Pixieset and Forget
Passive Income the Pixieset Way
In the wedding photography industry, some say that prints are dead and all clients care about are digital files. If you know anything about us, you know we don’t buy into that idea because it’s not what our brides and grooms have been showing us. For the past seven years, print orders have been a constant –and significant—source of our income. We believe as photographers, it’s our duty to help our clients purchase heirloom prints. But it hasn’t always been easy….
Years ago, we used in-person sales strategies to sell prints and canvases to our clients. They would either come to our house or Luke would go to theirs. I can still remember watching him lug sample canvases, a briefcase with order forms, and a TI-83 calculator to the car as he headed off to consult with clients.
When he got home, I would go through the images, compile the print order, and send it to our lab through their ordering software, while meticulously checking the order for errors. In a few days, their order would arrive at our home, and we would package it, and either mail or hand-deliver the package to our clients. In the rare—but not unheard of—case, I would head back to my computer because I had ordered the wrong size or finish. Not only did this process taken countless hours of preparation and tedious ordering—one misstep meant that we now owned that mistake (and the cost of fixing it!).
Today, life looks very different. Our inbox is flooded with countless emails all day, every day, and there are a few that we especially love to receive:
- You've got a new inquiry!
- Your Amazon order has shipped
- Your submission has been accepted
- Order Confirmation
That last one… it happens to us, all the time. Yes, we’re talking about print orders. They happen while we’re sleeping, drinking coffee, changing Knox into his third outfit of the day, playing with our dogs—Wilma and Hudson, and photographing other clients. In other words, they happen while we’re living life and being artists instead of pitching to clients like sales personnel.
At this point in our business, thanks to our Pixieset online gallery and store, it’s a form passive income, meaning simply, that we don’t have to do any physical work to make it happen.
From the moment they login to their personalized gallery, our clients are greeted with a few introductory slides, one of which talks about buying prints from their gallery.
When they hover over an image in their gallery, it shows a shopping cart icon, which they can click on to make a purchase. They can also click on an individual image and select “Buy Photo” at the top.
This brings up a dialogue box with print options. Notice the blue square around the image preview, which allows clients to select their own crops for images that aren’t standard crops.
Pixieset made it quick and easy to set up our online store. The store links up with our go-to print lab, ProDPI, to automatically fulfill the orders. And, we can control custom options, like premium packaging and shipping speed, for our clients.
The tips and tricks for further customization are endless, and we’ll continue to feature them here on our blog. If you want to do just one thing to improve your quality of life and catapult your business forward, set up a powerful online store for your clients. It’s a smart decision, and Pixieset makes it easy. Your wallet, your babies, your dogs—and your clients will thank you.
(two more times when we get Pixieset orders)
Luke & Cat
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We shoot only with Canon equipment and Nikon's scare us!
