Post by "Pop" Stran on May 24, 2014 16:54:52 GMT -5
The Photoreflect fulfillment service has a lot of great features available for the professional photographer, and their premium package starts at the standard minimum of ten dollars per month.
Actually, at $9/month, they beat the lab/catalog service that Martinsburg Event Photos was leaning on at the time, and the desktop publishing software was a nice bonus.
Pointing my domain to the new catalog site hosted by Photoreflect, I basically made them the sales funnel through which all of my marketing results would flow.
So much for the reasons that I signed up with them, exactly one year ago...Now, for the results:
After the first 3 months and not a single sale, I questioned first my marketing, and then the resulting pathways, and I made a few adjustments.
After 6 months with only a meager amount of final traffic, I began to question the capabilities of Photoreflect.
Also, I had already received 7 complaints from event attendees claiming that they gave up trying to see their photos.
By the third quarter of this test, I had accumulated 11 complaints of "more trouble than it's worth!" from new visitors, and still not a single sale.
In other words: My event photography sales dropped from an average of 38 per month to ZERO, as soon as i changed to Photoreflect.
I began testing the validity of these complaints that have been piling up by visiting my site through the domain MartinsburgPhotos.com from various computers and phones.
Every visit from a cookie-free (never been to a photoreflect site or to MartinsburgPhotos.com) computer resulted in the same experience;
I was trapped by a photoreflect default landing page, with a search box and their company links.
The URL in the textbar above gives the impression that I was on my site, but entry was denied.
Using their searchbox (the only option for a new visitor), I searched by photographer name (JB Stran) and was treated to pages of results that were in fact links to many other photographers, and not a single link to myself, despite the fact that the bar above still said I was on MartinsburgPhotos.com and therefore, entry to my catalog was still denied.
So, I was in fact paying them to hijack my traffic and send it to others, while simultaneously blocking my sales altogether.
Now, event photography is actually only a small portion of my business, but a dead-end in any marketing effort still constitutes a complete waste of my time, and I genuinely despise waste in any form...but I especially hate wasting time.
Today, marking the one-year anniversary of the day that I placed my trust in Photoreflect to support my marketing efforts and provide fulfillment services to my clients and their attendees, I closed my photoreflect account.
To summarize my year-long test and the results of said testing in one word: Disappointed.
After one year, I invested $108 in a premium service that has,in essence, robbed me of traffic and sales.
The legalities of this experience are yet to be determined, but morally this is wrong beyond compare.
Actually, at $9/month, they beat the lab/catalog service that Martinsburg Event Photos was leaning on at the time, and the desktop publishing software was a nice bonus.
Pointing my domain to the new catalog site hosted by Photoreflect, I basically made them the sales funnel through which all of my marketing results would flow.
So much for the reasons that I signed up with them, exactly one year ago...Now, for the results:
After the first 3 months and not a single sale, I questioned first my marketing, and then the resulting pathways, and I made a few adjustments.
After 6 months with only a meager amount of final traffic, I began to question the capabilities of Photoreflect.
Also, I had already received 7 complaints from event attendees claiming that they gave up trying to see their photos.
By the third quarter of this test, I had accumulated 11 complaints of "more trouble than it's worth!" from new visitors, and still not a single sale.
In other words: My event photography sales dropped from an average of 38 per month to ZERO, as soon as i changed to Photoreflect.
I began testing the validity of these complaints that have been piling up by visiting my site through the domain MartinsburgPhotos.com from various computers and phones.
Every visit from a cookie-free (never been to a photoreflect site or to MartinsburgPhotos.com) computer resulted in the same experience;
I was trapped by a photoreflect default landing page, with a search box and their company links.
The URL in the textbar above gives the impression that I was on my site, but entry was denied.
Using their searchbox (the only option for a new visitor), I searched by photographer name (JB Stran) and was treated to pages of results that were in fact links to many other photographers, and not a single link to myself, despite the fact that the bar above still said I was on MartinsburgPhotos.com and therefore, entry to my catalog was still denied.
So, I was in fact paying them to hijack my traffic and send it to others, while simultaneously blocking my sales altogether.
Now, event photography is actually only a small portion of my business, but a dead-end in any marketing effort still constitutes a complete waste of my time, and I genuinely despise waste in any form...but I especially hate wasting time.
Today, marking the one-year anniversary of the day that I placed my trust in Photoreflect to support my marketing efforts and provide fulfillment services to my clients and their attendees, I closed my photoreflect account.
To summarize my year-long test and the results of said testing in one word: Disappointed.
After one year, I invested $108 in a premium service that has,in essence, robbed me of traffic and sales.
The legalities of this experience are yet to be determined, but morally this is wrong beyond compare.