|
Eppic Surf Creates an Instant Marketplace and Gallery for Surfing Photographers |
|
|
|
|
Written by Branimir Kvartuc
|
|
Monday, 25 June 2007 |
|
Worldwide community flocks to website built upon selling pictures
HERMOSA BEACH, Calif. (June 24, 2007) – It was a simple idea tried by many a photographer: Sit on the sand, take pictures of people riding the waves and sell the photos.
But technology turned the idea into Eppic Surf, a Website where
hundreds of highly skilled photographers are put in touch with
thousands of potential customers in the form of surfers, magazines and
companies.
The twist is that the photos - posted and fully owned by the shooters - have attracted a loyal following of those involved in the surf culture, the way Surfing and Surfer magazines did in the ’60s and ‘70s. The difference is that today this community, spread across the world’s beaches, can commune with the ease of a mouse click and show each other who caught the gnarliest wave.
Eppic Surf will do for photographers what MySpace has done for musicians – create a marketing vehicle with a readymade base of customers in a place they choose to congregate. Eppic Surf takes the model one step further by giving photographers a way to sell their products to the community.
Launched June 1, 2007, there are already more than 500 surfers and 150 photographers have joined as the site is getting 100,000 hits per day.
Each photographer gets a "storefront," where they can create galleries of photos for sale as prints and licenses. Eppic Surf takes the order, makes the print and delivers the image to the customer. The photographer gets 85% of the markup.
For example when a customer orders an 8X10 photo, Eppic Surf charges the photographer $3 for the actual print. The photographer is free to set his own price, but that size generally costs $25. This means that the markup is $22. Eppic Surf keeps 15% - about $4 – while the rest goes to the photographer, about $18. Eppic Surf has the ability to deliver prints to customers anywhere in the world, regardless of where the photographer or the buyer lives.
The Images don’t just live on a photographer’s page. Surfers can instantly move the photos of themselves or others with one click to their own profiles, giving themselves and the photographers more exposure. Then anyone who visits their page can buy the photo with one click. Yet the image always remains attached to the photographer and so does the profit.
The top five photographers - ranked by the number of page views and the number of photos moved to other pages - are featured on the front page. The most popular surfers also are featured on the front page. Every members’profile includes a blog, comment section, video and private internal message system.
“It’s like a living museum of daily happenings in the surf world, except you can communicate with everybody,” said company founder Branimir Kvartuc, a professional photographer and amateur surfer in Hermosa Beach, Calif.
Kvartuc, whose work has appeared in the New York Times and Rolling Stone, created the concept in 2003. He was working for a newspaper when a colleague he admired, Sports Illustrated photographer V.J. Lovero, told him that shooters were selling images on photo-printing Web sites.
Living two blocks from the beach, Kvartuc grabbed his camera and a long lens and started spending mornings watching the waves before work. He’d photograph surfers, then hand them a card with the Web address where they could see the photos.
“They were going there and they were digging it,” Kvartuc said. “A few hours after they surfed, there were professional pictures of them online.”
Not only were surfers using the pictures to get sponsors’ attention, magazines started contacting Kvartuc, seeking rights to use the images in ads.
A business light bulb went on in Kvartuc’s head.
Kvartuc enlisted the help of a Website developer to build Eppic Surf.
Stefan Kaczmarek liked the concept so much he decided to do it himself. After all, his previous Internet site had just sold to Artists Direct for $40 million.
“This is finding a niche market with a group of people who love what they do,” said Kaczmarek, co-founder and developer of Eppic Surf. “It will be THE place to go for surfers and surf photographers.
|
|
Last Updated ( Monday, 25 June 2007 )
|
Industry News