It’s two years since I bought a printer. I thought I would provide an update on running costs, print sales, and profit. I’m happy to be completely transparent about all this as I know it can be difficult to figure this out if you are thinking of creating your own printing business.
Oh, the reason why I do this from November to November is that the ski season runs December to April, and usually the most sales are during that period. Also I bought the printer in November 2022 so I’m just carrying on that way. You can find details from the previous year here.
All the photos here are work shot in the last eighteen months, I’ll cover this in a bit more detail below in the “Thoughts” section.
Year Two Investment
No investment this year, this was all done in year one and I haven’t had to upgrade any of the equipment. The running costs, in terms of print consumables, have been low (see “Costs” below). I didn’t need to buy any ink this year, which is perhaps a sign of how little I have been using the printer…
Income
Income is made up of sales through a local gallery that I am part of, along with web sales:
- 9,091.- CHF - sales through the gallery
- 525.- CHF - sales through web shop
- = 9,616.- CHF total income
Total income is up by about 40% compared to 2023. Gallery sales are up significantly, web shop sales are down.
Costs
I include the loan repayment here as that is an ongoing cost, I don’t include any of the original consumables (paper, ink, etc) as they were bought at the start as part of the loan:
- -4,058.- CHF - loan repayment
- -3,800.- CHF - rental cost of space in the gallery
- -1,500.- CHF - loan to the gallery
- -547.- CHF - print consumables (paper, maintenance cartridge)
- -2,110.- CHF - framing/mounting/postage
- -1,457.- CHF - commission to the gallery
- -300.- CHF - web shop subscription
- -20.- CHF - stripe / paypal fees
- 0.- CHF - advertising (none this year)
- = -13,792.- CHF total costs
Total costs are up by about 25% compared to 2023.
Total Profit (Loss)
- 9,616.- CHF total income
- -13,792.- CHF total costs
- = -4,176.- CHF total loss
Thoughts
An approx 4,000 CHF loss is, unfortunately, a bit more than expected. The loss is equivalent to the loan repayment amount so effectively net zero. In one more year the investment loan will be repaid and so that cost will be removed.
What this does highlight is that once the loan is repaid, if my sales continue at current levels I will only be little more than breaking even each year. This is due to the cost of space in and commission to the gallery. That’s a bit frustrating, and I need to significantly up the web sales to offset it, and those sales decreased this year. As the web hosting cost is 10% of the gallery rental space and there is lower commission taken on sales through the Stripe fee (approx 3.5%) the profit margin is higher.
However, the reality remains that a physical space is absolutely essential for getting the work out there and sold - just look at the figures, approx twenty times the amount of income than from the web sales.
And on the plus side the sales through the gallery are almost double the previous year, which is very good news as we had a very poor 2023 and we all had to put a loan in to cover the rent. We weren’t the only ones struggling, we have just found out that a gallery in another close ski village (Gstaad) closed last month.
I may contact galleries in other alpine resorts that I have photos from, assuming there are any remaining, and look to do a zero-rent-but-higher-commission contract if at all possible. Work selling at higher commission would be a net positive if the cost of the rental space is nothing.
Having to purchase a maintenance cartridge, the thing the printer dumps unused ink into, was somewhat of a surprise. It turns out if you turn the printer off completely (rather than just leave it on standby) it will run a clean cycle whenever you switch it back on. This wastes a lot of ink and, evidently, fills up the maintenance cartridge. I leave the printer on standby now, and never fully switch if off.
New Work / Old Work
I was commissioned to shoot a specific photo this year, and it would depend very much on the snow conditions. We were very lucky at the start of the season and I managed to shoot the photo, and two others. We got more good conditions at the new year and I shot one more photo. The rest of the season? Nothing.
The work I shot at the start of the season ended up contributing to about one third of my sales this year, so the importance of continually creating new work is pretty clear. It’s arguable that had that not been possible then existing work would have sold in its place, but I’m not so sure. These photos are specific viewpoints that I didn’t already have.
On the flip side - I shot quite a lot of new work in New Zealand the previous summer (their winter) but have not sold a single print from that trip. It’s all very specific to a place, and this is the case with the work shot in the village here. Images of The Matterhorn do sell, but in general buyers are looking for photos of areas they have visited and skied at.
So the work needs to appeal to someone’s interest, whatever that interest may be. And that’s where building up a body of work comes in. My existing “best sellers” contributed to over half of my sales this year. Other photos from the last several years of shooting make up the remaining sales.
The theory is that as the body of work continues to build it compounds, and when someone asks “do you have…” the answer is more likely to be “yes”.
Unless the question ends with “…this photo but in colour?”