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Sitting on my sofa this evening, reading through some tips and tricks for selling photos for use in magazines, calendars, postcards and the like, my Photos That Sell book made a number of references to the Freelance Photographer's Market Handbook which gives details of publishers and publications that are on the lookout for photos to use.

Curious to find out more about the different ways to crack into the freelance photography market, I reached for my iPod touch and tapped out the address for Amazon into its Safari browser. Amazon had detected I was on an iPod (well, it thought it was an iPhone) and gave me a nice mobile interface to work with.

I found the book with ease and added it to my basket. Wondering what the minimum order was for free shipping, I went into their help section to try and find out. It was then that I noticed that they punish people for using their new mobile interface, stating 'All items ordered from your mobile device will be shipped standard shipping, unless you are an Amazon Prime customer.'

Why make it easier for customers to buy products from you but then not give them the shipping option that must have attracted them so more customers over the years? Admittedly, they do give the option to use their full site instead, but it's not as convenient on a mobile device.

In the end I resorted to using the laptop, so Amazon didn't lose the custom, but it would be nice if they'd give the free shipping option as part of their iPhone/iPod beta site.

Posted in Photography at 10:32 PM on Thursday 14 February 2008 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Amazon online shopping photography

Last night saw the launch of the new Smeale Farm Cottages website (first launched back in 2000), helping market a new holiday cottage that they recently opened.

The new site features an improved availability calendar that makes it both easier to maintain and easier for visitors to understand as well as the ability for the customer to edit any of the pages themselves whenever they want to change any of the information.

Also featured is a location map thanks to data from the OpenStreetMap project.

As you might expect, the website is built using the Drupal open source content management system with the addition of the image module, a customised version of the zen theme and a heavily customised availability module to drive the calendars.

I'm hoping to release this availability calendar module back to the community as a new module in the near future.

Posted in Drupal, Isle of Man, Web at 7:41 PM on Thursday 7 February 2008 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: Drupal Freelance Isle of Man