Fotomerchant 3 has landed and it’s packed with new features!

Our team have been working tirelessly over the past months and have today rolled out an armful of brand new features as well as some significant feature enhancements both under the hood and out in the wild. Let’s take a look!

So what’s new in Fotomerchant 3?

  • Two brand new website themes
  • An all-new visual web page blog post editor
  • A mobile optimised admin interface
  • New web page and visitor metrics, visual graphs and reports
  • New pricing plans

Let’s take a closer look..

Two brand new website themes

With the majority of web traffic now coming from mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones, we knew it was critical to develop a series of mobile optimized themes for the Fotomerchant platform. Today we are releasing two new themes named “Amsterdam” and “Stockholm”. More themes are coming with the next theme due to land in May 2015 and more to follow at regular intervals there-after!

Both Amsterdam and Stockholm render beautifully on tablet and mobile devices and offer a refreshing departure from the feel of the existing theme layouts. Your images will look bigger and bolder, will load seamlessly across any mobile device and customers can now complete the checkout process and download their Digital Download files from their tablet or phone.

You can read more about these new themes here.

Below are some screenshots of the new “Amsterdam” theme

An all-new visual web page and blog post editor

The new editor is the key to your site’s mobile responsive performance and provides intuitive, simple drag and drop content creation. Here’s a quick introduction to your new blog post and web page editor. Watch the video below and read more about the visual web page editor here.

A mobile optimized admin interface

Your account management interface has had a lift too! The new mobile optimized admin skin allows you to manage and monitor your site’s performance on the go. You can now check and approve orders and access all-new website metrics from your mobile or tablet! You can read more about the new management interface here.

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New web page and visitor metrics, visual graphs and reports

We’ve tapped deep into the heart of your site to bring you access to visitor behaviour, gallery and web page view statistics and referrer site information. Data has been captured since early February so there will be plenty of feedback for you to process right away. All presented in shiny new charts and graphs that will help you monitor your site’s performance and steer your business. You can read more about visitor metrics here.

New pricing plans

Offering a wider selection of features and value to help lift your business up a level all for the cost of an extra coffee or two per month! We’ve re-jigged our plans to better represent the way our photographers work online. We’ve written a very detailed write-up about our new plans here. I highly recommend you have a read.

How do I jump to Fotomerchant 3?

No migration required this time! Simply head to the my plan page of your current account, select the new plan that’s right for your business and upgrade! (Make sure you note the difference between the Yearly and Monthly plan options before you pull the trigger.) If you don’t yet have an account with us then you fire up a fresh Fotomerchant 3 Trial right now!

Create a new Fotomerchant 3 account

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

If your questions aren’t addressed here please feel free to leave a comment below and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can!

Q: What do I have to do to move /migrate / switch / hitchhike to Fotomerchant 3?

A: Fotomerchant 3 is available right now! All you have to do is upgrade to one of the new Fotomerchant 3 pricing plans from the my plans section of your account.

Q: What changes when I upgrade?

A: Your admin interface will have a brand new mobile responsive skin but about 90% of the layout remains unchanged, so you won’t get lost! Your account’s billing period will update to the date and time at which you upgrade. The system will allocate a pro-rated credit to your new subscription payment based on the days remaining in your original billing period.

Q: Is there any other action I need to take?

A: The web page / blog post editor has been upgraded in Fotomerchant 3 to accommodate the mobile optimised site behaviour. The vast majority of your original web page and blog post content should already behave correctly across mobile platforms in Fotomerchant 3. However, to be 100% confident that pages are behaving as they should, you’ll need to copy your original content into new web pages and blog posts. Here’s a video that will walk you through the process.

Q: What are the big changes to the new pricing plans?

These are entirely new pricing plans so please take the time to read through this more detailed blog post as well as the updated pricing plan page to help you choose the right plan for your business. Here are some of the bigger changes…

  • Direct Fulfillment is now available across all pricing plans.
  • Self Fulfillment however is only available on the higher Streamline and Automate plans.
  • There’s now a $0.10 per megapixel wholesale charge for the processing, storage and delivery of Digital Download products across all plans. Edit: The digital processing, storage and delivery fee has been removed from the “Start”, “Grow” and “Streamline” plans.
  • The Smart Shopping Cart and 1-Click Products features are now available on both Streamline and Automate.

Again, for more information on the new pricing plans please refer to this dedicated blog post as well as the updated pricing plan page.

