Currently I have a Squarespace account and I love the flexibility and customization my site has. The support at Squarespace has been top notch to boot.
As my photography has become more visible from the bounds of my hard drive I have been wanting to offer the ability for others if they want to order prints. I looked into Smugmug and zenofolio but it looks like I would have go with a pro subscription model and build another site. I already have an advanced account with Squarespace and was planning to upgrade to pro subscription there.
I am not quite a pro photographer yet and it is not like I sold a ton of books at blurb. Just trying to keep costs down and management simple.
SmugMug appears more and more in the lines of what I'm looking for. A place where my photos could be stored and the end user could decide what they wanted for a print (canvas wrap, large print, etc.)
At this point I think I am willing to have an account with Squarespace and SmugMug simply because there doesn't appear a unifying solution. Can SmugMug content like the shopping features work within my Squarespace site/account?
Seeing that Joesph is running this site on Squarespace and has a Smugmug account too, I figure this is probably the best place to ask.
Ken,
You came to the right place :) Read this article I wrote a while ago titled From Aperture to SmugMug to Squarespace.
For print sales, I send users to SmugMug galleries; I don’t have a shopping cart integrated within the photo/blog site. The shopping cart you see on this site at ApertureExpert.com/store is through e-junkie, but that’s entirely electronic-delivery product. For the prints, I do it all through SmugMug (and my customers are always happy with their prints).
I don’t know that you’d need the top account at SquareSpace either. I was very pleased when they simplified the offerings to just three tiers, and what I really wanted on all my sites I can get through the middle tier, and that’s the per-page stylesheet. That allows me to have different layouts (i.e. 1, 2, or 3 columns) on different pages. This site, ApertureExpert, is the top-tier because I have the user self-registration feature. But you won’t need that for what you’re talking about.
If you do go with SmugMug, please use my affiliate link: SmugMug Sign-up—every bit helps support this site! (Your browser may throw up a scary “this is not the site you’re looking for” message… it’s OK and will take you to smugmug, and I gotta look into that error message!!) FYI all my other affiliate links are here: Affiliate Store.
-Joseph @ApertureExpert
@PhotoJoseph
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Thanks Joseph. I signed up with Squarespace last June and at the time the pricing structure was different. My account then was called a pro account and now with the extra space i added of 3GB from 1GB it sat in features to today’s Standard and Advanced. So this is what I meant by upgrading.
I just opened a SmugMug account today and right off the bat I am glad I stuck with Squarespace. They really do serve two different function. Your article helps tremendously.
Thanks again.
Ken
about.me/kenlatman