How to sell prints on squarespace
Selling photography prints on Squarespace
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i'm justin mott real life photographer
like a user
guy that wears weird hats former reality
tv show host for five years on a tv show
on history channel asia that you've
probably never heard of called photo
face off
i'm a wildlife photojournalist and
editorial photographer assignment
photographer i've shot over 100
assignments for the new york times
and i own and operate a commercial
photography and video production company
called mop visuals out of vietnam
working globally my channel is dedicated
to all things photography from the
perspective of
a professional working photographer
today i'm going to talk about how i sell
prints i have no idea if it's going to
work for you i just know that i've tried
a bunch of different ways to sell prints
throughout my entire career
very very very unsuccessfully and
recently i switched to a very simple
minimalistic system and it has paid
dividends and it is working and i'm
gonna quickly outline that system with
you
maybe it'll work for you maybe it won't
i'm not making any promises
let's go make some passive income
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together
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so before we get into everything today
guys if you could take a moment as
normal if you could like
and subscribe that would be wonderful it
helps me it helps my ego
it helps my like a habit you could also
go into the description section below
and check out the stuff that i have for
sale i do
sell prints as you can see i sell a
preset that will not make you a better
photographer but it will add a little
pop to your images
and i sell 99 one on one one hour zoom
sessions directly through my website so
if you want to talk about photography
want to talk about your career
want me to go through your portfolio or
whatever you want to talk about well
let's keep it to photography you can
book that directly through the link
below
so first and foremost throughout my
entire career i've
dabbled in selling prints and i have had
little to
no success doing so up until about a
year ago when vietnam went into
lockdown i started looking at alternate
ways to make income i started looking at
the back end of my business
looking for things that i could improve
on so i started looking at my print
sales and i realized i really don't sell
prints very successfully
so the old ways to do it was yeah i
would put a link like uh
these prints these pictures are
available for for prints so you can buy
prints and send a link and people could
paypal me
it wasn't really like built into my
website well
and it was really kind of hard to do i
didn't accept credit card i do paypal or
people would buy it in cash and i would
send it to them and i would either print
it home and mail it to them it just
wasn't a good system from start to
finish so when i started to
look into how to fix the system the
first thing i started to look at was
what can i do on my website and this is
not sponsored content
i've used squarespace for several years
now i use it for all my different
websites and i had always noticed that
you can do ecommerce through it so i
decided to look into setting up a print
shop through my personal work through my
website justinmott.com
and so that's what i did i set up an
online store within my existing website
it was super super easy to use on the
back end it was super easy to use and it
was very well organized and honestly if
i can do it you can definitely do it
because i'm not really good at that
stuff and there's different websites
that work well for other people i get
that just i already had squarespace as
my website so i just built it within my
existing website
and within the first month of launching
my online store i sold
more prints in one month than i had in
my entire career so now today i'm gonna
go through the big changes that i made
and the system that has worked for me
i don't know if it's gonna work for you
i hope it does but this has worked for
me this has been the most successful
i've ever been
in selling my prints through my website
so the first thing you're going to have
to decide is are you going to sell your
images are you going to sell your prints
as
edition or as non-edition some of you
might already know this but for those
that don't here's the difference
addition means you set a finite number
of the amount of prints that you can
sell for a particular image
so for example you might take one
particular image from your archive or
from a series and you say i'm going to
sell 10 of these images
at three different sizes so 30 total so
you might sell 10 at 8 by 12
10 at 12 by 18 and 10 at 16 by 24
something like that
and once you're done selling those
images you can't sell them
anymore and the advantage of this is you
sell them for
more typically these images are more
expensive because they are
limited and as you sell more the value
of the other ones
goes up in price and often you're
appealing to people interested in
collecting art but again
once you're done you're done you can't
just like all of a sudden
change the size a little bit and sell a
bunch more images or you can't just all
of a sudden like okay i'm gonna redo
this and sell it again no that's
ethically wrong
and you're just gonna get yourself in
trouble doing that and build up a bad
reputation and yes while addition prints
can sell for a lot more money you're
talking thousands of dollars or for some
people tens of thousand dollars or even
more
it's built on trust you need to have the
right clientele that has this kind of
money and
you need the right clientele that's
going to trust you so what a lot of
people do is they go through an art
dealer or they go through a gallery for
selling their individual print and the
gallery takes 50
they handle the printing they handle the
contract they handle all the
certificates and they manage the print
run and keep you updated on how many
prints you sold and how many left and
they communicate that to their clientele
as well
so that's for some people some people
are interested in going down that route
and now for many of you out there and
probably most of you out there probably
