School photography - payments after pictures recieved - does it work?

[sana_parassol]

Have you ever done this? I am planning on going to a school/daycare and offer

the following service. I come into the school take pictures of kids while they

are playing, studying or doing any other activity. (At this point no one pays

anything or orders anything). Then I print the pictures and bring them to

school/daycare and offer parents to buy what they hold in their hands (nice

portrait) ready to be framed and hanged. Along with that portrait comes an

order form ? in case they would like to order additional prints. Has anyone

taken this approach before, does it work, what percentage of parents do you

think will buy the pictures? Any experience like that? What do you think, does

it worth going this route? Thanks in advance for any advise and sharing you

thoughts about it.

 

Thank you,

Sana

[pamela_follett]

It probably depends on your costs for printing. If you own a nice laptop, maybe it would be easier/cheaper to show a nice photo on screen to each parent and take orders immediately? Also, it sounds like you haven't set this up with a particular school or daycare yet-- I may be wrong, but I suspect two things: They will want a cut of the action (either an upfront fee or a percentage of sales) and/or they will need you to get signed waivers from the parents/have liability insurance before they let you in to shoot.

 

I know people who have looked into doing these before, and generally what stopped them was the problems that a lot of parents have with the idea of someone other than a big company coming in to photograph their kids-- they don't know what you're going to do with the images. If its a small school in a town where you're well known, or you personally know one of the teachers/owners, you might have much better luck. It is certainly worth inquiring, though!

[sana_parassol]

Thanks Pamela - yes I have a school that may agree to do this photo session. My concern is that I invest into prints and then not many parents will buy them. I have done it with orders upfront but never with prints upfornt and then let parents decide to purchase it or not. This is a new idea that I wanted to try. I was wondering if someone had done it this way.

[ronald_moravec1]

Try one or two classes, first, second or third grade to see what happens.

 

Depending on timing, you could post the pics on the bullitin board for a parent night along with a price list. This would be in place of free pics you hope to be paid for.

 

Consider also rather than one nice picture, a composite sheet with 4 or more smaller images and a price list. A comp is easy to make with ps.

 

I case anybody tries this where they are not known, photography of students is almost criminal if not actually criminal. Evidently people who trade in others children for export to foreign lands or just plain pedofiles use photography for their own purposes. Be very careful.

[stephenwood]

I tend to agree with Pamela about having a laptop maybe with a big screen to have the parents pick out first. If you find a lot of them willing to buy, then next time you can go through the expense of having prints done first but consider the first time your market research.

[randmcnatt]

This is very close to the 99-cent specials that were once so popular in department stores. If the prices are reasonable it can work well.

 

You do need to let the parents know ahead of time that you will be doing this, that you have school approval, the prices, and then let them opt-in or opt-out their own kid if they want. You'll get better response if you offer one free picture (which can be your choice) along with a reasonably-sized package of other prints.

 

I don't know about now, but the rule of thumb way-back-when was to expect a sales average of 50% of your package price: if you offer a $20 package, you should - ON AVERAGE - expect a $10 average sale.

[cjbryant]

I would think with this approach you will find a lot of parents "forgot" their money at home. It might work if you send the prints home with the students and let them send the order back if they want something or send the print back if they dont.

 

The large companies typically do this for their spring sessions. They make up identical packages (ex 1 8x10, 2 5x7, 8 wallets...)for each student, mail them home with an order form and the parent sends back what they do not want in the package and pay for those they keep.

 

I do not see how showing up with a print and trying to sell it to the parent that day will be all that successful. It might be if you notified the parents that they can purchase on a specific date, so they will come prepared to buy.

[craig_shearman1]

Does the school already do traditional class pictures? If not, I think it would be easier to try to get that contract with them and go the traditional route of the parents paying up front if they want their kids photographed. Trouble with doing candids of the kids playing is that it's much tougher to get a good shot shot of setting up a specific activity for each of them to do under controlled situations. As far as parents being worried, I don't think that's an issue if you make arrangements with the school in advance and parents are notified in advance that this is picture day, dress your kids nicely and comb their hair but we're shooting "kids in action" instead of posed shots. To avoid the cost of making prints, you could post the shots to a web site like shutterfly's professional service and let them order from there. Provide a password so only the parents can get to that page.

[sana_parassol]

Thank you everyone for your replies and suggestions. You brought up some good points. Based on your recommendations I am inclined to do the following: instead of printing 11x14, print a 3x5 proof with a large water mark (maybe 2 watermarks) and give it to parents with the order form. This way they are not obligated to buy into anything if they don?t like the picture. Also I will invest at the minimum for the printing. Basically they will need to return the order form by the due date and as a bonus get one free 3x5 print without the watermark with their order.

 

Sana