For Dealers: General Info
We have a list of partners who offer fulfillment services on our platform. Some of these are strictly fulfillment/production companies, some are content providers and some are retail photofinishers who are offering a selection of products they produce for other retailers to offer. All catalogs are available online and on kiosk via the PF@Kiosk feature. You can find the complete list of Marketplace Partners here: https://www.photofinale.com/marketplace/. To start offering one of these Marketplace Partners' catalogs of products, contact the partner. They will get you signed up with an account on their end, then they will notify us that you have been approved to offer their catalog of products. We will grant your PF account access to their catalog, and send you an email with instructions.
For Dealers: Adding the Products
- Import the whole catalog: In Lab 50, go to the supplier's catalog (Product Catalog, left sidebar at the bottom), enable everything. Go to your default catalog, right-click and choose Import Supplier Catalog, then click through to the desired catalog. ** This will copy all of the groups and products into your catalog. Before you import, compare your default catalog's existing group structure to ensure it does not match the supplier's, as this will cause an issue. If there is a conflict, rename your groups or add products another way.
- Pepper in the new products: You can use Lab 50 or myLab for this method. Navigate to the group where you want the product, click Add Product and find the fulfiller's product and add it.
These methods are shown in this video: - Cover your wholesale and shipping costs:
- The suppliers generally include an MSRP, good product name and clear description...but not always! Please make sure to check each product you are offering for correct pricing. You should communicate shipping cost and terms as part of the product name, group and/or description. For ease of setup, we recommend that you include the shipping cost in with the price of the item. You can also set up shipping groups, flat base rates, and pricing by weight...check out the page on Shipping for other options.
- You and the supplier should agree on wholesale prices, shipping costs and terms, delivery terms, return policy and invoicing terms prior to the supplier requesting us to grant you access to the catalog. Photo Finale is not party to your agreements. Our % fee is the same off of these products as it is with all your other online offerings. Be sure you factor this in to your costs.
For Dealers: Operations
- Collect payment! You cannot require payment specifically for third party products, but you can require payment for all online orders or all online orders over a certain amount. We highly recommend you set this–to set, in Lab 50, go to: Store Management > Application Settings > Order tab. If you offer shipping but have no payment requirement, you won't get paid for the product.
- Delivering the order: You should discuss shipping options and how you are charged for shipping with your supplier. There are a number of ways to deliver the order.
- Ship to store: Some suppliers only ship back to the store (oftentimes they group and ship weekly for cost savings) for pickup even if the consumer selected "mail" so it is up to the retailer to ship it out...if you desire this option, you must clarify with the supplier.
- Consumer choice: You can offer your standard in-store and/or mail just like you probably do for your in-house products. But, keep in mind you need to communicate the delivery time will be longer for these items than ones you produce in-house, and, because the supplier still has to ship the item to you, there is still a shipping cost to cover.
Force mail delivery of third party products: Using myLab's "Store Location Product Fulfillment" setting you can set a store location to only allow pickup of certain items. Any products that are not included in the fulfillment settings will be forced as a shipped order. To set this up, in myLab, navigate to Store Management > Store Locations > select the location > select the product fulfillment tab you will see where to set this up. Essentially every single item that should be available for in-store pickup will need to be included in the product fulfillment section. If a store has multiple locations this will need to be done for each location. Any items left off the fulfillment list will be force shipped.
- Consumer expectations: Most retailers offer a mix of in-house and third-party-fulfilled products. There is not a setting to communicate various delivery times based on products, so you must handle this some way, so your customers know what to expect. We have seen some good communications by retailers including:
- Included a note in the product group and/or modify the product group icon. Ex: One group called “In-store Books: 3 days” and a second named “Specialty Books: 7-10 Days.”
- Edit your Order Confirmation email with a note on varying delivery times.
- Include details in the product name and/or description.
- Who ordered what?
- You will see the product come through your Lab 50 and you can run a report to see products your customers have ordered from your suppliers. myLab.photofinale.com > Reports > Online - Line Item Status by Supplier
Lab 50 display
myLab Report
View an excel Sample Retailer Report
For Suppliers: General Info
Contact Photo Finale to get started on our platform. We have a large library of products you can offer to start, and can work with you to add your custom products. When a dealer contacts you, we recommend that you both agree on wholesale prices, shipping costs and terms, delivery terms, return policy and invoicing terms prior to the supplier requesting us to grant you access to the catalog. Photo Finale is not party to your agreements. Our % fee is the same off of these products as it is with all the dealer's other online offerings. Once you have set them up, let us know via an online form. We take about 2 business days to grant them access to your catalog.
We maintain a list of partners on our website and request logo, 1-line summary, email, phone, delivery region and a link to your product catalog (website or pdf). https://www.photofinale.com/partner-programs/marketplace/
For Suppliers: Product Catalog Changes
You are responsible for communicating about changes to your catalog going forward, and about your holiday ordering deadlines. You are free to offer incentives, specials, sample kits and marketing programs. Once your catalog is shared to a dealer, they have a copy of it and may alter it (although cannot print the items locally). This means that any price changes or product additions/deletions you make in your master catalog will not be pushed out to the dealers who offer your catalog. You should maintain a good line of communication so that you are able to tell them when things change. Most often, you will have a new product or set that you will add...we can help with the directions retailers will need to add your new products to their websites.
For Suppliers: Collecting Orders
Just as with a photofinishing dealer, orders for you to fulfill are collected in Lab 50 and reports are accessible via myLab
.
This Lab 50 is from a photofinisher who is also a supplier to other dealers. The highlighted order and the two above it are from other dealers who offer her catalog and the rest of the orders are from her own customers using her website.
For Suppliers: Invoicing
Invoice terms and what wholesale and shipping costs are owed, are between you and the dealer, but if you need a record of what dealers' customers have ordered, use the myLab > Report > Online – Catalog Subscriber Line Item Detail which can be run for a settable timeframe and exported in a variety of formats.
For Suppliers: Best Practices
We will share that catalog out and the other dealer will import it… so whatever you put in is what they will get, and in those groups with all the details along with it. These are changes usually made:
- Pricing—MSRP and wholesale
- Product names, descriptions, images
- Category images, descriptions
Other notes:
- If there is a turnaround stated, for example, you may want to remove that from a description since it will be different for the other dealer. Or, anything that may detail your dealer name (except for the one top level category, that is the only spot you need your name/logo and it’s not used on the dealer’s site.
- A supplier catalog cannot have any disabled products or categories. If you have groups or products you do not want to offer for wholesale, or aren’t ready yet, please delete. If you have a linked photo cover category which would normally be disabled in a dealer catalog must be enabled in the supplier catalog.
- If you decide to discontinue or need to temporarily remove a product (due to inventory, for example) we have a way to do that across all dealers you supply, we just need the product info (product name, ID, and database ID).
- SHIPPING. This is always a tough one to sort out. The shipping settings that are in the dealer catalog are what gets applied. So you need to make sure to communicate to the dealer how you want to do shipping so that they can set it up to appropriately cover costs. Shipping for their customer may be different that what you actually charge the dealer, so just as long as you are clear on terms and fees and that your shipping settings in the supplier catalog do not carry through. For this reason, some dealers include shipping in the product msrp and wholesale.