Selling images with Pixaria

Introduction

Pixaria includes built in tools for selling both digital images and physical products based on digital images. Digital image products are JPEG image downloads or files shipped on CD-ROM which while physical products are items such as prints, t-shirts or any other item that can be thought of as being derived from a physical product.

The ability to sell physical image products is only available in Pixaria Gallery version 1.2 or above.

How the store works

The Pixaria store is configured using the administration control panel built into the script. Settings in the store control panel allow you to configure your store in one of three different ways:

Quote by contents of cart

This setting allows your customers to add images to their cart, supply a single description of how the images will be used and submit the entire cart to the administrator to give pricing on the images. When the pricing has been supplied, the user is then able to make payment using PayPal, 2Checkout or offline payment such as a cheque or postal order.

Quote by images in the cart

This setting allows your customers to specify usage requirements for each individual image in their cart. They can then submit the cart to get a quote from the site owner before making payment using either PayPal, 2Checkout or offline methods.

Automatic price calculation

This setting works in conjunction with the price rules system built into Pixaria. It allows your customers to get a price for each image in their cart by selecting the way they are going to use the image from a selection of configurable drop down menus. An additional option allows you to enable quoting as well as automatic calculation if you wish to use this method as well. Once a cart has prices for all the images in it, the user is then able to make payment immediately without the intervention of the administrator.

Defining the store workflow

For Pixaria Gallery version 1.2, the store process was completely re-written to make it easier to use and to allow customers to price images and view details of physical image products without being signed in. The diagram below is intended to demonstrate how the store process works from the point where the user views purchase options to the point where the image is added to the cart:

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Created: Monday, September 18, 2006
Last edited: Sunday, November 4, 2007