Fotomoto-style Script for Selling Online?

[nilo]

Hi,

I couldn't find any plug-in like script (JS, PHP ...) for my new website to make something like FOTOMOTO (click on any thumbnail here http://www.markushartel.com/street-photography/after-dark ). BTW if its free its better, butter even for money, I didn't find till now.

I do not want to use any of Smug Mug, Flicker etc nor Fotomoto (I print myself).

many thanks.

nino

[feppe]

It's unclear whether you are looking for the popup script, or a shopping cart. For the former, I use Highslide JS (implementation in my sig), not free. For the latter, ExposureManager offers self-fulfilment as I'm sure do others, but you are stuck with their website templates, and it's probably for US-based photographers only when commercial use. Many online services offer shopping carts and services, but most cost money.

[nilo]

Thank you Feppe.

- I am willing to pay for a good script/plug in

- I have my own Website and Gallery, just want to add Buying option for every picture (like here http://www.markushartel.com/street-photography/after-dark )

- I want to print myself.

- I am located in a remote and isolated place (outside of the US and Europe)

I am looking for a solution for quite some time now.

regards

nino

[feppe]

What you are doing requires a lot more than just a shopping cart script. You need someone to process your payments: usually Paypal, Google Checkout (US, Canada, UK I think), or a Credit Card processor (expensive for small businesses) - they all take a 2-30% cut of your sales revenue depeding on volume and type of contract. Then you need bookkeeping, order processing, dispute resolution (in some cases handled by the payment processor), and postage and handling. Then you need your shopping cart plugin/script to talk between the processor, your website, and your business records. Then you need to report and settle everything with your local tax man.

As many of the above are tied or limited to physical location due to statutory and tax reasons, it's best to check with someone in your jurisdiction who has experience in setting something like that up.

[nilo]

You are evidently right Feppe! I wish I had such a big business running. Or, better, I wish I had my small business, but with the profits from the big one ;-). Only here, I'm a very small business, with luxury item prices, and I think I can continue to handle each order manually, one at a time. It's just that, after speaking and reading to quite some other photographers here and there on this planet, it appears to me that, even if you have a very small volume of operations, it is preferable to get the potential costumer to make an easy and quick on-line buying decision, with an absolute minimum amount of clicks, and without changing the page if possible. That's why I try to buy the previously mentioned Fotomoto script, but than link it to my own printing skills  and handling payment via papal, money transfer, checks etc (same as till now).

nino

[feppe]

it is preferable to get the potential costumer to make an easy and quick on-line buying decision, with an absolute minimum amount of clicks, and without changing the page if possible. That's why I try to buy the previously mentioned Fotomoto script, but than link it to my own printing skills  and handling payment via papal, money transfer, checks etc (same as till now).

Ease and speed of buying is indeed critical. I doubt anyone does money transfers or checks these days, especially online - although I've heard checks are still used in the UK and US for brick-and-mortar businesses. Checks and money orders offer little to no dispute resolution for the customer, are very slow, and often have ridiculously high charges for international transactions (50+ euro per check).

Therefore a seamless integration with a CC processor is critical. I'd be curious to hear how people outside the US have solved that. Paypal seems to be the standard, but it screams "amateur" - and not in a nice sense.

[nilo]

Ease and speed of buying is indeed critical. I doubt anyone does money transfers or checks these days, especially online - although I've heard checks are still used in the UK and US for brick-and-mortar businesses. Checks and money orders offer little to no dispute resolution for the customer, are very slow, and often have ridiculously high charges for international transactions (50+ euro per check).

Therefore a seamless integration with a CC processor is critical. I'd be curious to hear how people outside the US have solved that. Paypal seems to be the standard, but it screams "amateur" - and not in a nice sense.

Agreed! What I meant is, I'll deal with payment myself. Credit card processing would be fine though, but I guess it'll be expensive on case by case bases. I'm in the lucky position to have most of my costumers come to me personally, or send someone over (the sea-s :-) for payment and pickup. I just want to capture the initial buying impulse more often and more easily over the Web.

nino

[Les Sparks]

At one time Walter Rowe http://www.roweimages.com/ offered a free PhP script to add a PayPal shopping cart with the Cooper Mine Photo Gallery. Don't know if he still has it, but you  might contact him and see if his script could be modified to meet your needs.

Les
 

[EduPerez]

jAlbum's skin Turtle has a Javascript-only method to easily let visitors select a print size for each photograph, and pay for it using PayPal; might be a good source for ideas.

[feppe]

jAlbum's skin Turtle has a Javascript-only method to easily let visitors select a print size for each photograph, and pay for it using PayPal; might be a good source for ideas.

Last time I checked Jalbum requires Flash which is not supported by iPhone, iPad and some other devices and OSs. Also, it is difficult to do SEO on it, which might or might not matter to the OP.

[EduPerez]

Last time I checked Jalbum requires Flash which is not supported by iPhone, iPad and some other devices and OSs. Also, it is difficult to do SEO on it, which might or might not matter to the OP.

This has probably changed: jAlbum is now the tool to make the album (select the photos, configure the options, ...); then the skins determine how that album is going to be displayed. Some skins use Flash, some use Javascript, and some just generate pure HTML.

[feppe]

This has probably changed: jAlbum is now the tool to make the album (select the photos, configure the options, ...); then the skins determine how that album is going to be displayed. Some skins use Flash, some use Javascript, and some just generate pure HTML.

Good to hear, the requirement for Flash was the reason I went for HS JS I linked to earlier over jAlbum back in the day.

[nilo]

Thank you all, Les Sparks, EduPerez and Feppe!

I had a (very) quick look at JAlbum, but somehow all I saw was quite slow (some albums loading forever) and a lot of flash. Regarding the Turtle skin, I just don't like the looks of it. And that is the same for most of the readily available services like this. I know a little bit about web design (graphically, marketing wise and also technically), so I tried to sit down to have it done myself, and I'm happy with the result. Its a portable, extra light weight, fast, HTML (html5 in fact) with some additional javascript (that could be turned off and the site would still work). So no Flash here, because it is not crawled and not supported by most mobile devices (iPhone, iPad etc). It is search engine optimized as a "skin", the content is under work. And I tried to write it in clean code, so that it is easily adaptable to any future changes in my taste regarding the looks. It does also have a light weight underlying content managing system.
I have server side statistics and the obligatory, very informative, Google analytics pasted into the code. (If you want to have a look, I'll mail you the URL in a personal message)

Now, as I said, in order to further maximize the conversion rate, I am looking for an elegant way to include some elements of a shopping cart system, much like that of Fotomoto (I didn't come across anything better, easier and quicker till now).

nino

[Les Sparks]

This recommendation showed up in this thread http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=53350.0 .
http://theturninggate.net/galleries/html-galleries/ttg-client-response-gallery/
It might meet your needs.
Good luck.
Les

[soboyle]

Did you ask Markus Hartel how he designed his website? It looks like he is using a graph paper press theme on top of WordPress for his website, I don't know anything about fotomoto.
I would be interested in the answer if you do find out. I'm looking at redesigning my website and would like to enable sales and stock transactions on a per-image basis.