a good idea (ie. they still haven't ordered). I have another shoot this weekend, so hopefully between the two, I'll have an order and something to report...

[Iguide]

We'll make sure to have good thoughts for you. Best of luck!!


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[scalesusa]

I use smugmug. Orders are made from the website, and you have many options as to how they are handled. If your prints are already edited and ready to print, they will do that. If you want to tweak images before they print them, they do that, if you want them to correct color before printing, they do that.


You might check them out, they are pretty good. Your site can also be completely customized with your business name, they never see smugmug.

[wusstigphoto]

I/we use exposuremanager.com





two things to keep in mind...


you can have the printers auto-correct for colors and exposure and hope its close or...


if you calibrate your monitor and want the pic to look exactly like the way your seeing it, you should export the pic using theirprinter profile so it matches and make sure you tell them to turn auto-correction OFF.


run a test using a couple examples and decide if you trust it enough.





Costco does the same thing... meaning they provide their printer profile(s) online and you can pick up locally (assuming you have one close by that does this)