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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Exposure Manager vs Print Room
Bill Akin, Photographer
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Athens (Watkinsville) | GA | USA | Posted: 8:25 AM on 05.09.13 |
->> Those who market their images & products on the web, which ones have you had experience with and what are your pro & con experiences? I've been using Exposure Manager for the past 7 or 8 years, but I'm becoming a more than just a little disenchanted with them.
Your comments are welcomed and appreciated. Thanks! |
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Jack McCoy, Photographer
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Baldwin | NY | USA | Posted: 10:46 AM on 05.09.13 |
| ->> Stay away from Printroom!...plenty of posts regarding that. I've switched to Zenfolio. |
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Mike Janes, Photographer
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Attica | NY | USA | Posted: 11:10 AM on 05.09.13 |
->> It really depends what you're looking to do - if you're focus is to sell prints (i.e. youth, high school, etc) my recommendation is PhotoCart - it's a program that you install on your own server, everything is paid right to you immediately, has probably the best back end system I've seen out there. I was with Exposure Manager for awhile and switched to PhotoCart a few years ago after looking at them all, definitely would avoid PrintRoom after all you hear out there.
PhotoCart is easy to set up and you can personalize it and try to integrate it a bit but definitely need some web knowledge. Exposure Manager was the same way, however PCart was a bit easier. All the sales tools you need are there, every option you have to pay extra for at EM or other sites is built in. Of course since you buy the program and it's on your server your costs become minimal after a couple years only paying for the web hosting, down side is of course you have to pay for it all up front. Customers have liked PCart from asking around. Another benefit, or downside depending how you look at it, is you have to fulfill everything yourself - this can be good for some but bad for others. I like having that control, sending the order where I want - others do not.
However, I'm in the process of switching away from PhotoCart and going to PhotoShelter for everything, not because I don't like PhotoCart because I do - in fact I told PhotoShelter I will gladly let them log into my system so they can see how it's done because they lack so much in print sale tools! Seriously when it comes to print sales PhotoCart blows away PhotoShelter tools wise!! I'll also be on average losing over a grand switching to PhotoShelter because of the higher percentage taken per sale. If I was focusing on print sales mostly my choice would easily be PhotoCart, but it's only a small part of my income and would like to have one site after years of having multiple ones to update. |
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Gray Quetti, Photographer
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Jacksonville | Fl | USA | Posted: 1:11 PM on 05.09.13 |
| ->> Stay away from Printroom! |
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Delane B. Rouse, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Washington | DC | US | Posted: 4:03 PM on 05.09.13 |
| ->> Mike-->So why are you switching? |
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Mike Janes, Photographer
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Attica | NY | USA | Posted: 8:34 PM on 05.09.13 |
| ->> Delane - the last sentence above, I want one site instead of three! For years I had a site I built on my server integrated with PhotoShelter for my archive and then had a print site on top of that (Exposure Manager, PhotoCart). So it was a lot of trying to integrate all three, which with different browsers can cause different problems - my knowledge on building sites is getting pretty out dated as I just haven't been able to keep up with it, so just time to try and go for the all in one approach. PhotoShelter has the best SEO and since I do most my print sales through national events hoping that will help the initial loss. We shall see, but trying to consolidate a lot of things, cut costs, make life easier. If my main focus was print sales pretty sure I'd be sticking with PhotoCart. |
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Bill Akin, Photographer
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Athens (Watkinsville) | GA | USA | Posted: 11:48 PM on 05.09.13 |
| ->> Thanks for everyone's comments & suggestions. I appreciate the time spent in helping me make my decision. |
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Doug Holleman, Photographer
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Belton | TX | USA | Posted: 9:56 PM on 05.11.13 |
->> I haven't been selling prints in recent years, but I had a request for one recently and tried my old printroom site, which is still fully functional despite lack of use. I couldn't even upload the file. The java thing just crashed and wouldn't move. And I wasn't going to go to all the trouble of installing their proprietary software thing.
So I signed up for a Zenfoliio site. Looks like it has about everything Printroom had, except you can upload any file easily without jumping through hoops. It's just easier.
One thing I did really like about Printroom was being able to upload only thumbnails until receiving an order for that image, where you could upload the full size edited image. But it's just too much hassle staying synced up all the time if you're not going to be selling tons of prints.
For the record, I never had any big problems with the Printroom folks, and their communication and troubleshooting was always first rate. It's a shame they couldn't keep a good thing going good. |
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Gary Jones, Photographer
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Rocklin | CA | United States | Posted: 1:32 AM on 05.13.13 |
| ->> I'be been using Exposure Manager for youth sports online print and digital image sales since 2005 and am happy with their service. |
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Bill Akin, Photographer
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Athens (Watkinsville) | GA | USA | Posted: 10:26 AM on 05.25.13 |
| ->> Thanks again for all the comments. I decided to go with Zenfolio. So far, I'm happy with it. |
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