Inclusive price or sell up the client?
 

A wedding photographer I’ve known for years was talking with one of our video production competitors recently and asked him why he felt it necessary to have no less than six price/packages. “After all,” he said, “you put two cameras out on every wedding even the bronze and bronze plus starters.”

The video producer replied that in fact almost all his work was shot at the same level, and he edited and produced the programme to a higher spec than the client ordered, then sold it up at the first showing.

We all know how enthralled couples are at the first sight of their wedding video and human nature being what it is, very few were prepared to wait for him to provide the simpler, cut-down version they’d paid for and instead shelled out for the more expensive product.

Clearly it’s neither illegal nor, in the strict terminology, dishonest, but I do think it’s pretty shady. We offer a single price to cover all eventualities - the only extras clients can buy are more DVD copies if the five we include aren’t enough and Blu-ray authoring/production. We also include in our pack a comparison sheet so potential clients can add up the real cost of competitors' products.

But who’s the mug?

Figure out the price before.
 

The way we've always done it for the past 10 years is negotiate whatever coverage and options the couple wants prior to shooting. That way we have a known price point before beginnging.

Also, we offer the range of Coverage: rehearsal/dinner, pre-ceremony, ceremony and reception, and Crew: 1 man 1 camera up to 4 men and 4 cameras.

The only real options would be web video and extra DVDs.

I think that's an appaling thing to do, while 'upselling' a client to a larger package during the negotiation is common and makes good business sense - this is like blackmail - pay the extra or I'll give you the crappy version.