If you’ve been considering transitioning your photography business from mainly digital-based to IPS (in-person sales), you may be struggling to let go of the digitals and asking yourself, Should I sell digitals in IPS?

While many IPS photography educators will tell you that you shouldn’t provide digitals at all, some have different opinions on the matter.

Ok, so…SHOULD I sell digitals?

As I mentioned before, many IPS educators are dead set against selling digital images. Really, when it come to offering digital images in your IPS photography business, you have a few options, and each of the have pros and cons.

Don’t sell digitals, no matter what.

The idea here is that a digital is not a finished product and, as a luxury photographer, you shouldn’t be giving away an unfinished product. On top of this, these educators believe selling digitals will keep your clients from purchasing artwork and leaves money on the table for you.

Pros: All your clients end up with gorgeous artwork, every time. If they love an image, they print it, leaving you with very high sales.

Cons: We live in a digital age. People who are willing to spend on artwork very often still want digital copies as well. Also, people may not have the space or purpose or all the images they love and will leave some favourites behind instead of printing them. Because of these two reasons, you’re likely to get a lot of pushback from your clients.

Sell digitals as an add-on to their artwork option

The idea here is to only sell digital copies of the artwork clients purchase, and to make it an add-on to their artwork. So, if they want the digital copy, they can have it for a fee. However, they are unable to purchase additional digital images without the artwork purchase.

Pro: Similar to above, your clients have to purchase artwork for the images they love, which leads to very high sales. Sales here may even be higher if your digitals are priced correctly, as people will add these digitals to their already large orders.

Con: Similar to the above, people who love and are willing to spend on artwork often still want to be able to purchase digitals, so you may get some pushback.

Only allow digital purchases after a certain amount has been spent

Many IPS photographers choose to offer digital images or packages if a client spend a minimum amount on printed artwork. This gives clients the option to purchase digital images, but also ensures high sales.

Pros: Again, ensures your minimum is met and you have high sales before people add digital images. It also entices people to spend more on their art in order to access the digital images.

Cons: There really aren’t many as long as you are marketed correctly and consistently finding very high end clients who are happy to spend lavishly. If not, this can scare away customers who would still spend well but can’t reach the minimum required for digitals.

Allow clients to purchase digitals without an art purchase

You can be an IPS photographer and have digitals be an item on your pricing menu. While I recommend having a robust system in place that educates your clients on why artwork is the end goal, you can offer digitals separately from artwork, without a minimum spend and still make great sales.

Pros: Clients love having digitals images, so this can lead to happier clients and still high sales as many clients add digital images to their artwork purchase.

Cons: You may be leaving some money on the table by not requiring they purchase a minimum before accessing digital images.

To let you know how I feel on the topic, I do sell digital packages. I personally haven’t found it affects my art sales and most clients add them to an artwork order. In fact, twice last year, I’ve had clients purcahse my largest album, and then add a full digital gallery to their album, leading to $8,000 family sessions. Does this mean they would have spent more if I didn’t offer them or only offered them after a minimum sale? Maybe. But in all likelihood, probably not. So many clients fall in love with more images than they can put on their walls or fit in an album.

If you want to sell digitals in your IPS photography business, they key to doing it successfully is doing it strategically.

How do I strategically sell digitals in my IPS business?

Well, the key here is to make sure your digitals aren’t so cheap that it doesn’t make sense to purchase artwork, and also not to offer a package that doesn’t meet your goal minimum spend. Ensure they are prices per image similarly to things like albums and other artwork collections to ensure clients don’t skip on the artwork.

Is pricing confusing you? Check out my How to Price your Products for Profit mini course!