Q: Can I stay where I am on Fotomerchant 2?

A: Yes you can, and we’ve introduced the two new themes and a mobile responsive admin interface skin for you in Fotomerchant 2. However, you’d be missing out on a raft of great new features including visitor metrics and site statistics. We also have more themes to introduce to Fotomerchant 3 in the near future and all of our development efforts moving forward will be focused on the new v3 platform. So get on board now to ensure you have access to all the good stuff moving forward..

Create a new Fotomerchant 3 account

Written by

Steve is Fotomerchant's head customer support guy. We call him 'sherpa'.

  • Tom Grieve

    Interesting upgrade, however a little disappointed you really need to move up to the $35 per month plan to continue receiving the same level as your older plans.
    Would rather having more features available at all plan levels, and then the charge for the differences is balanced by the % charged against sales.
    For instance – previously all plans allowed for Digital downloads (previously free and not average cost will be over $0.50 per image), Direct Fullfilment, gallery protection etc.

    • Derek Clapham

      @T0mmyG:disqus: Just wanted to let you know we’ve removed Digital fees on the standard 3 plans for Fotomerchant 3. In addition to this we have a loyalty offer for all existing Fotomerchant 2 customers. I’ve posted more information in my main comment above. Just wanted to let you know.

  • Trevor Connell

    I’m confused…
    There’s now a $0.10 per megapixel wholesale charge for the processing, storage and delivery of Digital Download products across all plans.
    or…
    Unlimited Bandwidth & Storage
    which is it?

    • Steve

      Hi Trevor,

      Just a quick follow up here to reassure you that there are *No Fees* associated with the uploading and , storage of your library image files. The 10c per MPx fee relates only to the processing and storage of Digital Download products.. and this only occurs when a customer places an order on your site for Digital products (not when you create a Digital Download product and add it to your Catalogs!)

      I hope this helps Trevor.. of course let me know if you have any other questions here or need anything else from last weeks blog posts to be clarified? =)

      Steve.

      • Trevor Connell

        Thanks Steve

        I do think you need to clarify this wording though…

        “There’s now a $0.10 per megapixel wholesale charge for the processing, storage and delivery of Digital Download products across all plans.”

    • Derek Clapham

      @trevor_connell:disqus: Just wanted to let you know we’ve removed Digital fees on the standard 3 plans for Fotomerchant 3. In addition to this we have a loyalty offer for all existing Fotomerchant 2 customers. I’ve posted more information in my main comment above. Just wanted to let you know.

  • BobbyIsrael

    At first I was really excited seeing all this, but I have come to
    realize I would be paying more than double than currently priced. This seems bad for long time supporters/customers. It is a great job guys really it is with v3 but the price going up more than double is no good.

  • Derek Clapham

    @T0mmyG:disqus, @BobbyIsrael:disqus, @trevor_connell:disqus

    We know it’s never good news when the price of a product or service is increased. We’ve agonised over this for nearly 6 months as a company. We’ve spent countless hours examining our costs and our photographer’s usage patterns to determine a fair and reasonable structure for our new plans.

    We have made sure that our existing customers do not have to upgrade to the new system if they don’t wish to. Existing customers have also been given access to two new mobile friendly themes and a better mobile experience in the account interface at no added cost or change to their plan.

    In the 6 years we’ve operated as a business we have never raised our prices. In fact, we’ve only ever reduced them. However, as a business we must always make sure our business model is a viable one otherwise eventually our business wont exist :)

    If you haven’t done so already I would encourage you to read our dedicated blog post regarding the new pricing as it explains in much more detail how the new plans work and why we’ve changed the pricing. You can read the post here: http://www.fotomerchant.com/fotomerchant-3-pricing-plans/

    I know this doesn’t lessen the blow, but I hope you can understand why we’ve had to make this change going forward.

  • Dave Sumner

    I’m shocked at such a price increase to be honest for such little return. You’ve increased your prices to provide what other sites are already providing for a lot less. You say that we don’t need to upgrade to FM3 yet the time will come for that to be forced upon us. I moved from SmugMug because of the same thoughtless upgrades being forced onto the end user and now here we are again.

    I’m sorry guys but as far as I am concerned you don’t provide me with $40pm of value and you’ve just priced yourselves out of the market I can get better value elsewhere.

    • Derek Clapham

      Sorry you feel this way Dave.

