SELL PRINTS
NO INVENTORY

buyer pays you (your site or a marketplace)
  → order goes to the lab with your full-res file
  → lab prints, packs, ships to the buyer
  → you keep the difference between price and lab cost

You never buy stock. The lab charges you per order for the print and the shipping, and you set the retail price. Your job is the parts a lab can't do: good photos, files that print well, prices that make sense, and getting people to the shop.

There are two kinds of places to sell, and it matters which is which:

• Places where the sale happens on your checkout: your own site. Highest margin, and you own the customer.
• Marketplaces where the sale has to happen on their checkout: Etsy and similar. You pay their fees, and you get their search traffic. Etsy won't let you send buyers to your own checkout, but it does let a lab fulfil orders behind the scenes.

Everything else (Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit) is a billboard that links back to one of those.

I use Prodigi. What I looked for, and what you should check with any lab:

• An API with a sandbox, so your site can get quotes and place orders automatically, and you can test without real money.
• A quote endpoint that returns the print cost and shipping for a size and a destination. This is what keeps your margins honest.
• Labs in more than one country. Printing close to the buyer means cheaper, faster shipping and no customs surprises.
• The products you want: fine art paper to start, then framed, canvas and others later.
• Marketplace connections. Prodigi connects to Etsy natively, so the same lab can fulfil both your site and an Etsy shop.

Before you sell anything, order a few samples to yourself. You can't judge paper or frame quality from a product page.

• Make it opt-in, photo by photo. On my site nothing is for sale until I tick a box on that photo. Defaulting everything to "for sale" means you'll eventually sell something you shouldn't.
• Skip photos with recognizable people unless you have a release that covers selling prints. I only sell photos where nobody is identifiable.
• Client photos are not stock. If someone paid you for a shoot, those photos aren't going in your shop.
• Pick photos that hold up big. A photo that works as a phone-sized post can fall apart on a wall. Sharp, simple, strong light.

The lab prints whatever file you send. Send it the full-resolution export (I use full quality sRGB JPEGs), never the web version from your gallery.

The rule I use: only offer a size if the file has at least 200 pixels per inch at that size for paper and metal. Canvas is more forgiving, so I use 150 there.

size      pixels needed at 200 ppi
8x12      1600 x 2400
12x18     2400 x 3600
16x24     3200 x 4800
24x36     4800 x 7200

Store each master's width and height, and let your shop work out which sizes each photo qualifies for. Then a small file automatically offers only small prints.

Only offer print sizes that match the photo's shape. Then the buyer gets exactly what they saw, with no surprise crop.

3:2 (most cameras)   4x6 · 8x12 · 12x18 · 16x24 · 24x36
4:3 (phones, some)   6x8 · 9x12 · 12x16
4:5 (portrait crop)  4x5 · 8x10 · 16x20

Group your sizes into families by ratio and give each photo the family it matches, within a small tolerance. Show the buyer a preview of the print at the chosen size and frame.

• Fine art paper. Start here. Cheap to make, cheap to ship flat or rolled, and it looks good.
• Framed. Where much of the profit and the wall appeal are. Also the heaviest and most expensive to ship, so watch the margin by country.
• Canvas and float-framed canvas. Popular with people decorating a room. Add once paper and framed are working.
• A cheaper poster tier. Gives people an easy yes and a lower entry price.

Launch with two or three sizes of paper and one framed option. Every product you add is more to test, price and support. You can always add more once something sells.

Work out what you actually pay per order, then price to the margin you want. I aim for roughly 40 to 50 percent after every cost.

landed cost = print + shipping + any tax the lab charges you
              + card fee (a few percent plus a fixed fee)

price = landed cost / (1 - target margin), then round

$30 landed, 45% margin → 30 / 0.55 = $54.55 → $55

• Check the lab's tax line. My lab charges me sales tax on each production order because I'm the buyer on record. It's a real cost; see whether a resale certificate removes it where you live.
• Round prices. $55 reads better than $54.55.
• Check margin by country. Shipping varies a lot by destination. I block any product and country combination that would fall under about 30 percent.

Pull print cost and shipping from the lab's quote API instead of copying numbers into a spreadsheet. Prices and shipping rates change, and a quote that was right in spring can quietly eat your margin by fall.

• Re-run quotes for every product and your main countries every few months, and after any lab price change.
• Paper shipping is often close to flat per shipment, so extra paper prints in one order are cheap to ship. Framed shipping usually goes up with every piece.
• If your lab offers a budget shipping option for some countries, compare it. A cheaper option on small paper prints can lift margin a lot.

Because paper shipping barely grows with quantity, multi-print orders are where margin gets better. I offer:

paper prints only
3+ prints   15% off
5+ prints   20% off
10+ prints  25% off

Framed is excluded because frame shipping grows per piece. Enforce the discount on your server, not just in the cart display, so it can't be faked.

Sets help people buy more than one: a named group of photos that belong together (a city, a series, one trip). Let the buyer pick three or more from the set in one size. Sets also make good pitches for businesses decorating a space.

1. Run the whole flow in test mode against the lab's sandbox: pay, confirm the order arrives at the lab, confirm the buyer email.
2. Then place one real order to your own address.
3. Look at the print in daylight next to your screen. If it comes back darker or warmer than you expected, the usual cause is a screen that's too bright and not calibrated, not the lab.

Keep your proof prints. They're useful for showing to people in person and for checking color when you add a new paper or lab.

You need a shipping and returns page and a contact page before you connect any shopping platform. Pinterest rejected my merchant application until I had both, linked from the shop and every product page.

What mine says, in short:

• Prints are made to order, so no returns for change of mind.
• Damaged, defective, wrong or lost: a free reprint or a full refund, and the buyer doesn't send anything back.
• A claim window (mine is 30 days), how fast I reply, and typical transit times from the lab.
• Contact through a form, not a published email address, which just gets spammed.

Sales tax: prints are physical goods. In the US most states tax them, and many only require you to register once your sales pass a threshold. Digital downloads are often treated differently. Look up your state's rules, and ask an accountant if you're unsure. This guide isn't tax advice.

• Your own site. The hub, the highest margin, and the cheapest place to buy. The photo site guide covers building it.
• Etsy. The sale has to finish on Etsy, but the lab can fulfil it. I price Etsy a bit higher than my own site to cover their fees, which keeps my site the best deal.
• Shopping feeds. Instagram and Facebook Shops, Pinterest, TikTok and Google Shopping all take a product catalog generated from your shop.
• Billboards. Pinterest pins, reels, Reddit, curated sites. Link back to the product page; don't lead with "buy my prints."
• Local businesses. Restaurants, offices, short-term rentals and designers buy several prints at a time, which is exactly where bulk pricing pays off.