Bobbster Posted August 16, 2013 Share Posted August 16, 2013 Hi, I am going to update my website, reasons: New Homepage Better slicker galleries Addition of a decent shopping cart Now I spent the trial period looking at Zenfolios software adjusting themes etc when a colleage suggested I try photocart! Some one always puts a spanner in the works, although I do like the idea of a one off fee. My original website is here: http://www.bobsharplesphotography.co.uk Hopefully some of you on Alamy will have experience of Zenfolio or Photocart and will be able to give me some feedback on them. Thanks in advance. Bob Sharples Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Endicott Posted August 16, 2013 Share Posted August 16, 2013 I had two websites with Zenfolio and I really can't complain. They were great for what I needed. They introduced the blog functionality and I quickly noticed an increase in traffic with the site with the blog. I never had any problems with the websites I had. I decided to change however - I wanted something new and updated to Photoshelter last week. The main reason for the change is I wanted to combine both sites and I wanted to be able to license images Rights Managed as well as sell prints. I also like the functionality as marking images as released or not released and there are other small things I like - like the ability to FTP directly from the Photoshelter website or being able to send an email to a model when I do TFP shoots giving the model a link to images of a certain size (even though I've uploaded them at full size to the site). There are ways to create a "virtual agency" with other photographers and you can go to the Phootshelter home page and search through all the photographer's portfolios at once to find the image you need (putting you in front of buyers). I've got much of the site completed - am working on going through keywording my archived images at the moment. My only complaint is they list Graph Paper Press as a partner for their blogs. I signed up for an account with them last Sunday and have been waiting all week for them to get my site active so I can integrate it with the Photoshelter site. I'm having a really hard time getting any answers from Graph Paper Press. Photoshelter support has also been tremendously helpful and quick. I have not tried Photocart. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Gaffen Posted August 17, 2013 Share Posted August 17, 2013 I am also in the process of updating my website; I don't have any experience with Zenfolio so I can't really make any meaningful comment about them. The reason I decided to update, is because I realized my website did not work well with mobile devices such as phones and iPads. Since many people now access the internet via their many different types of mobile devices, I decided I was probably missing out potential clients. My new site will be "adaptive", and should optimize itself for whatever device people are using to view it. It should go live on Monday 19th! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbster Posted August 17, 2013 Author Share Posted August 17, 2013 Ed, John thank you for your feedback, it is good to know I won't have to many problems which ever software I choose. Good to see Ed experienced an increase in traffic via the blog and John mentioned mobile devices. I did notice on Photocart that you can view on mobile devices but you cannot purchase images via the phone, that could count against photocart in this era of internet mobile device use. I will have to check out both again (Zenfolio/Photocart) and do a thorough comparison prior to purchase. Again thank you for the feedback so far Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Endicott Posted August 17, 2013 Share Posted August 17, 2013 Zenfolio has a feature where you can "take your portfolio with you" via their apps - either iPhone, iPad, or Android. Essentially, this way you can take your portfolio on an iPad with you to market yourself and you won't need wifi or internet access to display. Zenfolio is optimized for mobile use and I believe the reason Photoshelter launched their new Beam product is to optimize for web use as well (the Beam platform is still in beta). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobbster Posted August 22, 2013 Author Share Posted August 22, 2013 Well thank you for all the responses decided to go with photocart in the end a one off payment off £235 approx. It may take a few weeks to set up but I will put a link on here once complete. Intentions are to remove all my old galleries and weed them out a bit then re-install all using the photocart gallery template. Aslo re-doing the hompepage at the same time which will look something like this http://www.bobsharplesphotography.co.uk/index2013-2.html I will update in about 2-3 weeks when the photocart is added and completely confuigured Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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