      We believe that over the coming months it will become quite evident that the value we provide is well worth the money paid. We enable 1000s of photographers to make much more than $40 / month in revenue through their websites. Not to mention the hours in labour saved by using our automation features we’ve just announced. Soon we will have more templates than any of our competitors and an e-commerce toolset that makes SmugMug look like a toy. :)

      I hope you stick around to see what happens.

      • Dave Sumner

        Derek, I was so pleased to see the FM 3 upgrade email, I thought at last we are catching up with the rest. Imagine my disappointment when I clicked the upgrade link and it took me straight to the payment page, I thought I’d clicked the wrong link. Those prices are all well and good if you use e-commerce and are making money from the site, but I don’t. I use the site to showcase photographs and don’t sell but you are not accommodating this at all because I need to be at a higher level of service to be able to use my own domain to point to my Fotomerchant site.
        I think to make a statement that you’ll make Smugmug look like a toy is a bit bold, before FM3 you weren’t even denting the other sites. Now you have to understand that I don’t like Smugmug because of the way they upgraded their systems and didn’t consult with their customers then forced it upon them, but now you are no better. I have to add that their site is much more customisable, has as many if not more templates and is a lot cheaper than yours.
        I stuck with you guys even though you were on the expensive side in comparison because you are based in Australia and I liked the support service. The site was missing the niceties of other sites but I was prepared to forgo some of those features to keep my site onshore and support Australian business. However, that has come back to bite me and now I’ve been forced into this position. I just cannot justify $480 annually for what is effectively a showcase with my own domain name that I can get for a LOT less cost.
        I’ve already signed back to Smugmug and repointed my domain to it. They are charging a lot less than you are, in fact less than 25% and they have a lot more facilities including e-commerce should I wish to utilise it. I don’t like Smugmug but at least they didn’t triple their prices when they forced an upgrade. So I’m sorry but I won’t be hanging around, perhaps had you discussed this with your customers and sought their thoughts and ideas, none of us would be in this position.

        • Derek Clapham

          Dave. I’m sorry to hear you’ve moved on. But I’m not sure what has led you to believe that we have “forced” the upgrade? If you were wanting to maintain the website you already have the way you had it there was absolutely no need for you to do anything. We also made the new responsive themes available on all existing subscriptions.

          Either way, thank you for your patronage over the years and I personally hope we can win you back down the track. I have also taken note of your feedback regarding using your own domain name and will discuss this with the team. I think you make a good point with that particular restriction.

          Derek

    • Derek Clapham

      @disqus_GPCQQrxNcl:disqus: Just wanted to let you know we’ve removed Digital fees on the standard 3 plans for Fotomerchant 3. In addition to this we have a loyalty offer for all existing Fotomerchant 2 customers. I’ve posted more information in my main comment above. Just wanted to let you know.

  • Kathi MItchell

    Disappointed as well, about the jump in price to get the same service. We do very little e-commerce, most of our fotomerchant use is for online hosting only. Now we have to jump to $35 to be able to self fulfill the few orders we receive?

    • Derek Clapham

      @kathi_mitchell:disqus : Just wanted to let you know we’ve removed Digital fees on the standard 3 plans for Fotomerchant 3. In addition to this we have a loyalty offer for all existing Fotomerchant 2 customers. I’ve posted more information in my main comment above. Just wanted to let you know.

  • Stephen Hope

    Really disappointed,
    you’ve increased the price but reduced the service. It will cost me an extra
    $48 to have LESS features than I currently have, and an extra $228 for the
    features that I already have + the new digital products processing & storage fee
    (add $48 & $120 if you wish to pay by the month).

    I have zero
    interest in having the most themes or the analytics back from V1, which Google
    already provide me. The only feature I care about is multi device
    functionality. 90% of my customers can’t download their purchases on the
    devices they use. A functioning check-out across all devices is a fundamental
    requirement, not an upgrade feature.

    Existing
    customers, especially those of us who have endured a lot of problems with
    FOTOMERCHANT(check my ticket history) should have access to the V3 features,
    then decide on a new plan when their current one expires.

    You’ve
    created a two-tier system that punishes your loyal, long-suffering customers.

    Sorry,
    you’ve finally lost my business.

    • Derek Clapham

      @disqus_Jn8flWCE0K:disqus: Just wanted to let you know we’ve removed Digital fees on the standard 3 plans for Fotomerchant 3. In addition to this we have a loyalty offer for all existing Fotomerchant 2 customers. I’ve posted more information in my main comment above. Just wanted to let you know.

