Price Wars
Oh conundrum! Referrals are supposed to be a good thing, ain’t it? So why am I stuck in the middle of two of my clients playing tug of war with the price that I supposedly should be the one giving?
Let’s slow down a minute… Client A was my client few weeks back. She completely fell in love with the pictures! In her utmost joy she referred us to a friend of hers, Client B. So we do a shoot for Client B. She loved it too! Now, Client A found out how low our charge was for the shoot (it was a 2-day shoot, bytheway). And upon finding out the measly price of the 2-day shoot, she started calling us and rattling on and on about how we should’ve been paid more and how she’s going to tell Client B to pay more when in truth, we, the photographers, are more than perfectly OK with the charge we did. There mightve a miscommunication with the price before the actual shoot but nonetheless, we were already paid and as far as we are concerned, its the end of the transaction. No additions, no refunds. With what Client A is doing, unnecessary attention is therefore shun onto this rather impertinent matter! And the worse part is, we’re the ones in the middle, seeming victims of this little triteful argument. To seal the thing off, we just told Client B that we do charge more but we gave her a pretty good discount on the service we rendered and just told her to keep her mouth zipped about the matter. We aren’t really on the losing end you see? Maybe thats why such a fuss is trivial to me. We have printing coupons on the photo printing, but of course, quality is not sacrificed. There is such a thing as our pride in our work, you know?
So anyway, before someone pulls somebody else’s hair, I hope this thing mulls over. Not a good thing to be in between two hot swords.
Printing Discounts for Amateur Photographers
Late last year, digital cameras, both point-and-shoot DSLRs, have become really affordable and accessible to the public. Old and young folk alike cluttered over to the nearest Best Buy and Circuit City to grab a Canon, Nikon or Olympus that suits their liking and budget. This sudden overstock of cameras has led to quite a handful of people aspiring to become photographers or at least anxious to shoot and print their first collection. However, good quality printing cannot be availed at just any price. As many online printing companies there are online, not all can promise good quality printing. So where to go now?
For those who want standard print sizes of 4×6, 5×7, 6×9 or 8.5×11, you can get cheap prints with good quality from Costco, Target, Walmart or another major general retail merchandiser. Better watch out though, not all general merchandise stores can give you good printing quality. For those who want poster-sized and poster-quality prints, however, it is very much recommended that you send your print files to an online print shop. The tricky part is, how to get one that offers the same price as your retail store? In this context, you will have to scour for coupons to get printing discounts for your online printing store. Next question you might ask is “how do I get printing discounts?” Different online printing companies have different ways of offering printing coupons to the public. One way is that you subscribe to their mailing list or register as an online customer (don’t worry you don’t need to buy anything to be able to be a registered user). Some online printing companies buy email lists and send out printing coupons to these addresses, and well if you’re lucky, then you might land a printing discount in your inbox. But try guessing the likelihood of that happening! Another way to get printing discounts online is to type in printing coupons or printing discounts in Google. Look through the SERPs but most importantly try looking through the PPC ads. They give out discounts to customers who enter their site through paid ads. Another way is of course the traditional cut-it-off-from-a-newspaper discount coupon. Still works!
As I end my little post, I hope I was able to give you some ideas on how to get your photos printed within your budget. But at the same time, remember not to sacrifice the quality of your prints for the price. You wouldn’t want to be known as the wash-out photographer do you? Good luck and happy shooting!
