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Making Money with Digibug and Gallery 2.
Submitted by ckdake on Thu, 2008-01-03 23:19
Digibug, one of our photo printing affiliates, is offering some limited time deals for Gallery users. Below is their story about their service and their current promotion!
Gallery has had shopping cart support for prints for a while now, but did you know that Digibug allows you to set your own prices and keep most of the profit? Digibug has been providing a profit-making e-commerce solution to the Gallery community for the last two years – giving thousands of dollars in profits to Gallery administrators. Read more to learn how other Gallery users are making money with Digibug, and about our 100% Profit Promotion.
Gallery administrators set their own prices and select from nearly 100 print & gift items that they wish to offer. Digibug provides the shopping cart, processing, fulfillment, delivery and customer service.
Gallery Admins Making Money with Digibug
Two site operators using Gallery, a summer camp and a sports photographer, explain why they successfully use the two services in tandem.
At Rockbrook Camp in North Carolina, director Jeff Carter was one of the earliest Gallery operators to use Digibug. "We love the Gallery project with its amazing customization and great support community. That, combined with the Digibug module's seamless integration and excellent customer service, we have a perfect solution. Being able to select different photo products (e.g., prints, mugs, t-shirts, etc.), to set up our own retail prices and to have the customer payment process handled without a hitch, makes using Digibug even more valuable to us. We would highly recommend the Gallery and Digibug solution."
Brad Miller, founder of Ohio Valley Photo sports photography notes: “Thanks to the seamless integration between Gallery and Digibug, I have, in just eight months, built up a business that generates more money than I made working at my previous job. The great thing about Digibug is that they print the pictures, handle the billing, and handle the shipping. All I do is take pictures, upload them to Gallery and wait for my monthly check from Digibug. I can tell you that you will simply not find a better solution to sell your own photos online."
Digibug is integrated into Gallery 2 as a module. Go to the Gallery 2 Digibug Module Page for more information about the module. There is no charge to create an account on Digibug and you receive up to 85% of the gross profit from each photo order.
Promotion: 100% Profit Through March 15th
Digibug is running an exciting new promotion for Gallery users for the next couple of months. New Gallery Digibug Module users will receive a special bonus in the 100% Profit Promotion: more money. When you sign up in January Digibug will waive their usual 15% revenue share until March 31st, 2008. (This promotion is available to new Digibug users only.) When your customers order prints from your website from now through March, you will receive 100% of the profit, versus the standard 85%, using the service. So you and your new customers will have even more to smile about with Digibug.
I received my latest Digibug check yesterday, and they shorted me by over $100. No one at Digibug is answering the phone and my calls are not being returned.
I noticed on my statement last week that it appeared they were going to short my check by over $100 so I began emailing and calling them LAST WEEK.
I'm not sure what's going on there, but it doesn't smell too good right now.
I am one of Digibug's oldest customers, and they use quotes from me in their story above, so I thought it prudent to come here and let folks know what is going on.
I will post here agin if they ever actually return my calls or pay me the money they owe me.
Brad Miller
OhioValleyPhoto.com
Just received a reply from Digibug:
This sets my mind at ease somewhat although I am still concerned that Digibug was unresponsive for the better part of a week and didn't get back with me until I posted publicly here earlier this morning.
Brad
Yes, it was right that the calculations for the earnings were not correct for some of our customers. The problem has been solved and all affected customers have been notified. They should all get their extra check later this week.
This is also a thread in the forums and you can follow the discussion there.
Ernst Oddsund
President and COO
Digibug Express, Inc.
Very nice co-operation. If anyone knows or finds a deal like this in Europe I would be more then happy to know! I got lots of apps that could use a little more bugs ;-)
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Just another Geld Lenen story!
Same question as nicos. Do you know programs like digibug in Europe?
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Mieszkania Poznań
Same for me. Unfortunately there's no such service in germany for years now
So why doesn't digibug expand it's business over here
I would be first to use with my >200.000 pictures at http://www.technobilder.de
Hey, technobilder! Have you thought about using the fotokasten plugin to do prints? They're based in Germany. They don't do profit sharing, though.. but if you're interested we could talk to them about setting something up.
Fotokasten wants 200 Euro for a unique partner ID - so you pay too much before you earn little. Thats out of question
Theres another vendor http://www.bildpartner.de/ thats offers a solution, but I didn't get that module implemented right.
So maybe you can get in touch with them?
I contacted the Fotokasten folks to see if they're interested. I'd prefer not to chase after new print affiliates, but if anybody has a contact at bildpartner.de and can get the right person there to come talk to us, I'll be happy to work with them on a deal.
Unfortunately I don't have the email correspondence available anymore: I was in contact with them in August 2007 and they send me the module. But it seems a bit strange as there was no hepfile and the directory structure also wasnt that clear. I installed the module but all I got was errors, and support didn't really was helpfull.