  • Derek Clapham

    @disqus_Jn8flWCE0K:disqus

    Sorry about your frustration. Existing customers were not intentionally affected by the release of V3. We are working on an upgrade package at the moment that we’re hoping will be attractive to our existing customers. In hindsight, it would have been a good idea for us to get this in place before we announced yesterday so I will not argue with you on that! However, satisfying our existing loyal customers was always part of the plan, albeit not as well executed as we would have liked (in hindsight).

    We will have more on this shortly!

  • Marc Robertson

    well I have moved to a one of the new themes, Stockholm… unfortunately it’s no smooth transition. The new web page editor is NOT really a web page editor at all. You have removed all access to HTML code which means I cannot fix pages that did not migrate properly. I realise its in BETA mode. The thing is with the new themes you cannot just choose one and continue. so I have to go back to the old themes to make my site look good. And strictly from a GOOD design point of view…. who on gods earth decided the FONT SIZE for the page titles… it is ridiculously big and cannot be change… again I think too much has been spent on getting eCommerce and no where near enough on page presentation. photographers need to sell there work… to do this they need a site that reflects their good work and this is still no happening. Guys please employ a designer to look after the themes :)

    • Derek Clapham

      Marc,

      Thanks or your constructive feedback! We understand that the new page editor is not fully functional at this stage in terms of a few things (like HTML code snippets). This is why we’ve given the choice of which page editor to use until the new page builder is complete.

      In regards to fonts and sizes I can assure you that this was intended. Without going in to all the detail, I can say we are moving forward with a plan of releasing new themes very frequently. Each theme will suit a different type of photography, or purpose. We’ve had many customers come back regarding Stockholm and express extreme excitement with the layout. However, as the months go on you will see us enhance the themes but more importantly add more themes that will potentially be better suited to your needs.

      I can assure you that the themes were “designed” it’s just that our approach to themes as a company has moved toward more themes with fewer options rather than few themes with lots of options – I hope this makes sense.

      Having said all this, could you tell me which fonts in particular you considered too large? Was it the site title? The image/gallery titles? Any info would be appreciated. We are always open to tweaking things where it makes sense.

      Derek

      • Marc Robertson

        Hi Derek, It was the page headings which really could do with being a few points smaller as they are very overwhelming… even the square pics are overwhelming. I am running a full HD desktop at 1920 x 1080 and there are just 5 images across the page which could easily be just six making them slightly smaller. I viewed my site on my phone and you get one picture at any orientation and this obviously due to their large size. Don’t get me wrong big is good but these “super large thumbs” and huge type are going going backwards. an option to change the page title font size and thumbnail size would be an absolute blessing. I gather that the past year I was paying just $195 for my account and now it appears by the pricing it has doubled and things don’t work (like the editor). I’ll be honest I don’t mind the price but I hate paying full price for something that is not complete… would you buy a new car without wheels… ?

        • Derek Clapham

          Mark. Again, great feedback. It’s much appreciated. Stockholm is a theme that is supposed to be very focused on the “big” photo. Your feedback will be considered. As I mentioned earlier we’re always open to ways in which we can improve the flexibility of the themes. I can’t promise anything right now, but historically we’ve added options to our themes over time. Usually based on customer feedback such as this! Also, rest assured we are working on improving the page builder in the coming weeks in order to get it out of beta and in to full use.

          In regards to the price. Right now, you have access to the new themes on your current subscription. There is no pressing need for you to change your plan. We will NOT be automatically moving anyone to different plans. You can continue as is on your existing subscription plan. Additionally you will have access to any improvements made to the themes as well as new themes that are released in the coming months. We’ll be providing more information for our existing customers in the near future.

          Again, thanks for your feedback Marc.

          • BobbyIsrael

            Hey Derek, I really like Stockholm as well. But please add the HTML editor as soon as possible if you can. It would help a lot!.

            P.S. still grumpy about the price change in V3, but appreciate not being forced off v2. I’ll give it a few months and see if I change my mind. hmmmm maybe an *ahem* low cost trial would help grease the wheels lol.

          • Derek Clapham

            Bobby,

            We’ll be adding more components to the new page editor in the coming weeks. May I ask what it is you’re trying to achieve with the HTML editor? Moving forward, new pages wont be editable as raw HTML. But if we can get an understanding of what our users are trying to achieve we almost certainly can come up with a solution.

