Kelly,

First, I’d like to say you and your team have made some really great improvements. Thank you!

As for the lessons to be learned – they are some of the basics of retail:

1. The ability to rearrange images is a simple component of visual merchandising. This is just as important, if not more so, for online retail as it is in a brick and mortar storefront. Whether you’re selling coats, or artwork, you never put two red ones side by side.

2. Quality and price – Thanks to you, we can control both of those factors.

3. Promotional efforts, and the metrics by which to gauge the effectiveness of those efforts – We absolutely NEED to know where our potential customers are coming from so we can react accordingly. We simply do not have the time to market blindly. That time is better spent on creating…

Kelly, I would really like to thank you for listening to our emails. I absolutely love your customer service staff! Keep up the great work!

Not only would it be nice to rearrange images, I would like to know if we can rearrange the galleries, I would really like some of the first galleries I uploaded to be seen on my page when it opens. I notice each time I make a new gallery my original galleries are pushed further and further back. It would be nice to allow us to choose which ones we want the public to see first, then they can “view all” if they notice that option.

Over all you are doing some great things for all of us I am happy to be a member and look forward to what comes next!
Regards,
~ willa

I would also like to commend you folks on the great job so far on the admin area redesign.

I would agree with the need to be able to rearrange the gallery order. Also I have been wondering why can’t the customer see all the galleries without having to click the view all. After all why are the people coming here… to see how many people like my work or to actually see my work.

Show my customers all my galleries and the full titles of those galleries!

Don’t make them click more than they have to or they are going to be off clicking somewhere else!

But don’t get me wrong… you are still doing a fine job!
What am I to say, my site is still in shambles!

Richard

I love the new improvements and look forward to the few adjustments.

Kudos to IK for all the success! I recently ordered a large selection of my prints for an exhibit, and was very pleased with the quality and the customer service, first rate! The show was a success – a big thank-you to everyone at IK for helping me achieve that.

I have one request – when the tech team has the chance – (I’m certain I’m not alone in this) – The “I would like to continue shopping” button from the shopping cart – takes clients to the main page of ImageKind – completely removing them from my galleries. I actively promote my site in hopes that clients will like and buy several of my prints at a time. I believe the clients I bring to my IK site should be returned to the gallery they just left – before their purchase. They have plenty of opportunities to go into the IK market place if they choose to do so without being redirected automatically after one purchase. Many of my pieces go together in pairs or groups, if the client is not returned to the page where the matching artwork is –I will lose that sale… I feel this is probably and oversite.

Thank you ImageKind for the wonderful support!
Savanna

I agree with Art Guy Richard – I’d like to see more galleries viewable on our Profile pages.

But the message of this email is really to say thanks to Team IK for being so responsive, and for being able to admit and adapt when they see they got some things a bit wrong. How many CEOs are able to admit openly they made an error and then immediately set their mind to putting it right? Not many, I don’t think…It takes a certain kind of company and a certain kind of CEO to be so open and responsive, and I for one am happy to work with people like that!

Kudos to Team IK!

Tanya

I wish I could tell you all how happy it makes me to get this kind of feedback. The whole team works really hard and we’re glad you notice.

No good idea will be turned away!

Keep them coming and thank you so much.

Kelly Smith
Imagekind CEO

I agree with Savanna – I think it is very important that the “Continue Shopping” button takes the shopper back to the gallery from where they just purchased a print, as opposed to the IK home page.

Just my two pennies’ worth (again!)

Tanya

First, I just want to say a big well done to team IK.

I can fully appreciate the need to change the underlying foundations of the admin area as an essential enabler for future new features and ease of maintenance.

The new mail system should encourage members to communicate with each other and stay in-touch and I look forward to the promised new forum.

Second, If you do implement any changes to the profile or gallery pages then please give as much control as possible to the individual member. For example allow the member to choose how many fans can be viewed and balance this against how many galleries are shown. There is spare real estate on the profile page on the right hand side (as can be seen from my own profile) and this could be allocated to both these areas.

Best of luck with the future updates and keep up the good work.

Dave (aka revad)

“No good idea will be turned away!”

What a great philosophy!

I only wish everyone had that attitude in all aspects of life…

I’m thrilled about this site. It sounds like you really listen to the member’s and that is amazing. Keep up the good work!

I really like the changes also, but you are right about taking away a tool that helps us.

On that note I would really like to see a more comprehensive sales report. I love how the stat report is all together, but the sales report has a bit of a disconnet.

I guess I would like to see both the item sold and which gallery on one page. Along with a break down of exactly what was sold such as name, size, framed, commission, actual sale price, etc. (anything that will help more)
There doesn’t need to be a picture of the item sold, but I do like that you included the person’s email address that ordered the product.

Thanks IK for everything so far, you’re doing a great job!

OK I am officially BLIND!

That wonderful report I suggested, already exsist. DAH!

I don’t get it, these are new glasses – lol !

Kevin,

Thanks for being so open to feedback. Since “No good idea will be turned away,” I have a couple of issues that, if fixed, would vastly expand your value and your market.

First, you need hierarchical organization so we can organize galleries under larger categories (like Collections in Flickr or Groups in Printroom). I photograph an annual chalk art show, and I have four galleries for each year. But I can’t create sets of galleries because your format doesn’t have that tool.

Further, I have several categories for which I would like to upload galleries, such as San Franicsco, Events, and California Coast. Without this one simple tool, I’m uploading four galleries for this year’s event. With it, I would upload scores of fine art photography in several categories. I suspect I’m not alone.

Second, your site advises that we write titles without spaces or special characters because they double as filenames used in URLs. Can you imagine book or article titles or newspaper headlines written without spaces, apostrophes or dashes? I can’t think of another online service that so severely constrains the format of titles. Even Web browser page titles accept spaces and special characters.

You need to make titles, meant for people to read, independent of filenames, meant for computers to read; the formats needed for effective communication are too different.

Third, these shortcomings collide in your FTP server. That too lacks hierarchical organization; I can’t even upload galleries as galleries – only individual image files in the same folder as THOUSANDS of others, listed alphabetically. So I must further write my image filenames with the same starting letters, or they will be scattered in the list, making it very difficult to confirm they uploaded – and harder for you to find them.

Again, imagine having to write all the article titles in a magazine starting with the same four letters! They simply aren’t titles in any meaningful sense. You need to sequester each user’s uploads so we can check them, and you can find them, at a glance.

Please take these suggestions in the spirit intended, Kevin. I love Imagekind’s unique capacity to make prints, mats and frames that maintain the proportions of the original file. No other online photo lab I have found comes close; you are the future. I want this to be my one and only online photo storefront.

But I can’t yet. So for now I will be uploading four galleries for one recent event. With these changes, I will add galleries for three past events, plus scores of galleries in half a dozen categories – with titles that inspire people to buy.