Oooops

I have to correct myself here (I'm sorry)

Options to pay for pics without a personal account were already there - my mistake!

As for the rest, I still hope this will be sorted very soon.

/patrick 

Hi Vitas & Zenfolio,

I'm just returning to this issue because it is a huge roadblock for me and my business and I haven't heard whether it is being addressed at all in the development. Honestly, it is the ONE thing that makes me consider moving to Pictage. If you fixed this you would be a Pictage killer, for sure.

This signing our customers up for a Zenfolio visitor account is a universally acknowledged problem by many many of your (photographer) customers. Is there any hope in the near-future for Zenfolio to see the way to allow my customers to sign up for collections and to also buy prints without being shutteled to a confusing back-end sign-up as if they are themselves photographers?

The crux of the issue is not whether a customer values the work of a photographer. It is a matter of photographer professionalism and customer experience.

A big part of the wedding photographer equation is trust and credibility. A wedding is a very high-stakes event with big dollars and emotions riding high.  I go to a great deal of trouble to make my customers feel that they are taken care of and have nothing to worry about.

ANY aspect of the customer experience that makes the bride feel like she is dealing with a micky mouse operation makes the bride nervous and makes your customer (the photographer who has signed on to Zenfolio and ponyed up the 100.00 for a premium subscription) understandably mad.  Because it feels like you are not on my side, you are going around my back to try to market to my customer and making us (yourselves and me for choosing you as my vendor) look silly. 

I know my bride is not a photographer, I understand that she does NOT need a 'bride.zenfolio.com' web address, it seems self-evident that SHE does not need to sell pictures to people and set price lists, and she does not need to see the back end of your (otherwise excellent) service. WHY does Zenfolio not understand this as well?

It is confusing to my brides and it embarrasses me. It looks like a mistake when they find themselves in a back end and can't figure out how to return to my site) and it honestly doesn't do Zenfolio any favors either.  I would recommend Zenfolio them heartily to other photogs, if not for this (in my opinion) stubborn adherence to a bad marketing policy.

It is the one thing that sours the sweetness that generally is Zenfolio!

Please help us! We only want to love you more!

I am replying here because this seems to tie in to a lot of the other functionality  forum posts I see as well as one I replied to lately Can we pay more?

Zenfolio's strategic planning department really needs to identify and target professional event photographers (i.e. people who sell high volumes of pictures to customers who like to take their time picking and choosing and deciding, and want to feel like they are buying form the photographer), possibly as a new tier of service and dedicate resources to address and implement the required front-end and back-end to support this business, probably at an increased annual fee.

We hear you, and we have been re-evaluating how some of the existing features work, as well as planning new features, so that the service can work better for professional and event photographers. This involves favorites, collections, communication between photographers and clients, and so on.

The new functionality or improvements to existing features will likely be appearing next year, as this year we are focused on other essential pieces of the service such as theme customizations, search engine optimizations, and more.

We welcome any specific suggestions on what would be the ultimate client/photographer interaction experience.

I think part of the issue here is implementation of the feature. One aspect of a client/customer creating a personal collection of various images from say different galleries, is how to keep that personal collection intact after a customer leaves your site

A client will realistically expect to create their own collection, and return to it at any time, from any computer, in order to review, add/delete from that collection and perhaps order from it. How then can Zenfolio keep track of such a thing (yes, it is a very useful feature), and "keep-it-all-straight", if the client isn't somehow 'logged-in'?

Seems a "Guest Login" feature (with password?) linked to the photographer's site with capabilities to create multiple "Guest Collections", and the ability for each collection to be private to the guest (some folks won't want others to see their collection... wedding party dynamics can be a delicate dance! ). Ideally, I think the photographer should be able to view/keep track of any guest collections created (again, in a private manner), so they can keep the communications with clients straightforward by both viewing and discussing the same collection. Make sense?

The 'how' of this I don't know, but I think Vitas and the Zen team are looking for ideas on what exactly this feature would look like and function.

Hope that's helpful...

