What is your number one problem when it comes to selling photos?

[Sivakis]

That's a good question.
WHO NEEDS? Its not a need for sure but race participants wants/likes to have their photos of a racing events.

There is a small demand say 5-10% of participants. But there is 1000 average participants in an event and some big events like standard chartered run even have 30,000 participants.

I'd also be very interested on how you derived the 5-10% of participants being interested to actually pay money for photos of a race or event.

It is based on a survey/study or an estimation plucked from the sky? Honestly, 5-10% is pretty high. You're saying 10,000 runners in a marathon, up to 1,000 would pay for photos?

In photo-biz, (or any biz actually....) one of the dangers is over-estimating the potential market and committing resources based on this estimation - it then becomes difficult to sustain and an uphill task to achieve good ROI.

 

[Agetan]

As a business, my number one challenge in selling photo is to find the right audience for the specific price that I want to get.

If we look at the proposal in a macro level...

The market is limited and the timeline of delivery is simply too short. Many people buying things on the spot driven very much by the heat of the moment. Give them time to think, there will be no deal.

The reason by major sporting event, the delivery of the image has to happen instantaneously and the images are sold to "news agency" rather then end user.

Just go to anyone's home or simply ask questions to your friends, how many actually have a sporting image on their wall.


So with limited time frame to sell the images to limited audience, it is still ok if you want to make some cash out of it, but I can't call it a business for long term, unless you have an exclusive deal with majority of the event and sell the photo exclusively. Not impossible to achieve, but it will be remotely possible.

However, if you enjoy sporting event, go and enjoy photographing it and if you are doing really well, you should be able to make some money out of it. Just my personal analysis to the market potential... but having said that, I am not in sporting photography to know in depth in the market.

Good luck.

Regards,

Hart

 

[jgagarin]

That figure is actually based on facts. I didn't think of those percentage before I start selling my work because I know selling them is better than just a simple FB "like". But, I was surprise on the number of people who are willing to buy.

 

[jgagarin]

As a business, my number one challenge in selling photo is to find the right audience for the specific price that I want to get.

If we look at the proposal in a macro level...

The market is limited and the timeline of delivery is simply too short. Many people buying things on the spot driven very much by the heat of the moment. Give them time to think, there will be..

Thanks Hart for your reply. I agree that is key to it. Participants need to see their photos ASAP and it should be at the right price and quality.

 

[sjackal]

For personal use, I am actually happy with a huge watermark of the photographer across my photo. A right click save is all I need. Facebook quality is all I need and probably all I will ever use. Just sharing my thoughts.

 

[Shizuma]

original poster needs to review revenue model.

 

[jgagarin]

original poster needs to review revenue model.

Hi Shizuma,
Posting of photos will be free, the photographer decides how much he wants to sell the photo. For every sale 70% goes to the photographer tand the other 30% goes to the site to cover the administration and maintaining the site. Are those numbers reasonable? Please share your thoughts.

-jag