We are pleased to announce a new partnership with RedCart to bring all clickbooq users a full-featured and easy-to-use online proofing and shopping cart system. We know being able to sell your prints and specialty products online to your clients is an integral part of your business. Since your shopping cart site should be an extension of your portfolio site, we looked for a solution that was as customizable and easy to update as clickbooq. Based on recommendations for our current users, we discovered RedCart, whose design, functionality, and philosophy were very similar to ours. Like clickbooq, RedCart is a web-based application that was built on the Adobe Flex platform, a framework for building and maintaining applications that deploy consistently across all major browsers and operating systems. It also allows for rapid updating and development – key for adding new features and updates to keep pace with the needs of the photo industry.

Upload your own custom backgrounds to match your branding. Image courtesy of Red Leaf Studios.

In doing our initial research, we were surprised to discover some of the software for photographer’s online ordering systems did not work on Macs or ran into compatibility issues. We also did not favor systems that locked you into a predefined list of photo labs. Since photographers have unique needs and different workflows, we wanted to give as much flexibility as possible for offering the products and services you want and fulfilling your orders. This lets you maintain control of the quality of your finished products and ensures you are the only one contacting your clients. Any services that tacked on hefty commissions or transaction fees was also a no-no.

Of all the services we compared, RedCart had by far the most reasonable and straightforward pricing. All you pay is a subscription fee, on a monthly or annual basis. And through our partnership with RedCart, we are able to offer special pricing just for clickbooq clients. There are no commission fees, per print fees, per gallery fees, sales transaction fees (other than from your payment processor, if you accept credit cards through your merchant account or PayPal), shipping and handling costs, or order minimums. By processing your own credit card payments, you’ll pay on average 3% compared to the 10% – 15% most of these proofing services are charging. If you are selling $500 in prints a wedding, that adds up to a difference of $60 per client. And if you are already processing credit cards in studio, it’s a no-brainer to process credit card transactions through your own merchant account.

The shopping cart is smart, intuitive, and all-in-all, a pleasure to use. And it includes all the bells-and-whistles you would expect for a high-end service: flash galleries and slideshows, password-protected galleries, client-enabled cropping, black & white and sepia tone previews, custom order confirmation emails. And from the admin side, you’ll have access to client login stats including login emails, sales and revenue reports, the ability to set your own gallery expiration dates and send email reminders. We think you’ll find it gives you everything you need to offer ecommerce through your website. To find out more about this new service, visit clickbooq.com/proofbooq.

Enable customer cropping of your images and save on image processing and production time. Image courtesy of Cory Parris.

Adobe has responded quickly to the issue and released a new version of the Flash player for Macs that you can download from their website. To upgrade your Flash plugin, you must follow the instructions in the link below for uninstalling and reinstalling Flash player. You MUST Uninstall the plugin before updating Flash player.

Uninstall link:

http://tinyurl.com/2wvfes

Then you can download the latest Flash 9 plugin:

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

This only affects your Toolbox application and should not affect anything in your public website. Let the support staff at clickbooq know if you have trouble upgrading or need any assistance.

Initially we attempted to build our application entirely in Flash but after months of development we realized there were distinct advantages and production efficiencies to be gained by converting to Adobe’s Flex 2.0, which was a relatively new release but was already gaining traction with the developer community. Although we essentially had to start over and delay our launch, ultimately we knew we would be able to release new features and improvements much more quickly using the Flex application framework, which was an important part of our service offering.

Saving versions and the ability to “undo” actions presented another challenge unique to web-based applications. Since it would be unprofessional for a photographer’s changes to occur in real-time on their published site, it was important to hold all edits and additions in memory until the user was ready to commit their updates. For example, users can add photos to portfolios, rearrange the viewing order, rename folders and even delete images without affecting their live website until they choose to publish their changes.

We also spent a considerable amount of time re-skinning Flex’s built-in components to be consistent with clickbooq’s design and enhance usability and we are happy with the outcome. You’ll see most of the Flex applications out there stick to the Flex’s standard look-and-feel, but we were able to nearly replicate the original mock-ups of our GUI and produce a nice, slick interface for our users to interact with.

Since this is a DIY approach, our ideal users need to have an eye for design. Which is why we tailored our app for the creative community. Professional photographers are already well-versed in style, color, composition and tend to be tech-savvy. And it’s more important than ever for photographers to have a current and well-designed website to showcase their work.

In days of yore, photographers sent their portfolios via a courier service to advertising agencies, magazines, and other potential clients for viewing. We still have a few leather-bound portfolios of our branding work in a drawer somewhere. And though we still think nothing beats a face-to-face, art buyers who book photographers based on their website alone is becoming the norm. But just showing your images isn’t enough – a photographer’s website needs to clearly illustrate his or her personal style and creative vision. So we’ve built in a lot of customization options to allow more creative freedom, without compromising the usability of the site. Our users can even upload their own custom created background.

So that’s essentially our idea in a nutshell. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we’ll tone down the sales-y stuff in future posts.