Fotomoto - anyone using this?

[vancouverphotographer]

<p>I was reading along on some other post about blogging and saw Fotomoto mentioned - not a blogging thing but wondering if anyone used this to sell images and what you thought of it? Thanks.</p>

 

<p><a href="http://www.fotomoto.com/">http://www.fotomoto.com/</a><br /><br /></p>

 

<p> </p>

[William Kahn]

<p>Looks interesting, but I wonder what the catch is?</p>

[vancouverphotographer]

<p>Me too, William ... I was hoping someone can tell us. I seen some sites that took a high percentage of the sales and others that have some fees for keeping an account, issues with licensing, ownership etc.</p>

[marlo_montanaro]

<p>That's basically it. You get a small fee if your photo is sold. Not nearly what it is worth. Your gamble is that you will sell the image many times because so many more people will see it then if you just sold stuff off your own web site.<br>

Often, when you upload a photo, you must enter all the keywords that will be used in the site's search engine- the better you do that, the more often your image will come up in search results and the better it will sell.<br>

Be careful with licensing and ownership, as was mentioned- each of those stock organizations is different.</p>

 

[hjoseph7]

<p>I'm surprised they are still in business. They use to advertise greately in the early 1990's. </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>That's basically it. You get a small fee if your photo is sold. Not nearly what it is worth.Your gamble is that you will sell the image many times because so many more people will see it then if you just sold stuff off your own web site.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>There's no 'gamble'. You can set your own profit margin, or your own price. You can use fotomoto within your own website and there are several portfolio websites ( like viewbook ) that support it. You don't pay anything for the service ( which is the printing, handling and shipping of prints, which come in many sizes and formats, also in payable downloads ) until an actual sale is made, which they then take a small percent of. And, it's not a stock photography site / service.</p>

[derek_from_fotomoto]

<p>Dale - glad you posted, please see http://www.fotomoto.com/home/tour for details on how Fotomoto works and for pricing. Long story short, you set the pricing and Fotomoto takes 15% when something is sold. No monthly fee.</p>

<p>Harry - I think you might have Fotomoto confused with someone else...they've only been around for about two years</p>

<p>Phylo - thanks for your response - you're right. The service is mostly focused on print sales, but FYI, there *is* a very basic mechanism for selling Downloads, which can be used for stock sales. There is a neat price negotiation feature called "contact me" - Fotomoto documents the conversation with the buyer and allows seller to set a one-off price based on the discussion.</p>

 

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>Yes, that's what I meant to say with 'payable downloads', that it can be used for licensing images in different forms.<br /> Anyway, I like the concept of Fotomoto, it doesn't harm to have it on a site as a possibility of making sales, which if made don't take any time and work to process for the photographer. I have it on a viewbook site, and used the customerservice because the window wouldn't load on a windows vista/explorer system. The customerservice was very good and the problem got solved, so, no complaints about that. The only thing that would be good and needs to be added ( if not already by now ), is a sales/delivery/shipping from within Europe also, instead of only the U.S.</p>

[vancouverphotographer]

<p>Thanks for all the responses, guys. I think I'm interested in signing up and trying - just need some place to put some images first.</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>Actually I did get it confused with this business.<br>

<a href="http://www.motophoto.com/services.html">http://www.motophoto.com/services.html</a></p>