            In regards to pricing. Sit tight on this front. We’ve got something in the works for existing customers :)

          • Mick Holgate Photog

            no HTML editor?? Really Derek? What website doesn’t have this capability, some people, like myself, rely on this to fix up the flaws and lacking features in fotomerchant! If it goes, I’m sorry to say, I will be too.

        • Mick Holgate Photog

          just on this, why has HTML editor been removed?? I’d be happier to do as a normal website and create some buttons and link them appropriately.
          Not everyone knows HTML, but for those that do, I’m pretty sure they would be very disappointed with the web editor currently in place.

  • Sean McGowan

    Really? It’s going to cost me more? After a fortnight doing battle with other useless moneygrabbers who sell air – Telstra/Bigpond – I am sick to my stomach after having read through this blog. Now it seems I’ve got a whole new bunch of decisions to make.
    I do believe I made the comment on this blog in the recent past – if you want to grow your business, sell more. If you want to lose business, charge your loyal existing clients more.
    If you like my ongoing contribution to your coffers, write to me and tell me personally why I should keep the direct debit in place.

    • Derek Clapham

      Sean. Thanks for your comments. I’ve sent you an email personally. There is more news coming shortly.

    • Derek Clapham

      @disqus_Ebd8SNktda:disqus: Just wanted to let you know we’ve removed Digital fees on the standard 3 plans for Fotomerchant 3. In addition to this we have a loyalty offer for all existing Fotomerchant 2 customers. I’ve posted more information in my main comment above. Just wanted to let you know.

  • Trevor Connell

    A suggestion to FM2 users.
    Sign up for a free trial of FM3 to check out the features before you move across.
    Then you can stick to FM2 for the time being if you are not convinced that the move is worth it.

  • Lots of good things to be found here. I just have one question for the moment, and that is how you came to the decision to charge photographers only for the “sale” of digital files and not for the total space they use in general? As I understand it there are mass-photographers out there shooting large events and using extremely large amounts of storage space and those photos are kept on your servers for months or more likely years. On the other hand there are those photographers who use the site only to store a few galleries – perhaps as a hobby, or a more unique style of photography that doesn’t require large amounts of storage space. But when a sale is made all photographers pay the same fee. So while your servers are being filled up with content from all of your clients (some more than others), why then is the decision to pass the exact same ‘digital processing’ (storage) fee onto everyone who makes a sale? If instead I was charged for the amount of galleries I had sitting in storage on your site, I would start deleting them to save money. However in this case I don’t have that option and while other photographers keep using large amounts of storage they continue to push the price up for everyone else. Is this going to be a common price increase I wonder?

    • Derek Clapham

      Lachlan,

      Thanks for your question. I’ve attempted to explain the technical side of things behind how digital download products are stored below:

      As you are aware, photographers create “Digital Products” within their Fotomerchant accounts. To keep this example simple, let’s say a photographer creates a product named “5 megapixel digital download”. Now, let’s say they sell 10 of this product to Customer A. That’s 10 photos, at 5 megapixels each.

      Our system receives the order and the following happens:
      1. We startup servers to handle the current number of digital orders
      2. We fetch the 10 original images from secure storage
      3. We create 5 Megapixel versions of those 10 photos
      4. We create a zip file for each photo that contains the photo and the license text file that was associated with the digital product
      5. We create a zip file containing all photos and all licenses
      6. We store the individual zip files and bulk zip file back in secure storage
      7. We send an email to Customer A telling them their digital files are ready.

      In order to execute the above steps we have to run an appropriate number of servers to handle the number of orders at any given time. Sometimes we have digital orders containing upwards of 500 images which we aim to deliver to customers in a timely fashion.

      In most cases this all happens within seconds. Now what we have is the photographers original photos stored as well as 10 x 5 megapixel versions stored. Now in most cases digital download products are valid for 12 months. So we will honour that and store them for 12 months at a cost to us.

      So now, if a Customer B comes along and make a purchase for 7 x 5 megapixel files, the process repeats itself. For technical and security reasons we do not “reuse” digital products that have previously been created for a different customer. There are reasons for this around security and also planned future feature development.

