Am I the only one shocked by AsukaBook?

<p>Evidently, logic and reason is on holiday.</p>

<p>It is a common practice for any manufacturing company to sell their product to a reseller .... whether a bottle of milk or an automobile. </p>

<p>The maker doesn't publish the price charged to the reseller for the public to see. To make sure a buyer IS a business, the maker asks for proof ... otherwise, anyone could sign up. </p>

<p>If a company doesn't want to provide proof that they are a business, the maker is free not sell to them. If the buyer doesn't want to provide the required proof, they are free to buy somewhere else.</p>

<p>It's called "Free Market".</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Marc - The poster joined photo.net to reply to two old threads on AsukaBook. Having found his website, I can tell you that he is not a wedding photographer, in fact, not a photographer at all. This seems like one of those sour grapes posts from a customer. That doesn't mean your post is wrong, Marc, in fact, I was going to ask if he thought Best Buy should close up shop since they are just a reseller, but realized it would be wasted given the apparent vendetta nature of the posts.</p>

<p>You are correct that I am not a professional photographer. I am simply a person who came across this thread, as well as the other one you mentioned, and just wanted to give my 2 cents on the topic. They both may be old threads, but they are ones that appear quite readily in a Google search. As for your "having found [my] website," I only assume you mean my personal photos at a common, free photo hosting site. Good find (not really, since you're a moderator and can see my full e-mail address), but I'm not sure what that proves.</p>

<p>Best Buy is indeed a reseller. However, their value add is the distribution, warehousing, marketing, etc. of the goods they sell. As I stated previously, I see absolutely nothing wrong with photographers charging a substantial amount for their actual services. This should include the retouching of photos for an album and the layout of said album, as I understand this could require a large investment of time and talent. I even agree that a reasonable charge for the simple reselling of the printed album is in order, if only for the fact that the photographer is marketing it to his clients. However, my point is that many "professional" photographers appear as rip-off artists when reselling these books for outrageous markups and attempt to hide it by colluding to "hide" the original price. If your markups were reasonable, you wouldn't have to be so worried that the wholesale cost would become public. Look at the computer processor industry. Intel releases their wholesale processor costs to the public, but their resellers are okay with that because they either re-sell the processors alone at a reasonable markup or for a larger markup after adding value, i.e. integrating it into a fully functional computer.</p>

<p>By the way, it is not sour grapes as I have not purchased an overpriced album, and will not be. Instead, I will be ordering the digital negatives and we will be handling the album through a third party graphic designer that charges reasonable amounts. If the photographer had not tried to gouging the price of the album printing, he would have made a larger sale. As it currently stands, I will be using him for his excellent photography skills, but that is it.</p>

<p>Personally, I am in an industry where my prices are given up front and stand on their own merit. I don't have to hide behind deceptive business practices because I feel the value I give my customers justifies my prices. It is nice to see that there are some professional photographers out there that conduct their business in this same vein, such as Kosta Cherry in this thread and Leo Lam in the other.</p>

<blockquote><br /></blockquote>

<blockquote>I am simply a person who came across this thread, as well as the other one you mentioned, and just wanted to give my 2 cents on the topic. They both may be old threads, but they are ones that appear quite readily in a Google search.</blockquote>

<blockquote>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Doing a Google search isn't really the same as "coming across" a thread. You actively searched for such threads.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>However, my point is that many "professional" photographers appear as rip-off artists when reselling these books for outrageous markups and attempt to hide it by colluding to "hide" the original price. If your markups were reasonable, you wouldn't have to be so worried that the wholesale cost would become public.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Unnamed photographers charging unspecified "outrageous" markups are colluding to prevent you from learning the wholesale cost of the album? The purpose of this forum isn't to make senseless rants about unknown people based on your personal conspiracy theories.</p>

<p>Thanks for the clarification Jeff.</p>

<p>While the original poster has their conspiracy opinion, others coming across this thread may not grasp that and get the wrong idea.</p>

<p>I fear the poster isn't taking into account all the costs of running a business as an independent vendor like most wedding photographers are. We are not Costco or Intel, nor a supermarket or an Automobile dealer. </p>

<p>We do not receive the benefits of volume buys, or group insurances, or anything else major resellers enjoy. The profit margin of this business is slim at best. Comparatively speaking, he truth be told, many full time wedding photographers barely eek out a decent living. </p>

<p>From this post, I don't know what is considered "an outrageous" mark-up for an album. An album is a "one of", product ... and a relatively low end priced one at that ... not like volume consumer electronics, furniture or a car.</p>

<p>While we do get paid at different levels for the actual shooting based on talent, who pays for our time dealing with the client concerning an album? Who pays for the additional process time of selecting the images for an album if you do that (a service I provide). Who pays for the album when in my possession if my studio burns to the ground? Who pays for handing the issues if something is defective with the product? Who pays for the percentage of heath insurance which is also high because we are not part of a massive group? </p>

<p>Now, I do understand if the buyer doesn't want to pay for a percentage of all of the above tacked on to their album purchase ... and they are most certainly free to not pay. There are other options they can select themselves.</p>

<p>Personally, I've done the math over and over, and in no way have I ever made anything near an outrageous profit for album services ... a function I personally don't like doing compared to shooting, but do it for my clients to assure quality ... a quality I stand behind no matter what ... and no matter what it may cost me to get right.</p>

<p>BTW, the prices quoted for designing an album quoted above, plus the cost of printing and the album itself is more costly than most of the top wedding album makers charge for a turn-key 100 images bound album including a couple rounds of corrections.</p>

<p>Who's ripping off who here? </p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'm finding this thread veering off into an absurd direction. Professional thread for professional conversation. Being sane and intelligent, I would find it a far reaching assumption that my amateur thoughts on legitimate pricing for, let's say, professional plumbing, would be wise to post on a professional plumbers forum given that I know nothing of the business, its costs, overhead, etc. Alas, our amateur contributors own a point & shoot digital camera so, as I've heard from many people in such a position, they are now "photographers" too. .... right....</p>

<p>With that being said, I encourage the same amateur contributors to put themselves in our position, since they are all the wiser and we are such scandalous thieves. (I had no idea that making a living and paying one's bills was so frowned upon!) Please... by all means, purchase the same quality albums, professionally printed pictures (we're not talking Wal-Mart prints here), and put the same time, energy and labor into creating the same professional album that many of us do. Oh... and by the way.... you have to factor in all of your business expenses as well, such as assistants, health insurance, electricity, roof over your head, storefront expenses, etc. Then when you're all done, guarantee it for life and stamp your name on it. Let's see how you do. Given the pricing structure you are encouraging in previous posts, you will be on the streets with no home, no food and an amateur album that isn't up to snuff. Congrats!</p>

<p>It's a free world, my friend. If you can't afford professional pricing, then do it yourself; no one is stopping you. But don't spit sour grapes at me and my fellow professionals.</p>