• Featured Photographer of the Month: May 2013

    Sarah Petty is the owner of Sarah Petty Photography in Springfield, IL, one of the most profitable photography studios in the country according to Professional Photographers of America. Sarah began her career in the marketing department at the world’s largest brand, Coca-Cola Enterprises, and went on to direct the marketing campaigns of many small businesses at a top regional advertising agency. ... read more

     
  • RSSRSS Feed
    Join Our Email List
    Join Our Email List
      

    PhotoBiz To Go Puts Your Store In Your Pocket

    The PhotoBiz ToGo app is getting even better! Our newest addition, available today, is Point of Sale. This new add-on is powered by our Store and is now available for $5 a month.

    Once you purchase the add-on from your PhotoBiz online control panel, and have downloaded the free app from the Apple or Android app stores, you can process payments from your smartphone. Anywhere you go, you’ll be able to take orders for products, packages, prints, services, and gift cards you have set up in your PhotoBiz Store. That’s not all! In addition you can sell Custom Items that you set up on the fly!

    When you select an item to sell, you will see all of the features you set up in your Store, including options. You spend a lot of time setting up on your Store, and now that information is available at your finger tips.

     

     

    Nobody likes to talk about taxes, but they are a part of life, and we have built in settings to Point of Sale to help you manage them. You can choose to use the same tax settings you have selected in your Store, or you can set up additional tax settings specifically for the Point of Sale. Different states and counties have a lot of different rules, therefore we aimed to give you the flexibility to change the tax settings on the go to accommodate your needs.

    Selling something that needs to be shipped? You can access shipping methods from the Point of Sale too! The Point of Sale pulls the shipping options you set up in your Store control panel to make it easy for you to calculate shipping costs on the go, too.

     

    Once you’ve added all the items to a sale and your customer is ready to make a purchase, the Point of Sale lets you process the payment on the spot. You can choose to use the same merchant options you already have set up in your Store, or you can set up new ones specifically to use in the app. (Note: Any merchant settings used in the app must be set up from the online control panel. At the time of launch, Point of Sale does not support PayPal or Google Checkout, and gift cards cannot be redeemed through the app.)

    Another great way the Point of Sale works with your Store is to give you access to customer contact information. If you already have a customer’s information in the Store, the Point of Sale allows you to search for that customer by first or last name. The results of the search are listed alphabetically and you can scroll through the results. When you pull up the customer’s record this is a great opportunity to review their contact information and update it if anything has changed. All changes will be saved for future use in the Point of Sale or Store. Making a sale to a brand new customer? You can also create a record for a new customer complete with their first and last name, phone number, email address, and mailing address.

    Once the payment information has been entered and the sale is complete, the order number will display on the screen, along with the total paid, and your customer will receive a receipt by email. Plus, the transaction will be recorded for you review both from the Store section of the app or from within your online control panel.

     

    For $5 a month, PhotoBiz’s Point of Sale is like carrying your Store and our Passionate Support team around in your pocket. It’s a whole new way to do biz!

    iPhoneography and Oh Snap Contest

    iPhoneography. The mere mention of the word makes most photographers shudder, however, with consistent advances in the iPhone cameras, and the rapid expansion of smartphone users in the past few years, it’s easy to see how iPhoneography and mobile photography in general has quickly become an accepted photographic medium.

    Mobile photography, and iPhoneography has experienced a large amount of growth in recent years not only as a result of the increased technological advances in cell phone cameras, but also from the availability of more advanced photography apps as well. Currently, the Apple App Store’s Photography and Video App section boasts nearly 7,000 apps, allowing the iPhoneographer to do everything from replace their stock camera app with apps like Camera+, to apply post-processing to their images with apps like Snapseed, to sharing their images throughout the world with apps like Instagram.

    In addition to the growth of advanced editing apps, another appealing aspect of iPhoneography and mobile photography is the convenience of having a camera available in the small form factor of a cell phone, which nearly everyone has on their person nowadays. This discreet form factor makes mobile photography an ideal medium for street photography.

    There are also several influential websites devoted to iPhoneography and mobile photography, which often include app reviews, mobile photography tips, and ways for iPhoneographers and mobile photographers to share their work worldwide. Some of these sites include iphoneography.com and lifeinlofi.com.