the biggest market
out there is is the market for
non-edition prints meaning you can
go nuts go bananas print like crazy just
non-stop printing i wish i could do some
sort of cool animation with prints
running or something like that but
print as many as you want now these
typically sell for a lot less because
people aren't buying them as a
collector's item they're buying it for
wall art for their house right so it's
not like a painting a one of one this is
a one of
infinity so these typically sell for a
lot less and so for these non-edition
prints you're just looking to sell
in bulk that's how you're going to make
your money so after you've made the
decision on
auditioned or non-edition or both you're
going to have to decide on who is doing
your printing
are you gonna do it yourself or are you
going to outsource that so for a lot of
people and again everyone's different
but for a lot of people
if you're going to sell audition prints
and you're going to sell them directly
meaning not through a gallery or not
through a representative
then you might want to print yourself
you might want to invest in a expensive
printer and you might have a more
hands-on approach
you might want to be shipping it
yourself with your own certificate of
authenticity and maybe a handwritten
note in there and you might want to have
custom packaging and all that kind of
stuff
but if you're doing non-edition prints
and you're dealing with bulk it's
probably going to be more cost efficient
not only for shipping but also for
printing to do it through
a print store for me i prefer to
outsource it the way i do it
my two major markets are europe and the
us and i have one
print shop that i use for those two
markets a company called whitewall
i'm happy with the price i'm happy with
the quality and i'm happy with the
experience that i have
working with them putting the order in i
can do everything online it's very very
easy and for a lot less my orders in
smaller countries or in other countries
outside of those two regions
i've built up a database of printers
that i've been referred to by other
photographers they're usually great
resources
and i keep a database of all those
countries and all the print shops and my
experience with them and then every time
i get a new order in
i just go there and i print through them
and that's what's worked for me now as
far as
shipping goes and shipping costs that's
where it gets tricky that's where a lot
of people get intimidated what i do to
save costs is i print locally so if i
get an order in japan i use a printer in
japan i get it ordered in the us i use a
printer in the us again
all in my database and now all the
shipping is different all the prices are
different there's tons of different
options but what i do is i offer free
shipping and that is built into my
cost already now yes it's much cheaper
when my orders come in for the european
market and the american market
specifically
and the smaller markets tend to be a
little bit more expensive and yes i make
less money off of those but it averages
out in my favor
for me you're going to notice a common
theme here today i just like to keep it
simple i don't want a bunch of options
on there that are going to scare people
off i can't have i mean you could you
could go in and customize this and do
different options and have shipping
calculators and all that
i just don't like to do that i don't
want to deal with it i don't want my
clients to have to deal with it
i like to keep it simple so i offer a
flat rate that's built
into my cost already whatever works for
you you have to go through you have to
look at what it's going to cost to print
what it's going to cost to ship and
markets that you're likely to sell your
images
and build your cost around that the next
thing i do or actually what i don't do
is i
only ship prints i don't deal with
mounting
i don't deal with frames i don't deal
with any of that now for some people it
works well for me it doesn't it's a
whole different level of cost a whole
different level of customization and
just
more things to worry about something
that i don't want to do and again to
remind you guys
this is just a small part of my business
if you
only did prints you probably want to be
a lot more diverse and have a lot more
customizations than i do the next
decision you're gonna have to make is
sizes and everyone's different about
different sizes that they want to offer
for me
again it's a common theme i'm sound very
i sound like a broken record but
keeping things simple so i offer three
different sizes
at three different prices i offer an 8
by 12 for 99
i offer a 12 by 18 for 150 dollars and i
offer a
16 by 24 for 225 dollars
on my website i have inches and i have
centimeters so if you want to visit my
website to see the way that i structure
it you can see it there at
justinmott.com
and now for paper you have to make a
decision there you have to make a
decision whether you want to offer
different types of paper what brand of
paper
all that kind of stuff since i'm selling
my prints in bulk for a very affordable
price or what i think is an affordable
price i don't give my clients different
options i just print in
luster paper which is for those of you
out there that don't know it's somewhere
halfway between glossy and matte not too
glossy not fully matte somewhere in
between
that's what i offer and i do full bleed
prints some people like to have a border
i don't it's all up to you in the end
you have to test you have to see what
works for you and you have to see what
works for your potential clientele
so i've got three different sizes one
type of paper and again i chose luster
because it's easy to find everywhere
so once you've got your entire system in
place right you've got your website or
whoever you're using to host it and sell
your images
your cost down your pricing and your
margin and your shipping and your
printing and your sizes and your paper
and all that kind of stuff
once that's there you're not just done
don't just leave it on your website
and expect it to take off first of all
this industry is completely
saturated there are tons of
photographers amateur and pro that are
selling their work online
and selling it very cheap so you've got
to do a little bit of hustling that
