What would you ask your print buyers ?

[QT Luong]

I am preparing a survey and was thinking about the following questions:

"Globally, how satisfied were you with the quality of the print ?
Composition.
Print color.
Print sharpness.
Order process and communication.
Shipping and packaging.
For which use did you purchase the print ?
How important for you was it that the print be signed by hand ?
how important for you was it that the print be numbered ?
Would you have prefered to be able to order the print matted or framed ? "

Anything else you would ask your customers ?

[Ben Chase]

I'm not sure what value you'd be getting out of asking about the composition. If I'm buying someone's print, I already think it's an outstanding photograph, otherwise I wouldn't be purchasing it. Maybe I'm not seeing what you're getting at with that question...

In addition to what you've included, you could ask about the quality of the printing material (canvas, Fuji Crystal Archive, etc). I've had some people purchase prints from me, and insist they were a specific paper type as opposed to what I normally use.

[Andrew O'Neill]

You pretty much covered it but I don't think I would ask them about print colour or sharpness. Personally I think it's interesting that photographers number their prints...that comes from printmaking. Printmaking plates (especially wood blocks), gradually break down as the number of prints pulled from them increases. It is best to get a print that was pulled early in the edition. Why do you number your prints?

[Ed Richards]

I would also skip the question about sharpness - like composition, that is integral to the photo, unless you are trying to find out if they were pleased with the print after seeing it on the WWW. In that case, I would go directly for the info: Did the WWW give you an accurate idea of what the print looked like?

[Rory_5244]

And, of course, I personally hate filling out surveys.

[Sheldon N]

I'd say stay far away from doing surveys.

It takes what for many people was an aesthetic decision - one based on their appreciation of the beauty in your photograph or of you as a photographer artist - and removes all the romance. No longer is their print about some emotion or beauty or expression - now it is a calculated contrived response to opinion surveys.

I know this doesn't reflect the reality of how you work, but it's how it would likely come across on a gut level for a fine art print buyer.

If you want to survey their overall business experience, ease of ordering from the web, or other thing related to their purchase process that would be fine. But don't conduct a survey on the art itself.

[Capocheny]

Hi QT,

About the only question I'd pose is one which asks whether they'd recommend your images to their friends or not.

If the answer is yes... they like your image and that's why they're buying your image.

If the answer is no... they probably wouldn't be buying your print in the first place.

Whichever route you decide to go... personally speaking, I'd definitely leave the question of composition, color, and quality out of the equation.

But, that's just my two cents worth.

Cheers

[robc]

instead of asking people who have already bought images and represent only a small fraction of site vistors, why not ask visitors to your site what they are looking for when they visit your site and which attributes of an image are the most important to them.

A popup screen for every nth visitor perhaps. This is something I have seen quite a lot in sites wishing to get user feedback on the site and what it offers.

[Jim Jones]

I would not inflict a survey on a customer. The most sincere feedback from the customer is the purchase of the photo. Much more useful feedback could be obtained from the many who didn't purchase anything. Surveying that critical group would really turn them off.

[N Dhananjay]

[QUOTE=Sheldon N;197652]I'd say stay far away from doing surveys.

It takes what for many people was an aesthetic decision - one based on their appreciation of the beauty in your photograph or of you as a photographer artist - and removes all the romance. No longer is their print about some emotion or beauty or expression - now it is a calculated contrived response to opinion surveys.


Just to add something to this notion. There is research done by Tim Wilson (among others) which would support such a notion - see, for e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/29/op...rssnyt&emc=rss. In a long research program, he finds that asking people to articulate reasons for a choice actually lessens eventual satisfaction. For example, students get to choose a poster for their room, but some of them are asked to consider the reasons for their choice. Surveying their satisfaction with their poster choice at a later point in time shows that those who contemplated reasons for their choice are actually less satisfied. Its probably to do with the fact that contemplating such things focuses you on very cognitive kinds of things, stuff that can be articulated, whereas the spontaneous reaction includes many affective/emotional reactions that are more difficult to articulate.

Cheers, DJ