The problem as I see it is that the market is so much smaller here
which means that higher prices need to be charged to make it viable.

[Posted & emailed]

Nifty! How long have you been offering this service? Boy, I really
could've used it a year ago, when I was shooting a couple of events a
week. One of the reasons I stopped doing it was that I couldn't figure
out any way of turning a profit on a kazillion requests for one or two
prints each, & I felt terrible about disappointing them.

If I were to take care of the programming side myself, from my site,
would you be at all interested in a setup (just thinking out loud
here), where my users could select their photo, etc, from my site,
which would then gateway them into your site for CC payment & postal
details?

Thanks Paul

I've found a few others too.

Croydon Camera House is starting one (in Melbourne), using central.onpix
Photocentral.com.au which seems well suited to high volume events people.
Stallards.com.au who also use the onpix system but it looks like they host it
themselves so they have a different cost structure to Croydon.
I've already mentioned progalleries.com.au a Fuji service.

Trying to figure out how their cost structure works in any given situation is
like comparing mobile phone contracts, or internet plans. Maybe they could
make an episode of "Numbers" out of it. LOL. Ultimately they are all
expensive services. Photocentral.com.au is quite cheap if you are a very high
volume user, but expensive if you are a low volume user!

I had a good look at buyaphoto.com.au and although the cost structure is
extremely simple, sreamlined and cheap for the photographer it results in a
relatively expensive service for customers purchasing prints. It looks like
the customer supports the service, not the photog. Maybe that's why they have
so many photogs and newspapers on their books. This doesn't help me as I need
the print wholesale prices to be reasonably low so as to maximise my own
profit whilst still keeping the cost down to a level that the customer is
willing to pay. Wedding photogs would probably have no issue with charging
$50 for a 6x4 or 5x7 but many events folks may be reluctant to charge more
than $10 to $20 (resulting in a low profit for the photog)  for the same
sized prints. Horses for courses I suppose.

I'm not really sure what I'm gonna do. Need to do the sums properly and see
how they stack up against each other.

JJ

Thanks Andrew. Is your site up or a work in progress. I'd love to have a look.
What software are you using to create the galleries, is it a package designed
for this?

Thanks
JJ