Please note: the ability to sell Self Fulfilled products is only available for Pro and Advanced plan subscribers.
Want a little more control over your Selling process? Selling Self-fulfilled products may just be the route you should go. When you sell self-fulfilled products, you get to choose what you want to sell, use your lab of choice, and set your own selling prices.
What are Self Fulfilled products?
There are three types of products you can sell on your website:
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Partner Vendor Fulfilled Products - Products that are automatically fulfilled by one of our partner labs. Click HERE for more information.
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Digital Download Products - Digital copies of your images and videos that clients can download for a fee. Click HERE for more information.
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Self Fulfilled Products - Products that are directly fulfilled by you, the photographer.
Generally speaking, when a Self Fulfilled product is ordered, you will place the order for the product from your lab of choice. When you do this, you may choose to ship the order directly to the client, or simply to your studio. This gives you the flexibility to use a lab that we may not necessarily partner with, and to offer products for sale through your website that may not be available through our partner labs.
You may also use Self Fulfilled products as a way to offer services for sale on your website. Example services that can be sold as Self Fulfilled products include photo sessions, photo retouching, gift certificates, thumb drives, etc.
If you decide to create and fulfill your own self-fulfilled products, Zenfolio will take orders from your clients and, rather than forwarding them to a vendor, we will forward them to you. You will need to collect payment, and fulfill orders directly. Payments can also be accepted using PayPal, and you have the option of using one of 19 supported currencies. Due to the nature of the self-fulfilled sale process, the responsibility is with you to communicate with your customers and to provide customer service.
More of a visual learner? Don’t miss this video tutorial on setting up Self-Fulfilled products.
Steps for selling self-fulfilled products
- Create your self-fulfilled product
- Define your shipping methods
- Determine how you will collect payments for your product
Once these are completed, you must still:
- Add your custom product to your price lists
- Set prices within your price list
- Assign price lists to a gallery or individual photo
- You may also want to collect Sales Tax
Click HERE for more information on exactly what happens when an order for Self Fulfilled products is placed.
Create your Self-fulfilled Product
Before selling a Self Fulfilled product, you must first create the product within your account. The sky's the limit in terms of what a self-fulfilled product may be, so this will allow you to define the product specifically before you add it to a price list.
For example, if you are offering a one hour photo session for sale, creating a Self Fulfilled product called 'One Hour Photo Session' would help ensure that your client understands exactly what they are purchasing.
Some helpful tips on creating your product…
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It's important to define each product to the best of your ability by giving it a good description, and by uploading a representative product image so your clients can visualize what they’re purchasing.
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If you’d like, you can require a minimum image resolution. For example, you may do this if your self-fulfilled product is a 40x60 inch poster, since the image used would have to meet the minimum image resolution for a product of that size.
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You may also specify aspect ratio for cropping. Do this to maintain product dimensions when your image is cropped, so that parts of the image aren't lost. If the final product is usable when oriented both horizontally or vertically, then simply check the box that allows for the rotating of the cropping rectangle.
Once you have created your self-fulfilled products, you can edit and delete them at any time from the self-fulfilled products list.
*Also - once you have created your Self-fulfilled Product(s) and defined the shipping category, you will also need to create a Shipping Method that corresponds with your products. Please see the Shipping methods instructions for steps on creating your shipping methods.
Step-by-step instructions on how to create a self-fulfilled product
- Log into your account, and then click SELLING from the main menu.
- Click Self-Fulfilled Products in the main area. A new window will load.
- Click Add Product. A new page will load.
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Enter a Title, Product type, Product ID (if applicable) and Description for your product in the text fields provided - this is also where you may determine whether customers can leave a note when purchasing.
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Select the product currency you would like to assign from the drop-down menu and type your base cost (optional) in the text field provided.
Note: Base cost is not the price you will be charging customers; rather, it is your internal cost to help calculate profits in the reports. You will set the actual price of this product when you add it to a price list. -
Next, click the Edit button for Category. Choose the category or categories that best represent the product you are creating (“Small print” might be great for a 4x6 print) Care to delete a category? Simply click the orange ‘x’. Once you’re happy with your selections, click Select.
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If you’d like to upload a preview image (small or large) to represent your product, you may do so in the next part of the form. For the Small preview upload section, click Browse and select a photo from the files on your computer. The Small preview image can be up to 244 x 214 pixels, and will be displayed 'as is' without any auto resizing. The file should be a JPG, GIF, TIFF, or PNG. An uploaded preview image is not required; if you don't upload an image then the default 'package’ icon will be used as a placeholder.
