The ability to sell products for a profit and receive reports for orders placed through the photographer's site is only available for photographers with Pro or Advanced Subscription plans.
This guide covers what happens after an order is placed through the photographer's site by a client. Please click on the links below to jump directly to each product type.
What Happens When a Partner Vendor Fulfilled Product Is Ordered
1. The client is charged immediately for the order once they complete their checkout through the cart. They are charged regardless of whether or not the the photographer has enabled Pending Order Approval. The profits from the sale are also immediately credited to the photographer's Zenfolio account.
2. After the order is placed, an order confirmation email is sent to the client to confirm that the order was received.
The order confirmation to the client contains the following information:
- A list of the products ordered and the amount paid for the products.
- The total amount paid including sales tax and shipping fees.
- A link to the client's orders page where they can view the status of the order.
- A statement that the transaction will appear in the client's credit card statement as Online Photo Order.
- If the photographer has enabled Pending Order Approval, there will also be a statement that the order will be reviewed and approved before it is sent for fulfillment.
- If the photographer has created an email template for order confirmation emails, the message from the template will appear in the order confirmation email.
- A link to the photographer's website.
3. An email is also sent to the photographer notifying them of the order. In addition to the emails, an alert is displayed in the notification bar of the Zenfolio account.
4. The order is then displayed in the Orders Require Attention box under Selling in the photographer's account.
5. If the photographer has enabled Pending Order Approval, they can review the order before it is sent to the lab for printing. During this process, they can change the cropping applied to the photos and replace the photos in the order. Advanced plan subscribers have additional options such as adding products, providing discounts and cancelling orders.
In general, we highly recommend enabling Pending Order Approval as this allows changes to be made to the order before it is sent to the lab for printing. Once an order is sent to the lab, no changes can be made to the order.
After the order has been reviewed and approved by the photographer, an email is sent to the client letting them know that the order has been approved.
6. Once the order is approved, or if Pending Order Approval is not enabled, the order is sent to the lab for printing. Depending on the lab fulfilling the order and the products ordered, the order will take some time to create before it is shipped.
7. When the lab has completed creating the products in the order, the order is shipped. At this time, an email is sent to the client letting them know that the order has been shipped. The order details are also updated in the photographer's Orders Require Attention box under Selling.
What Happens When a Digital Download Product Is Ordered
1. The client is charged immediately for the order once they complete their checkout through the cart. They are charged regardless of whether or not the the photographer has enabled Pending Order Approval. The profits from the sale are also immediately credited to the photographer's Zenfolio account.
2. After the Digital Download order is placed, an order confirmation email is sent to the client to confirm that the order was received.
The order confirmation email sent to the client contains the following information:
- A list of the digital products and the amount paid for the products.
- The total amount paid including sales tax and shipping fees.
- A link to the client's orders page where they can view the status of the order.
- A statement that the transaction will appear in the client's credit card statement as Online Photo Order.
- A link to the order's Downloads Page from which the images can be downloaded (once the order is ready for download)
- If the photographer has enabled Pending Order Approval, there will also be a statement that the order will be reviewed and approved before the images will be ready for download.
- If the photographer has created an email template for order confirmation emails, the message from the template will appear in the order confirmation email.
- The date for the last day the order will be available for download.
- A link to the photographer's website.
3. An email is also sent to the photographer notifying them of the order. In addition to the emails, an alert is displayed in the notification bar of the Zenfolio account.
4. The order is then displayed in the Orders Require Attention box under Selling in the photographer's account.
5. If the photographer has enabled Pending Order Approval, they can review the order before the images are made available for download. During this process, they can change the cropping applied to the photos and replace the photos in the order. Advanced plan subscribers have additional options such as adding products, providing discounts and cancelling orders.
6. Once the order is approved, or if Pending Order Approval is not enabled, the order is processed and the images are made available for download. Depending on the file size of the images in the order and total number of images ordered, the order can take some time to process before they are available for download. In most cases, the order is available for download in just a few minutes but it can take longer for very large orders with many large images (and RAW files).
7. When the images is approved, an email is sent to the client letting them know the order has been approved. The link to the order's Downloads Page is re-sent in the email.
8. The client can then go to the order's Downloads Page to download the images that they've ordered.
What Happens When a Self Fulfilled Product Is Ordered
1. The client is charged immediately for the order once they complete their checkout through the cart. They are charged regardless of whether or not the the photographer has enabled Pending Order Approval.
The only exception to this is when the photographer has chosen to collect payment after the order is placed.
2. If the photographer has chosen to collect payment for Self Fulfilled products orders using Paypal, the payment can be found immediately in the photographer's Paypal account. If the photographer has chosen to collect payment using a merchant service (only available for Advanced plan subscribers), the payment can be found immediately in the photographer's merchant account.
3. After the order is placed, an order confirmation email is sent to the client to confirm that the order was received.
The order confirmation to the client contains the following information:
- A list of the products orders and the amount paid for the products.
- The total amount paid (or owed) including sales tax and shipping fees.
- A link to the client's orders page where they can view the status of the order.
- If the photographer has chosen not to collect payment for Self Fulfilled products through their site, the photographer's email address is listed and a note is displayed asking the client to contact the photographer to make arrangements to pay for the order.
- A statement that the order will be reviewed and approved before it is sent for fulfillment.
- If the photographer has created an email template for order confirmation emails, the message from the template will appear in the order confirmation email.
- A link to the photographer's website.
4. An email is also sent to the photographer notifying them of the order. In addition to the email, an alert is displayed in the notification bar of the Zenfolio account.
5. The order is then displayed in the Orders Require Attention box under Selling in the photographer's account.
6. If the photographer has chosen to collect payment for Self Fulfilled product orders outside of their Zenfolio site, the photographer can use the client's contact info from the order to contact the client and make arrangements to collect payment for the order.
7. The photographer can provide the client with status updates for the order by changing the order's status to Accepted.
8. From the lab of their choice, the photographer can then place the order for the products that have been ordered by the client. They can choose to ship the order directly to the client or have it shipped to their own studio.
For custom products that the photographer creates themselves, they can start processing the order and then ship it to their client.
9. Once the photographer has shipped the Self Fulfilled order to the client, they can mark the order as Shipped. When they do, the Order Shipped email is displayed allowing the photographer to edit the email that is to be sent to the client. There they can add any pertinent information such as the shipping tracking number for the order. Once the email has been completed, the order is marked as shipped and the email is sent to the client.