G'day folks

During a recent site upgrade, we transferred our photo storage and print handling to an offshore company, Smugmug.  Initially, we were told this would be seamless, and customers would be unlikely to notice the difference between local hosting and offshore.  Unfortunately, US prices, three week shipping and large postage rates made it very clear this wasn't going to work for our, or our customers needs.  Another downside is there was no way for us to handle the printing process, as everything had to be done in the US.  We should of researched this set up a whole lot better, and we would of realised it wasn't for us, but you live and learn.

We originally chose to host our images off site due to the large number of images we store (currently over 30,000 but soon to tip the 100,000 mark).  This large number of images was slowing our site dramatically, and costing us excess storage fees.  The decision to host our images on a third party site meant we could add images as we needed, without having to worry about slowing the site further, or blowing our budget.

After Smugmug proved it wasn't going to work, we turned over a few rocks and found Photo Merchant.  This is virtually the same deal, they host the photos etc, but with a few added extras we found appealing.  The first feature is self fulfilment, meaning when an order is placed, we can take the files to our local lab and get them printed the same day.  No more three week delays!  Other features we liked are the ability to search by car number, but the downside is we haven't keyworded the photos specifically enough, and searching for example for the number "6" brings up every car, kart,  bike and boat that has the number 6 on it.  Speedway files are in divisions, so searching for "amca 6" or "super sedan 6" narrows the results, but we will be addressing the keywording issues from now on as we upload.

Another great feature is the cash on delivery, cheque or direct deposit options.  This is great for those who don't have credit cards, or do not wish to place their card details online.  Simply follow the prompts. and we'll handle the rest.

It's been a learning curve for us, and we made a few mistakes, but we are confident we have found a happy medium, and the viewing and ordering process will be a whole lot simpler.  At this stage, only the speedway, karting and drags galleries have switched over, and all future galleries will be under the new system.  As time allows, we will migrate the other older galleries.

Thanks for your patience in all this, we've tried to make it as painless as possible, but banged our funny bone in the middle of it. 

Cheers

Angryman Photography Team