# Web sales



## Julian Roberts (Nov 6, 2010)

Hi all
During the Summer I bought my 15 year old daughter Emily her first SLR - which she loves, particularly when paired with my lenses... She's horse mad and has been taking hundreds of photos at local horse shows - some of which are quite good... So much so, that she's had a few people coming up to her and asking her to photograph their horses jumping and send them the photos - for which they are paying!
Can anyone suggest a cost effective web based gallery where 'clients' could select photos they want to buy and pay via PayPal (we live in the UK)? Emily is fairly confident with LR - and has me to help her.
Any advice gratefully received
Thanks very much
Julian


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## Brad Snyder (Nov 7, 2010)

Julian, I do exactly that, but I use a host/lab based in Dallas, Texas. Works fine here in the US, but not much help in the UK. I like this particular lab because there's no dedicated cost for the hosting, it's all paid for out of sales. No sales, no fee, monthly or otherwise.

Best of luck to Emily.


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## johnbeardy (Nov 7, 2010)

Consider PhotoBox gallery. It's not the regular PhotoBox service, but one you set up in addition to your basic one.

They also have FTP access, so you can upload photos directly from Lightroom via an FTP plug-in.

John


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## Julian Roberts (Nov 7, 2010)

Thanks guys - I'll check out Photobox. I have an account already, so this could be a logical step.
J


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## johnbeardy (Nov 7, 2010)

http://www.photoboxgallery.com/ takes you there.

My comment re FTP might require a bit more explanation though, as I was referring to the FTP plug-in included in Lightroom's SDK which you can install and use straight away. You can still upload through Photobox's usual methods.

John


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## Julian Roberts (Nov 7, 2010)

Thanks John
I'm not familiar with the SDK. I've just downloaded it and installed the FTP plugin - which shows up as 'FTP Upload Sample'. Can you pls give me a little guidance on how I use this with Photobox?
Appreciate your help
Thanks
Julian


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## Jayne61 (Nov 7, 2010)

Brad..can you tell us who in Dallas you use?
Thanks
Larry


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## Brad Snyder (Nov 7, 2010)

http://www.orderpicture.com/

The photographer interface is just a bit home-brew and clunky, but my clients seem happy with print quality, and the no monthly fee is a big deal with a practice as small as mine. Tech support has been quite responsive as well.

You can see it from the client's perspective by clicking on the 'too many horses' link below, and then clicking thru my (ancient) cover site thru to the web host, by clicking any of the horse shows on the top of the page.

(I note that a couple of the shows are accidentally configured to harvest your email, enter something bogus, I'm not going to do anything with it, or choose another show.)


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## cmscalzo (Jan 25, 2011)

Maybe I'm missing something (I'm not an expert in photography), but from a business perspective I would do the following:

1. buy a domain hosting: this would cost you around $10 / month, and it's definitely worth it
you can use the google adwords keyword tool to get a keyword which is highly searched (something like "horse photo"), or use your name (in order to create a "brand"

2. install wordpress: it's free and your hosting will provide automatic installation

3. install some wordpress plugin to implement the requested functionalities (search for "slideshow" plugins).
There should be also some plugins to add a "pay through paypal" button

Also, there is a cool plugin called "flipbook" (or something like that), that would let you create a virtual book containing your photographs (the user can flip the pages by using the mouse)

The bottom line is that there is a wordpress plugin for everything you will want to do on your website.

I think this approach requires a little more effort but will pay off in the long run.

Hope this helps,


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