different way of pricing

[carrbowl]

So....I've been thinking of doing a totally different way of pricing. I'm hoping to get some pros and cons from others that I haven't considered. Instead of a low session fee with higher print costs, I'm thinking of going to a high session fee with low print costs.

Pros: Even if a client orders a couple 5 x 7's and an 8 x 10 you are getting paid for you time. Done...Doesn't matter how many prints they order you get your time paid for. You don't have to worry about scanning or stealing of the photos because the prices are cheap enough they shouldn't want to (yes I'm assuming here) Clients may order more photos than usual because the cost is lower.


Cons: I'm afraid they are going to compare to Studio X because the pricing is very different and it takes the "sales" side out. It will take some serious education to clients to get them to understand the difference. If they are looking for just a couple photos, they may not use me.


After putting these on paper, it may be best to go with it. It weeds out "the I don't really care who I go to, I just want cheap" customer...


THOUGHTS????

[Ernst-Ulrich Schafer]

Really not sure how that is going to work for you, but I do understand where your coming from.

[carrbowl]

Originally Posted by Ernst-Ulrich Schafer

Really not sure how that is going to work for you, but I do understand where your coming from.

well Ernst...your no help this morning!!!!! do you need me to bring you some coffee or are you afraid I will not like your opinion??

[kayumangi]

I don't know, it's going to be a tough sell, specially for people who don't know you.

The reason for the low "sitting fee" is to lower the barrier of entry for new clients. You want to say "Hey try me out, see if you like my photos, if for whatever reason you don't feel me, you don't loose much... ".

If you don't get a lot of people paying for your images then maybe your images are not compelling enough or your upselling technique needs updating.

If you're afraid people will scan your images then don't offer prints smaller than 11x14. Or offer your digital files but at a premium say at the price of 16x24 or something bigger.

It all boils down to profitability. If you rely on the sitting fee for income then you would have to market harder to get new clients all the time, as opposed to having a small but solid client base and with continuous residual income.

The only time I think you should increase your sitting fee is when you want to control your volume say you're getting overwhelmed with sessions or you want to cut down in the number of hours you're working.

[pbyd]

I tried that in the mid 90's and it did not work for my studio. Clients will wonder why someone with low print prices would be worth a high setting fee.
I changed to both a high setting fee and high prices and it is still working. Over 41 years in this business I have tried everything at least once.
Wayne
Photography by Design

[reader0428]

Renae, do you currently ask for a minimum purchase amount? I've not been in business for 41 years (way to go Wayne!), but with photography being a part-time source of income for me, I've found that a combination of a $150 session fee and a minimum purchase of $250 (and most sales are usually at least double that) keeps away the cheapies and people only looking for a shoot-and-burn experience and attracts people who value the high-quality prints and wall products I love to sell. And if they bought nothing more than that combination, I'm OK with that (while of course hoping for a larger sale!). I will probably be bumping up the minimum purchase in the near future since almost every client purchases considerably more than that anyway. I'm just thinking that a high sitting fee/low print price may do two negative things:
1. Induce immediate "sticker shock" and a barrier to hiring you
2. Kill a more profitable sale if they love the images and want to order a mixture. Also, the more they order, the more work you will have to do on the back-end (particularly for collages, albums, etc.) so your extra time may not be compensated for the extra work.

Just my $.02...

[Ernst-Ulrich Schafer]

Hehehe Renae!!!

I'm in agreement with things said here. However I'm not a fan of Low Setting Fee's. ;-)

I have a High Reservation Fee upfront and High Portrait Pricing (at least in my area).

My HS Senior average is about $1000, so if I were to try the way your thinking I would have to charge quite abit upfront and I doubt that many folks would be coming to my studio even though the portrait pricing would be at almost cost.

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by kayumangi

If you don't get a lot of people paying for your images then maybe your images are not compelling enough or your upselling technique needs updating.

Assuming the images are good enough (I haven't see the OP's work) that whole upselling technique is a great point to make. If you have a low sitting fee then you need to be able to up-sell the client. Look at how the photo factories, like Sears and Penny's do it. Every once in a while they have a $19.95 offer (or some other stupid-low fee) that gets you a session and a few sheets. I'm willing to bet, however, that most of those get turned into bigger packages at the non-sale price by the time the client leaves the building. And then they get you later on when you pick up your images, including extra sheets that you can buy on-the-spot at a reduced fee (bringing in more money still).