~ trace

Just a couple more thoughts on how this might look:

Using a wedding event as an example; If a bride (they usually are in charge of this sort of thing!) can Guest Login to her event, create a Guest Collection for herself, and be able to create a separate Guest Collection for say the grandparents, or Aunt Em, password protect all of them if she wants to and be able to send an invite email with link and password to those she's created Collections for, all with the Zenfolio invite theme, and all this from her Zenfolio Guest Login page, that would be cool.

There could maybe be an alert or automatic email invite that goes directly to the photographer as well, indicating that "Ms. Smith has just created a Guest Collection on your site, link is: xxxx        password is: xxxxx.

Tall order perhaps, but it would go a long way towards creating that safe, trustworthy rapport between photographer and client/bride...

~ trace

Not to be redundant or repetitive or repetitive because I feel in my short time in this forum I am saying similar things in different posts, but here's a game plan:

1. Zenfolio commits to supporting this type of business and dedicates the proper resources to come up with a comprehensive solution in a timely manner,which may cost more and/or result in a new service level.
2. Functional requirements are developed based upon what already exists and forum suggestions --prioritizing and including features on a release basis. (example - I have posted requests that additional functionality be built into the GROUP level - if you make all these changes but forget address groups it will be for naught because wedding / event photographers manage their client galleries by groups)
3. See whats on the market already instead of designing from scratch - I am sure this goes without saying, but no doubt, Zenfolio product development should have spy user accounts in all the competing products (Smugmug, Pictage, Printroom etc.,)  to figure out how the competition is doing it, and then implement a product that's even better!
4. Zenfolio has one of the best front ends out there - it's why I signed up. But the competition will catch up. You need to be aggressive if you want to capture this business. It's the shoes that help you win a race, not the earrings! The wheels and the engine not the shiny paint job.

A free purchaser account - shouldnt be a pro account trial...

Aaron Browns got it right. Zenfolio is  competing with it's professionals. I thought I was paying to have your name off my product and to make a pleasant presentation to my customers (and Zenfolio is the best presentation site).. My customers are annoyed by the requirement to "join" when all they want is their photo. My customers are pissed when they find out the $350.00 print cost me $15.00 to print.... SO I FOLLOWED ZENFOLIOS ADVICE AND TURNED OFF THE OPTION FOR COLLECTIONS.... BUT I hope Zen can come up with a better option as suggested above.

Zen is currently working on upgrades to their shopping cart system as a whole.. the entire process.  I can't wait personally, but it is what it is now.

Customers don't HAVE to sign up to get a photo, it's just one option.  If they don't want to, tell them don't.  And I'm pretty surprised by people who don't realize what it costs to get a photo printed compared to what pro photographers charge personally.  Everyone has a camera these days and most of them buy prints... it's not a secret what prints cost.

BUT.  I don't want it to sound like I don't respect your opinions, I do.  Just wanted to clarify a few things.  I too will LOVE to see the upgrades in the ordering system.  Something similar to what you can easily do thru others, but also hope it doesn't become so 'in-your-face' on the pages that it ruins the elegant display of the photo pages.  Gonna be tough for the programmers to come up with something both elegant and easily seen... kinda opposites there.  We'll see what they do.  They have done a great job with everything else so far.  :)

My customers didn't come to my site to go website shopping.  I've had issues with people being redirected from the share options.  Zenfolio makes it appear to have additional sharing options sign up for a free account.

Now the person is lost in you're website, and confused, and never gains additional features they were looking for. 

It is a Issue.

agree with being confusing... I ended up on the phone for 1.5 hours with a customer, who was just wanting the option of sharing a full res photo with her ad agency. 

Of course she got redirected, signed up, lost confused, and of course never received that option that was suggested that she would have if she "just signed up for a free account"

Think Zen might be confused.  Do you want photographers, or their customers?

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Pam, I've been thinking to try PhotoShelter because of this check-out issue. You mentioned you almost stayed with PhotoShelter. Was it just the cost or also some other considerations that made you finally choose Zen?

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