Sell Your Photos Easily!
“Fotomoto is an e-commerce system that gives independent photographers and web publishers the power to sell their work on their own site.” ~Fotomoto Website
Selling images online is nothing new; micro stock companies like iStockphoto and Shutterstock have been selling cheap royalty free images for years now; however there has always been a debate if an individual should contribute to these low balling companies. Micro stock companies are in pro photographers cross hairs! Why? With the prices of great royalty free images being sold cheaper and cheaper pro photographers have had to reduce the price of their own services, thus making a living in photography much harder.
Those refusing to give their photo’s to micro stock websites have opted to build a complicated e-commerce system, however this hasn’t been a great option either, since you require all your own printing equipment or download system which makes things quite complicated.
That is where Fotomoto steps in! Fotomoto is a brand new company offering a great solution for photographers with there new, easy to use, e-commerce system. Now to clear things up, Fotomoto is not the first company to offer an easier e-commerce system, however they definitely stand out from the crowd of competitors.
The Benefits
- The simplest system I have ever found!
- Integrates into almost any website!
- No need to upload images to a “shady” company – all images sit on your server.
- FREE to use!
- Great service and support.
How It Works
Ok, let me back up a step and tell you how fotomoto works. You sign up to their free service and insert one line of code to your website. This code will find any images (larger than a thumbnail) on your site and will then place that image into a directory under your fotomoto account. From that point on all your images will automatically display a “buy now” “download now” “send ecard” buttons. That’s it!
You then sign into your fotomoto account and change pricing for your photo’s in bulk or individually. You can change the style of buttons, the eCard options, Social Network options, and much more!
What happens when someone purchases a print? Fotomoto takes care of everything, from printing to shipping. Prices for their prints can be found on their website, however I think it is all quite reasonable. You can accept or decline a transaction before Fotomoto goes through this process.
Ok, there has to be a downside – what is it? Fotomoto takes 15% of your sale. Now considering they deal with all the printing, shipping, ect, I think that is decent. Taking a look at one of their larger competitors like Photo Shelter, you pay $550 a year + 10% sales, and you only get certain disk space since you need to upload your images.
There is so much more I can say about how Fotomoto works, but you can just visit their website for that. Instead I’ll try answering why Fotomoto may be our answer to changing the photo industry.
Overview
People are tired of selling images online for $0.05/image on micro stock sites. We are looking for a new alternative. What if everyone selling images online begin using Fotomoto? The supply for images at iStock would drop, thus prices increase. Ok, that would be great but I don’t think enough people can change the price of microstock. It is one of those things that would be nice but probably won’t happen. HOWEVER, many agencies that have previously used iStock will now go through a website of individual photographers.
Buying images from iStock may make an agency be considered as cheap – kinda like a website displaying cheap adsense ads all over their website. Cheap photo’s – cheap ads, all reduce the interpreted value of that agency/website. Many agencies have actually moved from iStock and instead bookmark photographers using services like Fotomoto or Photo-shelter.
Ok, so not everyone is selling images online for micro stock, or agencies. Fotomoto may actually be used best by small local photographers shooting weddings or events. Simply upload your images online and you do not have to deal with anything else! With the ease of use Fotomoto provides, many customers will be much more inclined to buy images compared to if you simply displayed “email me to buy this photo”.
How else may Fotomoto be used? Well come read our article on the iPad, now imagine displaying your photo’s on a sweet looking iPad and giving anyone the option to buy your images right there! Just something more to think about 🙂
Click here to visit our Fotomoto example site.
Great service – but if you are in the UK the shipping costs are prohibitive, almost as much as the sale price of the print! Go here to add your weight behind the search for a UK fulfilment partner – http://support.fotomoto.com/entries/294760-uk-or-eu-print-fulfilment-asap-please – thanks 🙂
Good point Tim! If you’re from the UK, follow his link! 🙂
Good article, but I want to know. How are the prints when it’s all said and done? I would like to know more about the quality of the print, and if the print is long lasting. In other words, do they use archival paper?
Hey Doug,
I have not actually gone through a full sale myself with Fotomoto. I have simply taken the time to play around with it, so I do not know exactly their paper and such.
I believe they use archival paper, however I do remember there to be numerous paper options. Since this article, Fotomoto has gone through huge updates and offer many more print services, and I think even include Canvas printing in their system.
Today they announced Fotomoto 2… so be prepared for tons of updates that photographers have been calling for. Check out their blog for more: http://blog.fotomoto.com/
I’ve installed it (http://www.photoblog.ie) and it’s great expect for the postage costs to the EU. Premium prints can be posted from the EU but these cost a lot more. Does anyone know of a similar solution?
What I love about fotomoto is that it adds buy buttons to all my posts automatically (or which ones I choose)
Cheers,
Pa