Willy - we looked into customer cropping at our first incarnation of software design.
Two problems:
- time at the viewstation
- education
For them to utilize this editing ability - most will need to be taught, and then they will play, tinker and screw it up enough to start over several times that you need more staff for support and now that customer has used up 15 minutes of viewstation time - limiting other customers to place orders.
If you have the staff and viewstations to support your customer flow - then by all means get them to do the work. Out of 100,000+ prints we've delivered in the past 7 years, I can only think of about 3-4 prints we reprinted because we cropped it wrong.
Otherwise, if your volume dictates that you want people on/off your stations as efficiently as possible, then they need a simple interface, limited options and easy checkout - leaving the printing to the professionals: you.
Hammy, I have not set up any of this gear for on-site viewing or ordering but need to soon for a gymnastics meet in February. I think we will need a minimum of 2 shooters to try and cover all four stations for the girls events. Would you recommend any system or components to set up a minimum of 4 viewing stations. I'm assuming I would need at least 2 more staff members to load images and handle questions/sell.
For gymnastics, I've never put more than one person covering an aparatus at a time. Depending on the format or judging, it can go pretty fast for one event, much less trying to cover another event.
And depending on what level you're covering, there isn't much to some routines: i.e. lower level bars and vault - compared to beam and floor.
Most importantly is the organization of images. If you don't have image sorted by name at the viewstations, you'll tank in viewstation time per customer, their frustration and sales.
Think folders.
Folders on the 1-series are your friend! Use one per gymnast - then when downloading, rename folders and put them under the appropriate session, level, gym, etc... To match up folders, you have to get the competition order from the judging stand (unless they happen to take a specific order without change - which is rare)
# viewstations - depends on your customer flow - which dictates your workflow. You need to have images available when they stop by your booth - organized and ready to buy. If you have a system that can find, order and checkout images quickly, you can get by with lessor viewstations - but generally people will not wait for an open station - they have awards to go to, Dad has to get home to watch the game, Billy has to go potty, etc... The more you have, therefore making it easier for people to look at pix, the more you will sell.
As far as staff at the booth? Totally depends on your software solution. From ingesting images off of cards to selling to checking out. I don't have any experience with other software - ours is home grown and can download dozens of competitors images from several shooters at one time with a single click of the mouse. Images start showing up at viewstations 30 seconds later and all customers have to do is put in their gymnast number or name to find images. I have one cashier (sometimes my 9 or 13 year old daughter) to take money and answer any questions that the viewstations don't.
And it totally depends on your sales model also - do you want to punch out images to the masses on CD like I do for a decent price, or sell high end posters and collages which require extra staff to upsell and close.
