How to make more money from your on-line photo gallery
Do you have an online gallery that’s not generating any sales?
Would you like to earn more money from your photos?
Do your images get a lot of likes but nobody buys them?
Stay tuned because in this series of articles we’re going to explore four ways you can generate more sales and more profit from selling your images online.
Why aren’t people buying your pictures?
A lot of photographers create amazing images…
- Your family and friends like them.
- You get lots of likes and comments on social media.
- You may even win prizes in photo competitions too.
So why doesn’t your online gallery generate many (or even any) sales???
Well, selling your photos requires an entirely different mindset. You need to stop thinking like a photographer or an artist and start thinking like, dare I say it, a retailer.
Contrary to the popular urban myths within the photographer community…
- your images will not speak for themselves
- your buyers won’t care what equipment you used or your retouching skills
- a 3rd party gallery is not going to promote your images for you
Sorry but they really won’t.
If you want to be successful at selling your images online you need to be prepared for some hard work. (Click to Tweet)
First things first, you need to…
…Know your numbers if you want to make more money
If you want to improve your online photo sales, first you need to know where you are today. You need to put a stake in the ground to compare your future results against. If you don’t you won’t know if you’ve made things worse.
OK, let’s get started. First questions:
- What was the total revenue last week (or month or year)?
- What was your gross profit from those sales?
Revenue = Total amount of sales during that period
Gross profit = Revenue – Costs (e.g. commision, materials, delivery charges etc.)
We can now use these to work out your sales margin:
Gross Margin (%) = 100 * Gross Profit / Revenue
Now you now your gross margin. This figure is important as it’s a measure of how profitable your gallery is.
Tracking changes to your gross margin over time allows you to gauge whether you’re improving your profitability or making it worse.
Strategy 1: Increase your margin
The first strategy you can use to increase your overall earnings is to look at how you can improve (reduce) your margin by reducing your cost of sales (aka Cost of Goods Sold or COGS).
If you’re using a stock library or 3rd party gallery, reducing your costs may not be easy to accomplish. Stock libraries and some galleries work on a fixed commission structure meaning it’ll be hard for you to negotiate a lower rate unless you’re generating a significant amount of revenue.
For self hosted galleries and the type 3rd party site where you select the products you wish to sell, one option to reduce your costs would be to use a cheaper alternative product that’s equivalent to your current offering.
You could also switch to a different supplier (or gallery) altogether, especially if they offer an equivalent product at a better price point with the same level of service. There are no prizes for supplier loyalty and they need to look after their customers (i.e. you) just as much as you need to look after yours.
Remember, as a photographer you’re selling art whereas the lab that supplies you is selling a commodity printed with your art. (Click to Tweet)
Summary
This is a cutthroat business. Every £1, $1 or €1 you save on your costs increases your bottom line by the same £1, $1 or €1. It improves your gross margin and increases your profitability.
In the next part of this series we’ll look at a second, very viable, strategy to improve your margin: increasing your average sales value. There’s more to it than just raising your prices so be sure to read that article too.
In the meantime if you’ve found this article helpful please leave a comment and let me know or share it with your friends on your favourite social media network.
