Software/Websites for Stock/Sales of Photos

[GLOC]

I have had quite a few people ask me about buying prints and then things go off the boil and they forget.

To that end, I want to revamp my website to allow me to have a sales/stock photo section which will also be the galleries.

Does anyone know of software or a company that would allow this?

I am having someone look at Joomla for me to see what that can do as it seems very customisable (sp?) but any other suggestions would be greatly received.

I have a whole list of requirements below

. Able to display images upto 800px wide and 600px tall using a
fullsize image on a server (3000x2000px) which can then create a thumbnail
and display sized image.
. Easily change images
. Have at least 5 different galleries - Travel and Street, Wedding, Portrait, Underwater Technical, Stock.
. Stock gallery should be capable of holding several thousand images.
. Other galleries should be able to hold upto 50 images for slide shows which can be generated automatically.
. Galleries should be searchable by image (ie a slideshow type thing) or by name
. Preferable layout is large image with thumbnails (approx 75px square) on the bottom or to the side. Similar to my current layout at www.imagesoflife.co.uk but without the frames
. 'Images of Life Photography' should be visible at all times.
. Images should be tagged and searchable.
. Images must have unique reference
. Images should have descriptor/title underneath eg Wreck of Markgraf at 42m.
. Options to buy using Paypal or order online and cash/cheque sent
. Online ordering capability for different print sizes and image quantities, possbly linking to somewhere like Photobox PhotoBox to have a one-stop-shop capability.
. Ordering/prices for stock photos depends on royalty or royalty-free guidelines. RF charges will be higher.
. P&P based on rules
. Easy navigation
. Screen resize for different monitor resolutions but to ensure that menus are still visible.
. Provide an 'About Me' section
. Provide a 'Contact page' which is fully editable by myself after the developer has completed the site.
. A fully editable description for each gallery for search engine optimisation purposes
. Look professional
. Colour scheme - black, white and grey.
. Font - Adobe Garamond using CSS where possible so its nice and easy for a future designer to go in and edit the site (or possibly me) without little to no fuss.
. Means of going back to front page from anywhere and option to go back a page without using back button.
. Back button should go back a page and not back to index page.
. Should be able to updated via WM5-WM6 PDA with ftp and IE browser
. Preferably not flash as I need to be able to view it at work (no flash allowed) and on my PDA and preferably not scripted too much, again PDA and work access, however whilst flash isn't as accessible and is bad for search engines, etc it does look good, and selling photos I want it to look good.
. The photos export as an xml file this way you can:
. Link them to photo sites without trouble
. Link them into facebook and VB forums
. Include some search engine optimisation work to get you nice and high in google (Yahoo, etc) search engine rankings.
. Newsletter function, the option to purchase/include vouchers.
. Up and running by 1 Jul 08.


Obviously not looking at serious money as I am not sure how much I would make back...

Regards

[TimIngmire]

Hey Gareth,

have you thought about smugmug?

Joomla is very customisable and the limit is really down to your server space given your requirements. I think that the Gallery2 software has the functionality you're looking for - this can be wrapped nicely in Joomla.

Tim

[GLOC]

Moon River Photography -- Andy Williams- powered by SmugMug

Uses smugmug, very nice...

[simonmort]

What about something like Jalbum, freeware and different skins are being added all the time. Could merge into your site using frontpage, and does have the option of adding paypal.

or just use photobox

simon.

[zan]

My site is currently hosted by Photium, which has online sales integration, and should have enough galleries. The customer service is also excellent. They don't store full-size images online, as any orders will email to you directly for you to sort out. But then, you could use photobox for that I suppose.

Have a look anyway and see what you think.

Zan

[GLOC]

Have tried Photobox in the past and found that there was a maximum number of images you could have in a pro folder and they weren't interested in changing that.

I also want something that will show up in search engines when it comes to searching for stock photography.

I looked at Photium but the templates didn't look that great. I did like a couple of sites I have seen with smugmug but I am not sure how much the US$ pricing will put people off buying prints.

Thanks for the advice, but willing to take more