      So, using the example above, you can see that a photographer who sells 10,000 digital files each year is a greater cost than a photographer who sells 1,000 digital files each year. Also, a photographer who sells 10,000 x 1 megapixel files is the same cost as a photographer who sells 1,000 x 10 megapixel files. If the math is done here we get:

      For 1 megapixel photographer:
      10,000 digital products sold x (1 megapixels x $0.10 / megapixel) = $1,000 total

      and for 10 megapixel photographer:
      1,000 digital products sold x (10 megapixels x $0.10 / megapixel) = $1,000 total

      In summary, we see the photos that are stored in your account as part of your subscription, regardless of whether you pay $9 or $99/month. However, over the past 2 years, the usage of Digital Downloads has increased 20x and now presents a significant cost to our business. In this way Digital Products are no different to physical prints. If a photographer receives an order for 10 x 5×7” prints, we will charge that photographer for the wholesale cost of the prints, there is no way we can cover those costs.

      I hope this makes sense.

      Derek

  • Mick Holgate Photog

    Pretty poor form finding out about the extra charges after Steve took the time to call me and discuss the new features with me, I certainly didn’t expect it to cost anymore, because lets be honest here, none of these features are ground breaking, Wix, wordpress and all the other formats have had them for years.

    I was thinking of moving on from fotomerchant and even advised Steve of this, seems now I will be due to blatant disregard to your long term clients who pay monthly fee for simply hosting some photos as not everyone uses fm as a platform to sell, well I don’t as it too limited and prescriptive.

    As I explained to him, with the lack of new features for years leading up to this change, lack of funtionality of my website, lack of payment options etc. you feel its ok to charge way more than anyone else and provide very basic/limited support. (every answer to my support tickets has been sorry we don’t do that lately)

    REALLY disappointed guys! I wish you well, but fear this will be the demise of fotomerchant.

    can’t even login with fm to discuss….WTF???

  • Marc Robertson

    When oh when are they going to implement a simple way to change the number of images displayed across the page as the images are just WAY TO BIG… :(

  • Gary Beresford

    Soooo, what I find rather frustrating is that I signed up and paid one year in advance for this FM2 service. Once starting it up, I found that there is no opportunity for people to join and comment on the blog, which I would have thought would be a basic function of any blog. OK, I hear there are good things coming up and work is being done. But now I hear the work is not being done for the existing customers, it is being done for new customers and the updates to what I originally paid for are not going to happen. I now feel rather silly for having signed up for a year. I am still utterly aghast that you would have advertised “blogging” with no option for anyone to comment or join that blog. And you have doubled the price should I wish to upgrade to what should have been there in the first place. Sorry guys, this is bad business. No way I can justify this increase, at all.

    • Derek Clapham

      @garyberesford:disqus: Just wanted to let you know we’ve removed Digital fees on the standard 3 plans for Fotomerchant 3. In addition to this we have a loyalty offer for all existing Fotomerchant 2 customers. I’ve posted more information in my main comment above. Just wanted to let you know.

  • Are the digital download fees currently in place for FM2 users?

  • Just upgraded to the new Streamline Plan at Fotomerchant – the only Aussie company that hosts photography websites that are fairly easy to build, uses print labs in Australia , provides unlimited storage and bandwidth, allows digital sales, and self fulfillment if you wish to do it yourself, blogging with comments. How could I not?

  • Tanya Love

    I have only just discovered that on top of me now paying $36 per month for the streamline plan (from a previous charge of $19 per month), I am also now averaging an additional cost of $50 per month in fees for my clients to download their images. I had no idea about this and only switched to FM3 after all of your slick marketing promising that it would be amazing value for money. I completely agree with the other posters here that FM has been lagging in the industry and as somebody who has been a loyal client for over 4 years, I am extremely disappointed at the somewhat underhanded way it was marketed/promoted, with no emphasis placed on fully informing us of the new digital download fee. Effectively, I have gone from spending $19 per month to almost $90 per month for exactly the same product I have had for 4 years. This is approximately $1080 per year!! I’m sorry, but that is completely crazy.

    I have really enjoyed the great backup/support that Steve and Derek have offered over the past 4 years and will always prefer to support an Aussie based business if I can, but you know, my kids and I need to eat too!

    I decided to switch to FM3 for only TWO reasons – a) the new themes that allow images to be displayed at a size that will stop my clients calling me and saying that they couldn’t see the detail of images properly as they always used to do and b) the ability for my clients to download the entire gallery in one click to give them a better user experience than having to go through and add every image one at a time. These are two very basic features that competitors like Zenfolio, Pixieset and Shootproof have been offering for years!