    Greater attention was brought to mobile photography as an art form last year when Daniel Berman founded the Mobile Photo Awards, the first mobile photography awards competition. Berman describes the Mobile Photo Awards on its website as “The Mobile Photo Awards were founded to promote and harness the global phenomenon of mobile, or cell-phone, photography and art. The awards are committed to presenting the art-form in galleries and exhibits. The MPAs are modeled after the International Photography Awards with multiple categories, notable judges and the goal of bringing exposure to the artists and the medium.” Awards and exhibitions such as these are helping to validate mobile photography and iPhoneography as a legitimate artistic medium.

    Oh Snap! The Unexpected, The Outrageous, The Uncanny!

    Another such exhibition is the ‘Oh Snap! The Unexpected, The Outrageous, The Uncanny!’ show, which is currently holding a call for entries and is open to all United States residents aged 16 and over. This exhibition is being held by the Center for Visual Artists, a non-profit organization based in Greensboro, NC, which is dedicated to building and strengthening bonds within the community and enabling anyone at any skill level to engage and experience the arts through education and exhibition programs. PhotoBiz is honored to sponsor this contest.

    The ‘Oh Snap!’ exhibition’s call for entries is open until August 20, 2012 at 11:59PM EST, and allows entrants to submit up to 5 photos, that were taken with a cell phone camera, and may only be manipulated by use of cell phone apps. Images may be submitted digitally, and the Center of Visual Artists will determine the final selection of work printed and exhibited in the show and displayed online. The ‘Best of Show’ gallery award-winning image will be picked by a panel of judges.

    An interesting aspect of the ‘Oh Snap’ exhibition is that once the images for the show are selected, The CVA will print each one as well as upload them to their online CVA Store, located at greensboroart.org/store. Then, on Friday, September 7, beginning at 10AM EST, the CVA online store will open and visitors will have the chance to purchase prints of any of the exhibition’s selected images. The store will remain open until Friday, October 5, at 11:59PM EST, when the total number of print sales will be tallied and the individual artist who had the most total print sales will win a new iPhone. Also, all approved submitted photographs will be printed (8”x 10”) and displayed in the CVA Gallery. The ‘Best of Show’ photograph will be printed on a gallery wrapped canvas and awarded to the winner on opening night of the exhibition, Friday, September 7, 2012 at 7PM EST.

    For more information on entering the exhibition, please visit cvagallergy.greensboroart.org.

    iPhoneography Image by Chelsea Parker

    iPhoneography Image by Mike Baldwin

    iPhoneography Image by Chelsea Parker

     Oh Snap!

     

     

    Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall – Who Has the Most Mobile Sites of All?

    Mobile Mirror“I’m on my iPad and I can’t see your website!” These words can cost you more than just frustration – they can cost you money. Wouldn’t it be great if you could make your site accessible no matter what device someone is viewing it from? You can with PhotoBiz’s HTML and mobile mirror sites!

    Having an HTML or mobile mirror site gives your customers the best of both worlds: the beauty of Flash on their computer, and the accessibility to view and navigate from mobile non-Flash compatible devices (e.g., iPad, iPhone, Android). No matter what device they access your site from your customer can explore your work, learn information about your company, and contact you with ease. In fact, our system does all the work, automatically recognizing what device someone is viewing your site from to determine which version to display.

    HTML mirror site. An HTML mirror shows all the same pages and links as your Flash site, but in HTML format. This allows your site to be seen in its entirety from any non-Flash device. You even get to choose an HTML template and adjust the colors to compliment your Flash site. This is a great way to present continuity between your sites and provide the same experience to your customers, no matter what device they access you site from!

    Mobile mirror. Having a mobile mirror is another way to provide easy access to your website from mobile devices. This format is presented with the feel of an “app”. You get a clear navigation menu, and your beautiful images can be easily seen.

    These products are available for purchase through your Flash/HTML control panel under the “Extras” icon.  This is a great way to invest in the accessibility of your website!

  • Blogger's Corner

  • Contributing Photographer


  • New Features

  •  
  • Categories

  •  
  • Archives