I'll send you that module bharat, maybe you can contact them at info @ adconsys . de and help in fixing the problems. The module was written by that company for bildpartner and the author is Alexander Krüger who maybe is brother of the boss Andreas Krüger.
I used to be a huge fan of Digibug. I loved being able to have customers place orders online and all I had to do was wait for my check to come in.
This worked really well for awhile, until I started having major problems. One order was messed up and took a really long time to rectify. It was embarrassing to me, because I kept apologizing to my client while waiting for a response from Digibug. As I recall, this went on for about 2 weeks. Totally unacceptable.
I had one order on hold for weeks with no explanation because they had received the resized image from gallery instead of the full sized one. Instead of contacting me, or even responding to my inquiries, they finally shipped a canvas enlargement made from a 400x600 image. It was so embarrassing when I found out from the client that the product looked horrible.
The last problem I had with an order was the last straw. I posted an order for spec for a school and it was held up with no reason or response. I found out later, thru a mass email they sent, that all of the staff at the lab they used quit.
I wasn't going to say anything, because I am not a complainer by nature and understand that mistakes happen. But seeing Brad's response shows me they are still not a professional solution for people that want to maintain a good relationship with their clients.
One the positive side, the few times I did talk to someone (James?) it was a good experience.
Just remember that you get what you pay for, folks.
Hey, I have had a couple of issues with orders the last couple weeks. Although their response time is still slow, they have responded to those inquiries and resolved those problems.
What they have not done is answer ANY of the several emails I have sent asking where our commission check for January is. I have even added that question into email conversations where they (Digibug) were talking to me, and that question continues to be ignored.
It is February 19th. I don't know if we am ever going to see the $284.29 they owe us for January. We have already racked up $323.62 in commissions in February. That number won't change because I have turned off Digibug ordering on http://www.ohiovalleyphoto.com.
I also wonder why the title bar in my browser no longer says "Digibug" but now says "Welcome to SmileShot.com"? maybe they are having an indentity crisis or a name change?
Whatever the name is, though - it is not good when you not only do not pay those you owe money to, but do not even ANSWER THE QUESTION OF WHEN YOU PLAN TO PAY............
We have generated $10,061.81 in revenue for Digibug since March 10, 2007. If that much business doesn't deserve a reply over $284, then I have to wonder who actually is still employed there at this point - could it be just Ernst & a printer?
At this point my suggestion to anyone shooters reading this, based on my experience, is to steer clear of Digibug - or smileshot.com, or whatever they are calling themselves. I can handle payments being late, but I can't handle refusing to address or answer the question of when payments will happen for weeks on end - that scares me and reeks of a possible "vanishing act".
Hi all,
There is a company called Colour World Imaging who have set up a site in the UK, how bout we approach them with regards to have a plug in set up?
Thanks
All,
Asked them just in case ;)
Hi - the issue with the lab shutdown was last Winter. The lab was PhotoTLC that had acquired ClubPhoto and then they went bankrupt and the bank shut it down with no notice. Many photo sites were affected - not just Digibug. At the time we quickly (in a few days) converted to EZ Prints for prints. However, their pricing was not as good as PhotoTLC. Rather than charging our customers more, we kept prices as they were until we could convert to Kodak's Qualex wholesale printing operation in January (last month). I won't suggest that there weren't issues - we know there were. However, some of this ended up a result of a very unexpected shutdown of our primary supplier. Whichever lab sent out the canvas from a 400x600 photo should have not done that - I'm assuming that the cost was refunded. If not, let us know.
Also - quick note on checks. They will go out next week. Staff vacations and ongoing clean-up work relating to the payment calculation issue we had in December slowed down our payments this month. Next month we should be back on track. Please not that our FAQ and terms of service do not commit to a specific date for payment, though we have promised to send checks early in the month in the past. We will try to get back onto that schedule for February commission checks in March.
Hang in there - we have some good things in store for Gallery users this year.
John
We're happy to work with new print services! I don't chase around after them anymore, though because it's too time consuming, but if you can get them to contact us, I'll get them set up.
UK is nice but... focusses on the UK, there is a big party, called foto.com that allready work with affiliates. Perhaps that is a nice combination, furthermore I am affraid I don't know any others.
As I saw somebody his earnings here... Impressive and tickles my fantasy!
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Just another Geld Lenen story!
hello all,
It will make a great addition even if it gives a small performance hit.I think this is a great service. I must agree with all, it would be nice if we where to have this service in Europe. So if digibug look watching there is a open market for you on the other side .
Regards,
Bmora96
Hi Bmora96, did you allready contacted some?
I am looking for a contact at foto.com as they have several affiliate programs running yet...
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Just another Geld Lenen story!