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For the Large preview upload section, click Browse and select a photo from the files on your computer. The Large preview image can be up to 900 x 480 pixels, and will be displayed 'as is' without any auto resizing. The file should be a JPG, GIF, TIFF, or PNG. An uploaded preview image is not required; if you don't upload an image then no large preview will be available.
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Set the Minimum and Maximum number of photographs that can be used for this product under Number of photos required for the product.
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If you’d like to require a minimum image resolution, click the Require minimum photo resolution box (this optional). Type the Minimum Horizontal Resolution in the text field provided, then type the Minimum Vertical Resolution in the text field provided. You will now only be able to use photographs at this resolution or above.
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Care to require a specific aspect ratio? Click the Specify Aspect ratio box (this is optional). Type the aspect ratio parameters in the text fields provided.
Click the Allow to rotate cropping rectangle box (optional). -
Select the Shipping Category for your product by clicking the size of the packaging it will need.
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When creating products that are not intended to be shipped you can determine this by selecting This product has no shipping.
- Click Save. Your product will be added to your Custom Product list.
Once you have created your Self-fulfilled Product(s) and defined the shipping category, you will need to create a Shipping Method that corresponds with your products.
Please see the Shipping methods instructions for steps on how to create your applicable shipping methods.
Define Shipping Methods
If you plan to offer products that you will be fulfilling directly, you will need to specify the shipping methods (i.e. US Mail, UPS Ground, etc) that you offer that are tethered to the “Shipping category” (as defined in the product itself), and the destination.
For example, your client is buying your self-fulfilled product, and checking out on your website. He wants overnight shipping, but can only select that as his choice if you have first added it as a shipping category option, and also determined what that entails (cost-wise and method-wise) on the back end.
An applicable shipping method for an order that contains Self-fulfilled Products would be able to accommodate every size of the products that might be ordered by your customers.
Another example: If you have various Self-fulfilled Products that ship in a small, medium and large packages, in order for the system to calculate the proper shipping cost, there would need to be a shipping method which accommodates for small, medium and large items.
You can create or delete shipping methods at any time.
Step-by-step instructions on how to create shipping methods
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Log into your account, and then click SELLING from the main menu.
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Click Self-Fulfilled Products from the main area.
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Select Shipping Methods
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Click Add Shipping Methods. A new window will load.
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Type the Shipping Method Name in the field provided. This name will be visible to your customers. Also choose your Currency from the dropdown menu options.
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Under "This shipping method delivers the following sizes", check the package sizes you want to offer. You will need to enter delivery costs for each package size you choose to offer and the maximum number of items each packaging size will accommodate.
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If you are using multiple package sizes, you may want to indicate the number of smaller packages that fit inside the next size up.
*A self-fulfilled product is only designed to use one package size. By entering the number of smaller packages that will fit inside the next size up, an order for that product will be able to ship using that next size up when warranted. -
Under This shipping method delivers to the following destinations, click to highlight the name of a country you can deliver to press Add. The country will be added to the Selected Countries box on the right. Repeat this action until you've added all of the countries you can ship to.
- Click Save to apply your changes
Some important notes for setting your own shipping methods...
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When you set the number of items that fit into larger packages (Large, Extra-large and Bulky), the system will automatically calculate the correct number of smaller packages that fit inside based on those quantities.
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To offer the Self Fulfilled products for sale, you'll need to add the Self Fulfilled products to your Price Lists.
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Click here for more information on exactly what happens after an order for Self Fulfilled products is placed.
Client Refunds for Cancelled Self-Fulfilled Products Orders
For self-fulfilled orders, Zenfolio will not be able to provide a refund since (unlike vendor fulfilled and digital download orders) the client pays the photographer directly for the order. In the case of a self-fulfilled order cancellation, since the payment was made directly, the photographer is the one who must provide the refund.
Service Fee Refunds for Cancelled Self-Fulfilled Product Orders
For both Vendor Fulfilled orders and Digital Download orders, when an order is cancelled, the service fee (charged by Zenfolio at the time of order placement) is refunded back to the photographer.
For Self-fulfilled orders, the service fee is not refunded when the order is cancelled. Unlike Vendor Fulfilled and Digital Download orders, the payment for a Self-fulfilled order is handled outside of Zenfolio. Because of this, Zenfolio does not have a way to verify that the order was indeed cancelled, and that a refund was provided to the client.