Online sales for youth sports

[bunny_arms]

<p>Any professional photographers have success with online sales for youth sports? (little league, pop warner) I have a established business using order forms, however we have some request for this service. We have posted a few jobs online in the past we very little success, even with the customer purchasing a discount voucher, for buying photos. Right now I have a small job online, out of 26 voucher sales, only two customers have purchased photos. They have received 2 e-mail reminders, and its been two weeks since picture day. How do you get these customers to go online and order? Any ideas?</p>

<p>thanks<br>

BA</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>If they actually want them, and you've told them how to get to them, they'll eventually wander by and buy them. Printing on site is (while far more complex and expensive, logistically) going to produce far more sales.<br /><br />I get online sales sometimes a year after I make the event available online. Storage is cheap. Leave it up there indefinitely.</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>Both methods have pros and cons:<br>

Pros of order forms - you know what you're making from the shoot up front<br>

- Higher percentage (seems to be anyway) order<br>

- Parents don't have to hassle with a password / website<br>

Cons of Forms: - Parents may be going some hard times and can't afford photos<br>

- Parents forgot it's photo night and don't send form in with kid<br>

- Parents are buying sight unseen - sure you have samples - but that's my kid or my league.<br>

Reverse those and you have pros and cons of online...</p>

<p>I'm with Matt on this one - leave them up - or find a storage / hosting site that doesn't charge for storage and instead does a fee per sale. I've had people call me after a year and ask if I still have their images - they get busy and forget about these things - until grandma or grandpa asks if Johnny or Susie played ball this year...</p>

<p>I've done a baseball league 2 years running now - completely on-line - password protected. 1st year did about 20% sales, 2nd year did about 60% sales (percentage of kids that ordered). As is normal now with leagues - some parents saw what I was charging and decided to do it themselves for their kids teams at no cost. Which, end of day is fine with me...as I'm there anyway taking photos - so I do the photos if you order or not.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[funcrunch]

<p>I haven't shot sports but I do shoot other events, and I too sometimes get sales over a year later. However, I've recently decided to add some time pressure by archiving galleries after 30 days, and requiring an additional fee to be paid for orders placed after that point. I'm just in the beginning process of making this change so I cannot tell whether or not it will be successful. I'd be interested to hear from other photogs who have tried expiring galleries and/or archive fees. (Whenever I participate in a major footrace like Bay to Breakers, I get several follow-up e-mails from the photo company with a warning that my photos will expire and an archive fee added after a certain amount of time.)</p>

[joey_freeman]

<p>How did the Archiving go? We Print on site and it seems like if you don't get them to buy on site chances are slim that they are going to buy online. I also archive my photos after an amount of time, but am thinking about letting them ride. What could it hurt. We are lucky to get one or two sales a tournament online. I Look at is as a bonus. However I have been think about only offering Entire Gallery downloads only after the tournament. So they wouldn't be able to just buy one print they would have to purchase the entire gallery. IDK just a thought. Keep me posted on what is working online for youth sports. Thanks Cheers!</p>