Selling Photos Online

A friend of mine, Ben Steele, host of the late podcast SodOff Radio, contacted me yesterday inquiring about the best way to sell photos online. Initially, he was going to design a static HTML website and add the photos in manually when he uploads him. I was quick to mention that his probably wasn’t the best way to go about things.

Even with Dreamhost’s One-Click Installs, I was able to come up with a pretty decent solution. First, I installed Wordpress. This will allow him to interact with his customers through a blog, and show the latest photos. This will also provide him with the ability to make commentary on the photos. Additionally, I felt that a blog would be a good way for him to market his website. With all of the associations and networks available to bloggers, it is easy to get your blog noticed if you have the motivation to do so.

The next task was to get all of the photos into the same place. To accomplish this I deployed an install of Gallery 2.1, which was also available through the Dreamhost One-Click Installs. This is a very customizable piece of software that I’ve really enjoyed working with so far. It will allow Ben to organize all of his photos in to albums and then his customers can purchase single photos, or entire albums.

The final component was selling the photos. To achieve this I used a service called Digibug Pro. This is a service that will allow Ben to set the prices for his photos, and then they will print the and ship them to the customer. By using this service, Ben is able to keep 85% of the profit of the sale. The great thing about Digibug Pro is that it integrates right into Gallery 2.1, which means that Ben only has to upload his photos into one place.

Right now this seems to be a fairly good solutions. What do you use to sell photos online?