Selling digital files
A gallery can sell the files themselves as well as prints. A client pays, and a download link is emailed to them straight away — no zipping, no emailing, nothing for you to remember on a Sunday night.
The money goes to your own Stripe account. Meridian Photographers takes no commission. Selling is part of Studio.
Before you start
Three things need to be in place, or clients will not see anything to buy:
- Payments are connected. In Settings → Settings, under
Payments, press Connect payments and follow Stripe's steps.
- Ordering is switched on. In the same screen, under **What your clients
can do, tick Prints and products can be ordered from a gallery**, then press Save. It is on unless you have turned it off.
- The gallery is not a proofing gallery. A gallery collecting picks does
not show a basket. See proofing.
Add a digital product
- Go to Galleries → Selling → Products.
- If this is your first product, give your price list a name (for example
Standard) and press Create.
- Press Add a product.
- Give it a Name — "High-res file", "Digital download", whatever you call
it.
- Set Type to Digital file. The type is what makes it a download, not
the name, so the wording is yours.
- Enter What the client pays. Leave Size blank and **What the lab
charges you** blank or at nothing.
- Leave Offer this to clients ticked and press Add product.
To stop selling it, press Retire beside it on the Products screen. Past orders keep it.
What the client does
In the gallery, the client presses the + button at the bottom-left of a photograph and chooses your digital product. They can add several photographs, and prints too, and pay for everything in one go.
Each digital file bought is for the photograph it was chosen from.
What happens when somebody buys
As soon as the payment goes through, the client is emailed a download link.
- It works for thirty days. Long enough to notice the email, short enough that a link forwarded round a family group chat stops working.
- It can be used ten times. A failed download deserves another go; a shared link does not.
- A use is counted when a file is actually downloaded, not when the page is opened — so somebody who looks at the page twice has not spent two of their ten.
If the same payment is reported twice, the client still gets one link, not two.
When a link runs out
An expired link tells the client it has expired and to ask you for a new one.
To send a fresh link:
- Go to Business → Orders.
- Find the sale under Files sold. Each row shows who bought it, which
gallery, whether the link is live, expired or used up, how many of its ten downloads are gone, and when it runs out.
- Press Send a new link. A new link, good for another thirty days, is
emailed to the client.
Deleting a gallery that has been sold from
A gallery cannot be deleted while somebody still holds a live download link. At the foot of the gallery's screen, under Delete this gallery, it says when the last link runs out, so you know when it can go.
Selling after delivery
Galleries → Selling → Selling after delivery emails one offer, in your words, at a moment worth picking. There are four:
| Moment | Why it works |
|---|---|
| Just after they first look | They are looking at the photographs right now — the highest-intent moment there is, and most people never use it |
| They favourited a lot and bought nothing | Somebody who has picked out thirty photographs wants them; usually it was the price of a wall frame that stopped them |
| Before the gallery comes down | A real deadline, not an invented one — which is why it works |
| A year after the shoot | An anniversary is a reason to print something, and the gallery is long gone by then |
To add one:
- Under Add one, choose When it sends.
- Set the Discount (a percentage off prints), Good for (how many days
the code works) and Wait first (days after the moment; nought sends straight away).
- Write a Subject and What it says, or leave them blank and a sensible
one is written for you. The code and the gallery link are added at the end either way.
- Leave Start it now ticked and press Add this.
What you have running lists each one with how many were sent, how many orders came from it and what it earned. Use Edit to change the wording, and Pause or Start to switch it off and on.
Some things it will never do: email anybody twice for the same gallery, offer a discount to somebody who has already ordered from that gallery, contact a client who has asked not to hear from you, or sell to somebody you owe something, such as a refund. Every code works once only. See your clients.