A place for you to learn, get inspired, and keep up to date with all things SmugMug and photography
We're thrilled to bring you this month's updates, all designed to make your experience smoother, faster, and more engaging! From a streamlined receipts page to exciting improvements in our mobile apps, we’ve been working hard to make sure you have the best tools at your fingertips. Let’s dive in!
Seamless folder sign-ups for gallery pre-releases.
We heard you! Now, you can share a single pre-release link for an entire folder, not just for a gallery. This enables attendees to explore and register for multiple galleries. Connecting with your audience has never been easier, by allowing them to sign up to view galleries as you create them. Check out all of the details in this article.
A faster, more intuitive buying experience.
Selecting images and products is now smoother than ever! We’ve combined these steps into one simple screen, reducing friction in the purchasing process and making it easier for customers to get what they want in just a few clicks.
A sleeker, more efficient receipts page.
Navigating your receipts just got easier! We’ve updated the design to provide a cleaner, more intuitive layout with faster response times. Plus, if you're a Source customer, you can now see your storage usage directly on this page—because staying informed should be effortless! Visit your Account Settings to check out the updates.
With version 4.12.6, we’ve made some small but meaningful refinements to optimize your experience. We’ve fixed an issue where the search bar didn’t close properly after selecting a result, ensuring a smoother, more seamless experience.
In version 4.12.7, we focused on improving discoverability and user experience. To help you get the most out of our bulk keyword editing feature, we’ve added a banner that makes it easier to find and use this option. Tapping the banner now walks you through the process with a helpful interactive slideshow. We’ve also refined navigation by ensuring Assistants no longer see an inactive delete option, reducing confusion. Plus, we fixed an issue where the shopping cart sometimes disappeared when searching for more photos—so now, your checkout process is smoother and frustration-free.
Version 4.11.0 brings a fresh new look with an edge-to-edge design for the galleries and photos tabs. With this update, we’ve optimized screen space by allowing content to extend behind a transparent status bar, creating a more immersive browsing experience for you. We’ve also improved video-sharing compatibility across more apps, making it easier to share your moments seamlessly. Plus, we’ve made behind-the-scenes enhancements to lay the groundwork for future updates—because we’re always working to bring you the best experience possible.
With version 4.11.1, we expanded casting capabilities. Now, you can cast photos and videos from private galleries—including hidden photos—giving you even more control over how you share and view your memories. We’ve also fixed a transparency issue with the app bar when viewing folders on a TV, ensuring a clearer and more polished viewing experience.
We tackled several issues to keep everything running smoothly:
We’re giving you a powerful new way to build excitement and drive sales with Gallery Sign-Ups! Now, before an event even begins, you can create buzz by sharing a link or QR code to the gallery's pre-release page on social media, event websites, or in person. Visitors sign up to be the first to know when photos go live—building anticipation and guaranteeing eager buyers. The moment your gallery is ready, you can send out an email notification, bringing customers straight to your store. Less waiting, more sales!
Why let customers miss out on your amazing deals? Coupon Banners make your promotions impossible to ignore by automatically displaying them at the top of your galleries. No more manually sending reminders or custom website tweaks—this feature does the work for you by creating a sense of urgency and turning your browsers into buyers!
Smarter, smoother workflows are here! We want your uploads to be frustration-free, so we reduced unnecessary alerts for Assistants, and simplified keyword management with cleaner tagging and multi-word support.
We strive for your mobile experience to be smooth and effortless to organize! Instantly spot RAW files with a new badge, get clearer upload feedback with detailed explanations, and enjoy a crash-free app while managing your galleries.
Seamless uploads, your way—stay connected effortlessly and take full control over duplicates with smart handling options!
This month, we’ve got a suite of improvements aimed at improving your buyers’ experience (and ultimately helping you make more money).
Our main focus is on supercharging your photos and your photo business, and this month, we’ve made two major strides to do just that. We’re continuing to invest in areas that will help you increase sales, interact with your customers more easily, and manage your business more effectively.
We have an unrelenting commitment to addressing problems that impact you and your customers. Here’s a list of the issues we resolved this month:
We’re always looking for new ways to power the business of photography. In the coming year, there are six key areas we’re focusing on that should give you and your business some jet fuel. Here’s what to look forward to in 2024 and 2025:
We consistently hear that capitalizing on recency and emotion is key to maximizing sales after a photo event. That’s why we’re planning to offer additional ways for you to upload and deliver faster. Whether it’s utilizing new technology like our recent integration with Fujifilm that allows you to upload to SmugMug straight from your camera, or improving the efficiency of your post-shoot workflow, our goal is to help you get your photos in front of your clients as fast as possible.
Marketing is more than just getting people in the front door (or to your homepage), and we’ve got some exciting developments in the works to help you keep your customers coming back for more. First on that list is our recent addition to the shopping experience: When your customers leave an unpurchased item in their shopping cart, we’ve built a helpful reminder email that’s currently driving up to 30% more sales. Next up: we’re working on solutions to increase your average order value (AOV) and let you engage more consistently with customers before, during, and after their shoot.
It’s hard to go anywhere these days without engaging in or overhearing a conversation about AI. Its rapid development is causing this exciting new technology to become foundational in our everyday lives. AI has many relevant applications in the photography world. One very clear example is in image recognition. As a customer arriving at a photo gallery with hundreds, sometimes thousands of images, finding the photos they’re most interested in can be a challenge. That’s why we’re planning new ways to help your customers quickly take advantage of AI and image recognition to find their photos in seconds, which leads to more sales for you.
We’ve already made some large strides in this area in the past year with a modern update to the product selection flow, improving your customer’s access to Packages and Gallery Downloads, providing the ability to purchase Packages on mobile devices, and partnering with a new print lab, Fujifilm. Planned future updates include support for even faster payment for customers via Apple Pay and Google Pay.
It should come as no surprise that in the world of photography, digital is now king. This doesn’t just refer to cameras - digital downloads are far-and-away the most popular purchase option now as customers seek more flexible ways to buy and share photos. Digital files present ease of sharing, flexibility for printing, and a low footprint way to preserve memories for a lifetime. Knowing this, there are a number of ways we plan to improve the experience related to the fulfillment of downloads. When someone downloads a photo from you, it should be easy and fast, no matter what device they’re on.
Understanding sales data can be crucial for growing your business. With over 20 years of sales data and experience under our belt, we plan to provide you more comprehensive insights. The goal is to empower you to make informed decisions, invest wisely in your business, identify profitable niches and optimize pricing strategies - all to ensure you maximize your revenue.