Getting started: Selling files and products

There are three kinds of sellable products in Photodeck:

• Individual images (sold either as downloads or as prints), videos or documents: These are the most common products and are likely to form the basis of your sales. To make a file available for purchase, you connect it to one or several pricing profiles (price lists). They are the main subject of these help pages.
• Complete galleries: the customer is able to purchase all the files in a gallery, usually as a download, at a given price.
• Custom products: these are products that are not linked to the files in your galleries and that you provide/deliver outside of PhotoDeck. For example: services (shooting sessions, photo tours…), calendars, books, …

Note that PhotoDeck also allows you to let clients download files for free, via the galleries’ settings. This article focuses on selling, please refer to the help pages on client galleries to learn how to enable free downloads.

Regardless of the product, customers pay you directly as part of the checkout, for example to your own integrated Stripe or Payment account. When such an integrated payment provider is used, the delivery is automated whenever possible (digital sales or print fulfillment via an integrated lab). When using a lab to print images, the lab charges you separately for their service.

PhotoDeck does not take any commission.

A pricing profile is a set of prices that is applied to individual images (to sell a whole gallery, see the gallery’s options instead).

It can be a simple price list, or a much complex structure for which the final price depends on a number of options -- PhotoDeck gives you extreme control over your offering and your prices.

To show prices on your website for an image or video clip, you must attach one or several pricing profiles to the image / video clip.

Defining several pricing profiles allows you to split your media library into different pricing tiers, and/or sell different kinds of products.

There are multiple pricing profile templates available to sell downloads, prints, stock photography, videos and documents, and all can be deeply customized.

Go to My business / E-commerce / Products to create a new pricing profile: use one of our example templates, then adjust to taste the options and prices. Start with only a few options initially.

Once your pricing profile is defined, go to My images & videos, select the images you wish to sell under that pricing profile, and in the right-hand-side panel, attach the new pricing profile to these images.

On your website, pricing options will then appear for these images.

At this point, we strongly recommend you test the system, putting yourself in the role of a client, to better understand how it works. For clarity, remember to use a different email address for the test client than the one you use to access your PhotoDeck account!

PhotoDeck provides different pricing profile templates to sell digital files. They make it possible to sell and automate delivery of individual images (JPG/TIF as well as RAW), video clips and documents. In addition, the Packages templates allow to sell multiple images at a given price, and it is also possible to sell whole galleries under a single price.

To create a new pricing profile and see the available templates, go to My business / E-commerce / Products.

Selling downloads

The Downloads pricing profiles template types are simple pricing lists, easy to customize, and easy for your clients to use.

You can reorder the list by simply drag-dropping rows in the list table.

When an image is delivered to your client, it is automatically resized in the size you define in the Delivery Specifications column.

Note that PhotoDeck does not display prices for sizes that are bigger than the uploaded image file.

For example, if you upload an 11 Mpixels image and if you have defined a price for 12 Mpixels, that price will not be displayed (PhotoDeck does not upsize at delivery).

Royalty-Free pricing profiles

The terminology used in the Royalty-Free templates is designed for stock photography, but technically they are the same as the Download pricing profiles (see above): simple price lists where you define size options and their prices.

Rights-Managed pricing profiles

The Right-Managed template and the template based on the PLUS standard are complete, multi-level pricing structures that are fully customizable.

They allow to price files based on the intended use, and for each use, different parameters like distribution size and geography, image size, etc…

The templates are merely a starting point for your own customization. Note that the prices are completely indicative: there is no standard in image licensing pricing, only you can decide how to price the work you distribute.

The customization of these pricing profiles is explained in a separate help topic.

Selling download packages

The Multi-image Package pricing profile template lets you set a fixed price for a given number of downloads of different images, in one or several sizes.

When viewing an image, the customer can choose the purchase the package. A button will then appear next to all other images to select and add them to the same package.

A customer can finalize the order even if the package is not fully used, but the package can only be used in a single order (it cannot be completed later on in a second order).

Important workflow options

All pricing profiles include flexible workflow options under the Presentation and Settings tab:

• The Offer only for files in specific state option restricts the pricing profile to the files in a specific Proof or Final state. This lets you for example sell unedited Proof files for retouching, and when a file is replaced by a retouched version and marked as Final, it won’t be offered for purchase anymore.
• Similarly, the Immediately deliver only files in Final state option restricts immediate delivery of files to those in Final state. This gives your the possibibility to retouch and replace non-Final files if needed before they are delivered.
• The Offer to add many files to the cart in one go option lets the client purchase at once all files in a gallery (if also activated in the gallery settings) or in their selection, each at their individual price.
• Lastly, you can also allow clients to leave comments/messages to their order, for example for retouching instructions.

FAQ

• Can I sell RAW files or videos with PhotoDeck?

  Yes, the digital sales templates support individual images in JPG, TIF, and RAW formats, as well as video clips and document files.

• Why aren’t all download files visible?

