I'm looking for suggestions for an online web gallery/storefront for print sales. Something pre-built which I can add pricing and images to.
I currently have a website from which I do sales, but the sales tools are primitive and home grown.
I would like to be able to link from my website to an outside website for sales of specific prints, special editions, greatest hits etc.
If this website also does marketing for their artists, so much the better.
Any suggestions of sites that you have personal experience with?

Take a look at Zenfolio. Not sure it does what you want but it is worth a look.

Thanks, Zenfolio looks like it has many of the features I am looking for.
One feature I am looking for is the ability to download images of different resolution for stock sales. I'm probably narrowing my options significantly with that feature.
It does appear that Zenfolio does this, but will need to look into it more.

FWIW I have been quite happy with Imagekind, which has a vast palette of printing choices on Epson.

Mark

Anyone with direct experience with Zenfolio as a gallery and sales platform?

You left out one important detail - order fulfillment. Are you planning on handling the printing yourself or will you be using an outside vendor?

You did not mention who are your customers ? This is important an important aspect to consider when selecting a selling venue, online or not.

Who are you selling to? Who is purchasing your work?

I don't have any hard metrics on who is buying my work, some of my best clients are small-med sized businesses who are looking for artwork for office walls that is related to their industry. Others are people interested in the subject matter who find me via serach engines and referals. Many model railroaders buy my work as reference for their model building.

What I am looking for is a buyer friendly sales platform that offers streamlined purchase options for prints and stock licensing. A platform that increases sales and broadens my customer base is most desirable, that would include a keyworded site which will increase stock sales, as well as print and book sales.

I plan on filling orders myself, I prefer this for quality control. So the partners that zenfolio has is not important to me at this point.
My priorities would be snappy customer experience, multiple payment options, searchability, options for downloading digital files for stock licencing, and easy administration of the site.

What is your current site - what's the web link so I can see what type of work you are doing ?

Thank you.

ALain

www.oboylephoto.com/ruins

I'm interested in hearing Alain's view on customers and website design/selection.

I looked at your site and I don't see that there's a major problem with the shopping cart. Can your site be improved? yes. But if you have qualified customers who want to purchase your work going to it, there's nothing that stops them from doing so.

I don't know much about what you do, but my guess is that your real problem is lack of customers. Not lack of an operational shopping cart. It's quite frequent with my students, when I start working with them, that they confuse the two issues. Using a "professional" level shopping cart won't increase your number of customers. It will just look better and be more pleasant for those who use it.

And if you want to do stock sales then submitting to a stock agency is the best approach.

Alain

Lack of customers, that certainly is a motivating factor in trying to make website and business improvements. But your point is probably that I need to drive more customers to my website, rather than fix what is already working. I'm certainly open to ideas about marketing techniques that will work in this economy.

Just thought I'd throw this on here ...

http://tv.smibs.com/

Dark Penguin,

Good idea. I talk about how to sell during the recession in the interview.

Shaun (it's Shaun, correct?),
Yes, driving more customers to your site should be your #1 goal. Building a better website can take place later.

Alain

Alain,
That video segment had some very useful information about how photographers can market themselves. Thank you for making that available. If you have any other thoughts on how to target a specific audience with your advertising, that would be very helpful.

Shaun,

You are welcome. I have several essays on selling your work on this site, in Briot's View, and also on my site (below in my signature).

ALain