In the last couple months, I’ve turned my online photo system to accepting credit cards.
This was a big step for me because I wasn’t making enough money with photo jobs to feel comfortable with giving a portion of my money to another company for credit card services.
After getting busy enough, I did it. My first choice was ImageQuix. They’ve been pretty awesome, but I think they are a small company. They allow you to buy credits for webspace/gallery use. They serve as a web gallery and you do not have to make monthly payments like most companies do. The down side, you do not have a lot of freedom when making changes to orders. You also have to wait until you’ve received $100.00 worth of sales before you are able to receive the money you’ve made.
About a month ago I found another gallery service called PicturesPro. They basically have a program/database that installs directly onto your server. You can deal with the orders yourself and make as many changes as you want. They do not serve as your credit card provider so you need to have a SSL certificate for people’s credit cards to be safe. You can also hook up with a few companies who will do that for you (Paypal is a perfect example. They have many business merchant services). The bummer is the cost is about $300.00 up front. But once you’ve paid that $300.00, you are done. You don’t have to pay commissions or anything.
I had been dragging my feet on getting this new system because I didn’t want to fork up the dough, but today I finally purchased it. No more spending for me!
It is currently being installed so I’ll report how it is once I am able to use it. I will be moving over all current galleries to this new system.