FAA sale: HUGE discount?!

[KB]

I just had an FAA sale. It's not my first one there, but admittedly I haven't had many.

But it's the first one for which I did not receive my "markup" price. The FAA artist info page states:
The prices that you specify are exactly how much you'll earn when someone buys one of your prints.

Well, no. 

This was a large print sale, that shows this:
Normal Price: $192.00
Discount: $132.50

That's right, the price was discounted by 70%!!!!

I was supposed to make $170 profit, but instead I made $60. 

Has anyone heard of this happening before, and why?

PS - Are my prices too high?    $170 profit sounds ... high. I priced these awhile ago, based on a post by someone here, as I was clueless.

[Semmick Photo]

Wow, thats effed up. Are you sure? Never had a discount applied.

[Semmick Photo]

Dont you have a discount set up in your settings? Check your promotions.


http://fineartamerica.com/controlpanel/index.html?tab=promotions

[Freedom]

It doesn't make sense, since FAA claims to be your site and it is just a hosting service of your images.

However, I did notice small discrepancies from my own price, I thought it was due to my cropping of the original size.

[KB]

Dont you have a discount set up in your settings? Check your promotions.


http://fineartamerica.com/controlpanel/index.html?tab=promotions

Phew. I don't remember this page, so I was worried. But it states: "You do not have any active promotions." So, no, AFAIK I don't have a discount set up in my settings.

[KB]

It doesn't make sense, since FAA claims to be your site and it is just a hosting service of your images.

However, I did notice small discrepancies from my own price, I thought it was due to my cropping of the original size.

Ok, thanks. I'll shoot FAA an email and see what they have to say. I just wanted to make sure this wasn't a common occurrence that I somehow wasn't aware of.

[PaulieWalnuts]

Was it through DesignerPrints.com which is a FAA sister site?

[stockastic]

Are you opted in for their wonderful "designer" giveaway program - which lets them cut your markup down to almost nothing, for anyone they're calling a "designer"?

[KB]

stockastic & PaulieWalnuts win the prize! (Which, unfortunately, is nothing more than "thank you".)

I got a reply from FAA in less than 2 hours, telling me it was via DesignerPrints.com. I had forgotten about that program, but it says so right on the invoice ("Designer Prints"). I just didn't know what that meant.

They do claim "FOR DESIGN TRADE ONLY" and that "Membership is open to interior designers, corporate art buyers, and industry professionals who specify and purchase artwork for large-scale projects and/or resale.". I hope that they take that seriously, but obviously there might be some abuse.

[PaulieWalnuts]

I've had sales through Designer Prints and their buyers usually do purchase in quantity. The problem is they may be purchasing dozens or hundreds of prints but that's from FAA. They usually aren't purchasing hundreds of prints from me. They could purchase a hundred prints from a hundred different contributors and what each contributor sees is one sale with a 75% discount. Probably works great for the designer and FAA, not so much for the contributor.

I'm trying to move my prices upmarket so I've been thinking about opting out of this program. I've had some decent sales but also some head-scratchers like the example you gave KB. I get what they're doing by trying to attract large corporate purchases. Great idea but I think they need to scale back the discounts to the 10-40% range. Anything over 50% really is getting ridiculous. I'm not interested in massive discounts where I'm left making a dollar off of a handful of print sales.

[stockastic]

It works the same as the big microstock giveaways:  these are "sales you would otherwise not have gotten" and "you'll make it up on volume".  Except like PW said, it's FAA that gets the volume,  not the artist or photographer.  Note that the so-called designer is allowed to re-sell the work at any markup they choose.  So, essentially, you've given your payment to the "designer" in exchange for the joy of making a sale.  This lets FAA bring a new sales force online at no cost to themselves.

[PaulieWalnuts]

It works the same as the big microstock giveaways:  these are "sales you would otherwise not have gotten" and "you'll make it up on volume".  Except like PW said, it's FAA that gets the volume,  not the artist or photographer.  Note that the so-called designer is allowed to re-sell the work at any markup they choose.  So, essentially, you've given your payment to the "designer" in exchange for the joy of making a sale.  This lets FAA bring a new sales force online at no cost to themselves.

I've been contacted directly by quite a few designers and have really liked working with almost all of them. Some seem to be higher end consultants and have no problem paying what I'm asking. The better ones usually contact me first to get a ballpark idea of cost before going to their client with a price. Others seem to be more of an image house that works with businesses like hotels and expect massive discounts for prenegotiated deals. Either way, it usually doesn't make sense to spend time on high effort, low/no profit deals.

[Freedom]

I just went to the site to look at the scale of the discount. It ranges from 25%-90%. Wow!

I cannot tolerate as much as 50%, but 90%?

[stockastic]

I just went to the site to look at the scale of the discount. It ranges from 25%-90%. Wow!

I cannot tolerate as much as 50%, but 90%?

And since you've already agreed to take 10%, why would they ever give you 75%?