    Tonight, i have done my research, and discovered that I can move to Pixieset for only $288 per year for a very similar product with a much more user friendly interface and the ability for clients to download without even having to add images to a shopping cart at all. Images are displayed nice and big and the layout/design is gorgeous.

    I’m sorry guys, but I’ll be cancelling my subscription and switching as soon as I can get all of my current galleries uploaded to Pixieset. I just simply cannot justify a price difference of $800 for what is effectively the same service.

    • Steve

      Hi Tanya,

      very sorry to hear that we may be losing you..
      With the “Loyalty” promotion that has been applied to your account, the monthly subscription payments are $24, not $36.

      (If any other existing customers on Streamline haven’t yet had the “Loyalty” promo applied to their account, pls get in touch so we can sort this out for you.. – help@fotomerchant.com)

      As a long term customer, this promo is in place on your account for life. You’ll never pay us $36 per month. This puts your annual subscription payments at $288 which looks to be on par with Pixieset. If you were to switch to the annual Streamline account with us then your annual fee (with the Loyalty promo still applied) would drop to a single payment of $240 per year.

      I understand that it’s less tangible than a physical print product but there are very real wholesale costs involved in producing, storing and delivering digital image files. We’ve absorbed these costs for the past 4 years. Unfortunately that’s no-longer viable and we’ve had to pass on some of the infrastructure costs. There’s more detail around the Digital Fee introduction in this blog post for you under the title, “IMPORTANT DIGITAL PRODUCT CHANGES” – http://www.fotomerchant.com/fotomerchant-3-pricing-plans/

      We don’t make pricing adjustments lightly Tanya and certainly take no joy from introducing a new fee. This is the first pricing review that we’ve implemented in the six years that we’ve been operating and we have made an effort to shield existing customers like yourself from the changes with the Loyalty promotion.

      I fully understand if the numbers no-longer add up for you, that you have to look for another solution. But I hope you can understand that the recent changes come out of necessity and that we’ve put a lot of time and thought into trying to find a fair and balanced price-point while looking after our existing customers as best we can.

      Very sorry that we may lose you Tanya but please let me know if you need any extra information here or if there’s anything else I can help with at the moment!

    • Derek Clapham

      @tanya_love:disqus: Just wanted to let you know we’ve removed Digital fees on the standard 3 plans for Fotomerchant 3. In addition to this we have a loyalty offer for all existing Fotomerchant 2 customers. I’ve posted more information in my main comment above. Just wanted to let you know.

  • damien smith

    If upgrading from FMV2 to FMV3 does ones existing site (theme) then become mobile responsive?

    • Steve

      Hi Damien, the Amsterdam, Stockholm and brand new Tokyo themes are all mobile responsive with more themes to come very soon. If you’d like to test one of these out you can do so from the Website / Theme section of your admin account – http://admin.fotomerchant.com/theme You can also always change back to your current theme without losing any work!

      Steve.

  • Derek Clapham

    Just wanted to give everyone an update:

    4 months after releasing Fotomerchant 3, along with new pricing plans we’ve made some further changes.

    Firstly, we’ve completely removed the Digital storage and processing fee from the “Start”, “Grow” and “Streamline” plans. Most of our user base are on these plans and so this change affects nearly every single on of our Fotomerchant 3 users

    Secondly, we’ve been offering our existing Fotomerchant 2 customers a “Loyalty Special” for quite some time now and I wanted to remind people of this. Basically the “Streamline” plan is being offered at $240/year or $24/month (FOR LIFE) to all of our existing loyal customers. The “Streamline” plan is normally $336/year or $36/month.

    Fotomerchant 3 has moved forward in leaps and bounds over the past 4 months. We’ve released new templates, features and functionality that is only available in Fotomerchant 3 accounts. However, if you do wish to stay where you are that’s also fine. I just wanted to let everyone know what is going on and what’s changed.

    What’s new in FM3:
    * Tokyo responsive website theme: http://www.fotomerchant.com/introducing-tokyo-website-theme
    * Multi level navigation: http://www.fotomerchant.com/better-website-menu
    * Accept credit card payments on your website with Stripe: http://www.fotomerchant.com/introducing-stripe
    * Website metrics: http://www.fotomerchant.com/website-metrics-with-fotomerchant-3
    * Mobile friendly account interface: http://www.fotomerchant.com/new-mobile-friendly-account-interface
    * 1 Click embeddable contact forms: http://www.fotomerchant.com/forms-website-customisations

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