  To ensure high quality, PhotoDeck never upscales your images. If a pricing profile includes a size larger than the uploaded file, that specific price option will be hidden from the client.

• Can I prevent clients from downloading files until I have retouched them?

  Yes, you can use the delivery settings to only allow immediate delivery for files marked as Final. This allows you to sell files that are in a Proof state and replace them with the finished version before the client receives the download.

You can either sell self-fulfilled prints (where you manage the printing and shipping process yourself) or leverage our lab integrations to fully automate both production and delivery.

Using pricing profiles, you can easily sell dozens of thousands of different images, potentially offering different products for different images, but you can also create custom product pages with illustrations and texts specific to each image as well as manage inventory for fine-art prints.

To create a new pricing profile and see the available templates, go to My business / E-commerce / Products.

Creating a pricing profile where you manage printing and shipping

You can define exactly all the sizes and options you wish to sell, and two templates are available:

• Prints without options: this pricing profile is a simple price list, where you can create as many sizes as you wish, but without any additional option;
• Prints with options: use this pricing profile when you want to offer additional options like paper type, matting, framing etc… You will then be able to create a complete table with sizes, options and prices.

When an order is placed and paid for, you will receive an email notification so you know when a print needs to be prepared and shipped.

Using an integrated lab for full automation

Each integrated lab (WhiteWall, One Vision Imaging and WHCC) has its own pricing profile template.

All products options and sizes offered by the lab are included in the template, and you can easily select what you want to offer to your customers. You keep full control on pricing: you can initialize the prices based on the labs’ prices to get started quickly, and then refine all prices as needed.

When using an integrated lab, it is possible to have the orders automatically forwarded to the lab. The lab will then bill you separately for their work.

For more details on lab integrations, please see the dedicated help page (link below).

Image ratio vs print ratio

When using integrated lab products, or when you specify the physical print size for a size option, the system automatically determines whether the print ratio matches the image ratio (height/width proportion). For any pricing profile, you can specify under the Presentation and Settings tab what happens when ratios don’t match:

• do not offer sizes that don’t match the image’s ratio (+/- 10%), or
• offer your customers the ability to crop the image to match the print ratio.

Image resolution vs print density

Similarly, you can specify what happens when the digital image file does not allow to print in a given size at more than 150 dpi:

• Do nothing and keep the size (for example if you self-fulfill and you know you have higher image resolution available), or
• Automatically add a mention about the minimum recommended viewing distance for the print, so that the customer knows what to expect.

FAQ

• What is the difference between prints with and without options?

  The simple template is for a basic list of sizes, while the options template allows you to create a table where customers select additional features like paper type or matting.

• How does the system handle images that don’t fit a specific print size?

  You can set your pricing profile to either hide sizes that don’t match the image ratio or allow the customer to crop the image themselves during checkout.

• Why are there missing print sizes on the product page?

  Depending on your settings, images that don’t match the print’s height/width ratio may be hidden. You can allow cropping instead, in the pricing profile settings.

The images/videos in a gallery can be sold independently (as separate items), or a gallery can be sold in full (in this case all files are sold to the customer under a single price, regardless of the gallery size).

To access the pricing options for a gallery, open the gallery under My images & videos and open the Prices popup.

Selling individual images

This section attaches predefined pricing profiles to all files in the gallery. It simply automates the process of selecting one or more images or videos and attaching/detaching pricing profiles. Please refer to the pricing profiles documentation for more information about pricing profiles.

Selling a whole gallery at a fixed price

This allows you to sell a gallery as a whole and deliver all files under a single price. Just like for individual images, it is possible to sell the original files downloads and/or also to sell lower-resolution downloads.

In addition, it is also possible to sell the gallery as an “offline” product, i.e. a product that you will deliver outside of the system (e.g. physical product).

This feature is available for galleries of up to 2000 files. The Buy whole gallery button will not appear on the gallery (thumbnails pages) if the gallery display style used by the gallery hides the gallery-wide “action buttons”.

Selling all files in a gallery at their unit price

On your website, this adds the option to add to the cart all priced files in the gallery, at once, via a customizable Buy whole gallery button.

The files are priced according to their individual pricing profile(s). When the files have different pricing profiles, the customer will be able to add to their cart all files for the pricing profile of their choice.

Only the pricing profiles with the setting Offer to add many files to the cart in one go activated are considered.

This feature is available when adding up to 500 files to the cart. The Buy whole gallery button will not appear on the gallery (thumbnails pages) if the gallery display style used by the gallery hides the gallery-wide “action buttons”.

With a pricing profile defined, you can delve deeper into setting up a shipping profile, if you sell physical goods, as well as a tax profile to compute taxes at checkout based on the location of your clients.

In addition, you will probably want to connect to a payment solution provider, like for example PayPal, or offer a solution for offline payments.

You will find help with these topics on their respective pages in your admin interface. You can also perform these steps later on.