[JWP]

My website is nearly finished now, but I have a dilemma. I will be selling my work on line, but how many photo’s do I upload. My website has 4 gd of storage available, so storage is not a problem.

Also once the site is up and running, I am thinking of offering to sell work for other photographers online, as I have gone through the pain and cost of setting up a shopping system, payment system (via WorldPay), on line printing, and a secure area for online view (access via password and user id)

Would this appeal to anybody? There would be no hosting fee, just working on commission.

Jasper

[Steve]

This is a tricky one..

Uploading your pictures is personal, you will have seen time and again how people may like a slightly different version of the same shot much more than another version, choosing as many pictures that appeal to many, many people is the key unless you can provide a select few images that are all outstanding, original and then sell yourself and your work off the interest those few shots brings. Its sort of like sell many at little profit or sell a few at large profits, your business plan will tell you which the best is for you.

The second part is even more tricky, it all depends on the commission you will take, how you will pass on the money, what happens if a picture goes missing, who pays for the reprint, will that cost be split between you and the photographer. How well known is the site, how are the images protected, will you hold large, high res versions and how can you guarantee their security. How will you prove copywrite. What happens if you do exceed your bandwidth?

Then there is also the competition, there are many sites that offer a similar service to what you seem (in your brief discription) to be offering, some of which are also free or work on a commission basis and also have an established customer base and web presence…what will stand you out from that crowd? Remember to sell your work you have to get it seen.

Please don’t take this as being negative, I love people that try to better themselves and applaud your idea and effort. I would love to see this take off and be a success for you.

I hope that you can answer some of my questions or if not, that they now make you think about them and use those to help your new venture prosper.

[JWP]

Thank you for comments, they are very helpful. At this stage I am lucky to have found this site, so that I can run my ideas by other people and get genuine feedback.