can of worms: print suppliers

One of the things we, as photographers, need to deal with is finding effective and convenient ways of providing our clients with print services. Of course, the easiest way to keep the time you spend dealing with print orders to a minimum is to just provide the full-res CD. But, if you don't do that, then you need to hook up with a lab and an ordering system. You wouldn't think this would be such a tricky thing to do, but it does in fact become a very complex decision. Let's consider a few factors.

We all want to provide our clients with superior customer service, which ideally includes simple and easy ways of ordering prints, receiving those prints in a timely manner, and of course having those prints adhere to high professional print standards. Whether you sit beside your clients to pick prints in person or have an online ordering system that is not linked to a print company, if you do what is called self-fulfillment orders it means you are personally responsible for making sure the prints are accurately selected, uploaded, tweaked, printed to the right sizes, and delivered. Not only is this time consuming and frustrating, when we hit busy patches or have (heaven forbid) family or personal commitments to tend to, it becomes more and more difficult to ensure we are getting our client orders dealt with in a timely fashion.

There are several print labs who host online albums where clients can direct order, but the photographer does not have the ability to set their own prices. This means that you are giving up 100% of your potential income, and while this provides convenience for your client, is kind of not the point if selling prints. Furthermore, most of the labs that will allow you to upload an album for printing do not allow you to block the general public from downloading or printing the images. There are virtually no administrative options whatsoever.

Now, there ARE companies who specialize in providing professional print services for professional photographers. Their ordering systems, website hosting, etc. are all very slick in design, easy for togs and clients alike to access and order. In addition to regular prints, there are options for everything from printing mugs and magnets to canvasses and flushmount albums, set and directed by the photographer, managed by the company, and chosen by the client. Several companies have even upped the ante by providing nice touches like tissue-wrapped prints in shiny little boxes. Sounds perfect, right?

Well, it is, but there are some things to consider before jumping on the whole print service bandwagon. For starters, these companies are pretty much ALL in the US, and while I have nothing against our southern friends, I *do* have an issue sending my clients to an ordering album when the prices are shown in US dollars. Thus far, none of the US companies providing this type of service offer display of prices in foreign currencies, which drives me bonkers.

The established companies like PicPick, Pictage, MPix, etc. have one major advantage over the Canadian versions like ShowMyphotos and ZoomPhoto, that being, experience. This has allowed them to specialize like nobody's business, providing a client experience replete with little extras like fancy packaging and client-selected images automatically put into slideshows, albums, etc. while our Canadian equivalents are apparently not quite there yet.

Now it gets SUPER tricky, because you have to decide if you want to pay the premium and farm our your print side of things through a US company or a Canadian company, at which point you have to examine some less-tangible points than whether things come in fancy-wrapped boxes or not, like whether you want to support a Canadian business that offers similar quality products but a lower level of service/perks, and whether or not the US-based perks that you feel elevate your perceived value as a photographer to your current and potential clients are more important than having your business 100% Canadian-based. Generally speaking I think many Americans and Canadians genuinely value the ability to spend money on goods and services that are locally or regionally manufactured or provided, and I'm the first to admit that often a 'made in Canada' sticker or tag becomes the final deciding factor when I am investing in something, though I know lots of people don't care.

There are money matters that come into play as well, such as collecting and remitting taxes. Canadian orders coming through US companies get dinged for taxes and duty at the border, whereas GST/PST is collected on your behalf through both Canadian companies. While you do not have to pay US taxes on your US orders, you still have to pay Canadian taxes on the mark-up payouts you receive, which means your GST in is going to be higher than your GST out (read: you will pay more GST.) If you are making the bulk of your income off print or album sales out of the US, this is something you might want to keep in mind.

The other way money matters come into play is that for all the little value-added perks intended to increase your perceived value to clients, you do add a hard cost which invariably gets passed along by your host company to you first in your membership, per-use, or upload fee, which then invariably you need to pass along to your client. Typically this is buried or rolled into the cost of goods so you can't see the breakdown, though I have seen certain services (ie) gift wrapping) and product upgrades (ie) custom album boxes) offered as a paid-for service. Either way, when you are putting your pricing strategy together, you will need to consider these things and work them into your pricing structure.

One thing to consider is using larger, cheaper print companies (I won't mention any names) which you may wonder isn't a good idea. The answer is simply that while the risk is there for potentially inferior products, where they save you pennies is in providing minimal customer service; namely, you are self-fulfilling your orders without the guidance and expertise of people who know about colour and file management, website issues, etc. much less get to know you on a first-name basis. The discount you receive in using open-source services like this is directly reflected in your access to personal support and service.

Shipping across the border often means longer delivery times for Canadian clients, not only because of physical distance, but usually because their order is delayed in customs. This alone is a HUGE detractor for me personally. Few things are more frustrating than waiting for something to clear customs, and while normally it only takes a day or two, that's an extra day or two I could have spent having the order shipped directly to me from a Canadian company, wrapping the prints myself in a scrap of recycled vintage fabric, and meeting with the clients to hand-deliver their finished print products along with a batch of homemade cookies for that all-important final personal touch that to me would mean more than massed-produced generic picture boxes and sheets of tissue paper that'll end up in a landfill anyways.

Being sensitive to what your clients value becomes paramount so that if you make the decision to forego the expertise of an established company that puts your prints in pretty boxes for you in favour of a company that is more interested in being green than providing packaging you aren't inadvertently alienating your client base who has come to expect the pretty box.

Hopefully this is some food for thought. There is no 'wrong' answer. Whatever works best for you is the 'right' choice.