If you can't upsell (I can't) then you might want to improve those skills, or find a way to make the higher sitting fee work. But I'm going to wager you'll make more with a lower up-front fee and improved up-selling techniques.

[Flores]

Just speaking abstractly and not specifically about photography, but... There is probably nothing wrong with advertising a 'special' offer now and again, but keep your normal prices on the high end of what you feel comfortable with... From my playbook, that means charge 10-20% more than you feel your worth. :D

Advantages to that:
1) People love feeling like they are getting a deal. If you still make money on the 'special' price, thats great, you create new customers, and now you can target advertising to them. Repeat business is the easiest to get, and happy customers bring referrals!

2) Throw in a coupon for their next visit worth 20% off the regular fee. Fix it so it means they get the same price they paid for your 'special'. Again, encourage repeat business.

and probably most importantly

3) it reminds you to keep upping your game. From what I've seen, the reason the same folks always seem to make top dollar is because they are doing something better/faster than everyone else. They CREATE their own advantage, and if you are 'comfortable' with what you charge, you may not be trying hard enough ;)

Good luck!

[ttruelove]

Pricing is always a difficult subject to tackle due to the amount of variables. My wife and I tried a similar tactic when we were testing out packages and found that higher session fees actually hurt our ability to get clients in the door. The barrier of entry (as mentioned in a previous post) was too steep for the clients we were going for at the time. If we had a reputation that could justify the higher price, it wouldn't have been so bad.

Once we made our on-location session price a little lower (couple hundred/1 hour), we found that we were able to sell more of them and up sell them on the back end.

I suggest using an A/B Testing method for pricing. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, it's a marketing method to create 2 different structures (pricing or otherwise) and test them against each other to determine which structure favors better. The market will tell us what people want if we listen.

If you have the ability, I suggest using Google's Analytics on your website and use their new A/B testing feature. Create 2 specific landing pages (one with your original high session price and another with a different structure) and Google will display the pages to different people who visit your site. You can then get reports on which page is more popular.

A/B testing can be used with anything; business cards, flyers, phone calls, etc. Anyway, I hope this helps. Good luck!

[StevenGWebb]

Charge a high sitting fee and justify it with the experience. Charge an equally high price for your prints. Stop appealing to 1000 one-dollar bargain shoppers for the sake of having lots of sessions (which isn't the same a lots of business). Appeal instead to 10 one-hundred dollar customers. You'll work less, make the same and your clients will probably smell better.

When you sell the expensive session, you've got to give the thing a perceived value. Skip all the self-importance yack about the very expensive camera, your passion for photography, you you you. Turn the appeal to the customer, how important they are what the session means to them, what they can expect. Then put the proof in the pudding. Dress, act, treat the customers like everything is high quality. Is a teen-ager in baggy shorts and a tank-top, dragging an entry level DSLR and a kit lens out of a back pack really presenting as the value added professional worth a $250 session fee? If you show up to a consultation or shoot wearing smartly tailored, freshly pressed outfits and handling your equipment like it's important just look like something serious might happen?

When you put together your business, put as much effort into it as when you compose a picture. Make all the elements fit and work in concert. You are not just setting your expectations of your customer, but you are setting them for your client as well.

If you just can't bring yourself to charge $85 for an 8X10 or $350 for a 16X20 after charging a session fee of $250, then allow your premium customers a print allowance with the session fee. Show them a way they can own that $350 beautiful wall portrait for $275 with their print credit from the session. You don't cheapen the value of your work and you don't price it out of afford-ability either.

Let the discount center shooters work the volume.

Steven

[mrsrice22]

Keep your session fee high(er), your prints at market value, and offer discounted sessions from time to time. That way when you're able or comfortable to move back up to your regular pricing it's not such a shock and you're not lowering the industries standards.

I considered doing the same a few months back but there really is just too much work involved and time away from my family to do it that way. If someone only pays $50-100 session fee then only orders a few low cost prints, that session may have only brought in $150. I'm sure you've seen the many breakdowns to know that $150 for a session is pretty low and after it's all said and done you've walked away with almost nothing.

Just my view, trust me I start getting antsy when it gets slow but I've been burned enough times to know better. :)

EDIT: Offer low-res web ready (with your watermark) images as part of your package, it's an incentive that everyone wants.

[Lightdances]

Like Steven said its perception, quality work and fulfilling the clients every emotional need, you will not be able to win every cleint with either your charm or pricing thats ok you only want the ones that value what you do. Regards, DD