Forum Moderators: buckworks
My wife is also a photographer and was interested in me creating a website for her to sell her photos. A little online research resulted in a handful of stock photography websites already created and with an established market. She now has approximately 350 photos in her portfolio on each of four sites and sells an average of 15 per day on the best site. As they sell royalty free, they can sell over and over. Her best photos have sold more than 100 times in three months!
These sites charge their customers very small amounts for each photo and keep a very high percentage (around 80%!), but the low prices help raise the quantity sold.
I´m not only greatful for the significant and passive income these sites now bring us, but I also have a great resource for finding stock photographs for use on my client´s websites. When I pay $1 per photo and get amazing and relevant photos, my clients are very impressed.
There is an entire industry of stock photo websites out there. Google ´stock photo´ and you´ll get a good idea of who the dominant players are. Stickymail me if you want to know who we use. Some are excellent and others are sharks. I suggest testing the water first if you don´t get specific advice from someone who has already done so.
I´m obviously suggesting that you don´t need to re-invent the wheel. However, if you´re wanting to build a website and build your own market for the fun and experience, then I can only suggest Joomla or Mambo Open Source CMS with an appropriate shopping cart module plugged in. They have options for selling downloadable products that provide security at the relevant points. However, I imagine you´d achieve your objective very well with osCommerce too. What specifically about osCommerce was inadequate for you?
Yes, I have a client using x-cart to sell guitar strings. It was relatively easy to setup, and the feature set is outstanding. It´s hooked into a full fledged payment gateway and operates flawlessly. I recall seeing options for selling electronic products, but haven´t set it up for that purpose personally.