doesn't mean you need to
constantly bombard people with emails or
ask people vibrant want to buy a print
want to buy a print
no but you need to come up with some
sort of marketing strategy for me what i
do i'm a little bit old school i still
have my newsletter
i send out two newsletters a month and
not every single newsletter do i mention
that i sell prints but i put it in there
somewhere i also have a reminder in my
calendar to let me know when holidays
are coming up so then i might do a
full newsletter dedicated to selling
prints there are other creative ways you
can do it too you can take your facebook
banner and put like make a nice little
design there i use canva to design some
things
however you like to design it make a
little banner show your best prints or
just show one
put a link in there where people can buy
every once in a while again
i'm not bombarding people constantly or
maybe my friends or people that watch
this think i do
but i'm i'm just putting it out there
and reinforcing it i'm just reminding
people
on instagram sometimes i switch it up in
my profile and my bio i will put a link
to my prints you know put the little
sign put the link to my prints up there
and then i will have instagram stories
and i'll create some sort of graphics
either
animated or just some nicely designed
templates just reminding people that i
sell prints and every once in a while
you can have a sale as well
it's just finding that balance and
seeing what works for you and how you
market it but don't just let it sit
there they're not going to sell
themselves
on their own and try not to get
discouraged early on everyone's going to
have different levels of success again
it took me a long time to sell prints it
took me a long time to figure this
minimalistic system out and this is the
system that works for me what i also
like to tell people is to start small
start within your circle and then grow
outwardly the people more likely to buy
your images in the beginning are people
that know you personally when people are
putting an image up in their house they
want to tell a story behind it so people
like to tell a story like this image
here when people buy that if they know
me and
you know i like to tell them a story to
share too so this image was published in
national geographic it was part of a
personal project i'm working on about
vietnam so
it's nice like people want to have that
they like having that connection with
you you can tell them a story about the
image they have the print up in their
house they have a little story to tell
people that are visiting
another piece of advice is to make sure
you manage your gallery on your website
properly look at what images are selling
which images aren't put the images that
are selling up front
up towards the top of the gallery the
images that aren't selling rotate them
out that's the nice thing again about
squarespace is i have all those details
there i can see like image number 17 is
not selling image number four is selling
a ton so i know where to rank those i
know where to put them in my gallery
and then every once in a while mix it up
try different collections and the other
thing is think about which
images you put into your gallery for
some photographers you shoot a diverse
body of work
think about which images people would
want to put on their wall for some of my
hardcore documentary a lot of my sad
stuff
it's probably a little bit less likely
that people are going to buy it but some
of the happier stuff some of the more
landscape stuff that stuff
sells better it doesn't mean you need to
change who you are as a photographer
that's not what i mean at all i mean if
you shoot just hardcore black and white
street photography
fine put that out there but curate the
kind of work that you think people might
want to hang up on the wall that's it
put
some thought into that and also don't
clutter your gallery with too many
images don't put too many things
out there for people to choose from you
know i put about 50 images on my website
i wouldn't put like 500 or a thousand
and then also make sure you're a good
editor don't put too much redundancy out
there you've got one shot of the person
looking this way and then the same
picture and they're just slightly
looking that way
like don't do that figure it out put the
best picture up there be a good editor
spend some time editing your work for
your gallery so just to reiterate some
of the things i talked about today the
first thing is
getting a proper website where you can
do e-commerce so people can buy
directly from your site i really like
squarespace because it was super super
easy
for me to set up it looks clean it looks
professional it looks secure
and on the back end it's really really
organized i've got automated templates
so when people put an order in
they receive confirmation of that order
i have a whole list there i can see
exactly what's selling which orders have
been fulfilled which orders haven't i
can see exactly where they're coming
from
i can see exactly where i'm shipping to
so i know which markets are working well
for me and which markets aren't
everything is there all the data is
there for you to analyze and make
adjustments for me what's worked is
keeping it simple i offer three
different sizes at three different price
points
free shipping worldwide i don't deal
with any mounting or frames
and one type of paper of course if
people sent me a private email and they
wanted me to customize things i would
but i like to keep the choices simple i
have found that when i make the
decisions for people and i keep things
simple and i keep the options simple
that i sell
more again this is just a small part of
my business so this allows me to do it
this way if i was
only selling prints i'd have to have a
lot more customization options out there
have to do things probably a lot
differently but this is what's working
for me right now so i'm going to stay
with it let me know what works for you
or what has it worked for you
if you have any questions you can ask
them in the comments section i'd be
happy to answer them to the best of my
ability
thank you for tuning in today guys don't
forget to like share and subscribe and
have a
wonderful day stay safe everyone
