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Pay for photographer?

I have two full-time photographers and one part-time 'merchandising' person. They average about 40 photos/car and about 350-400 cars/month. They are also responsible for stickers, descriptions, video efforts, and special projects. They average around $16-20/hour, and they've been with me for about 5-7 years on average.

Find good people, train them, and pay them well. Can't find anyone? Sometimes, people enjoy photography and are willing to sacrifice to do something they enjoy. Don't automatically race to the bottom. You know who doesn't get paid well, and are forced out of bed at all hours in all conditions? NEWS STATION PHOTOGRAPHERS. Start there. You may find someone worth paying for, and they're probably making more than they would at Channel Whatever.
 
We're getting caught up on our new car photos at our largest CDJR store by using young man who just graduated high school. He has a large interest in vehicles so enjoys coming to work with them. We employed him part time as he was finishing his last few months and now are using him close to full time over the summer at $13/hr (CAD). He's responsible for washing and photos of the vehicles in our booth and have him simply using an iPhone. He leaves the phone with my merchandising manager nightly who is making some minor edits to the photos with software and uploading them as he works on other tasks. In the course of a few months we've gone from approx. 10% of our new car inventory with photos to 70% (typically carrying 300-350 new cars). You can see the quality of the photos at https://www.crestviewchrysler.ca/new-vehicles/
 
I fired our photographer who was working for dealer specialties and went from $25/ car + $500 in DS integration fees down to free. I simply took over all the photography of the used cars, I'm using my pixel 2 , and the homenet App and they kick ass. I also print up the stickers. I give their dealer a list every month and they pay me $7. 50 / ea. it does take some time but it certainly allows us to have complete control of the quality which has to be superior.
 
I fired our photographer who was working for dealer specialties and went from $25/ car + $500 in DS integration fees down to free. I simply took over all the photography of the used cars, I'm using my pixel 2 , and the homenet App and they kick ass. I also print up the stickers. I give their dealer a list every month and they pay me $7. 50 / ea. it does take some time but it certainly allows us to have complete control of the quality which has to be superior.

I think there's more than enough Personnel at a dealer with free time to handle the pictures and stickers.

:ltbulb: pay for photos by the car and pay it to employees who have downtime. Genius! :tiphat:

Now I want to warp back to 2005 when I was at this point. Yeah, I can see where it would take some work, hand-holding, and holding people accountable. But talk about a win win win!

Win: get cheap photos
Win: sales agents (most downtime) get to earn some extra money
Win: sales agents get better acquainted with the inventory... getting them to walk the lot is impossible
Win: employees get excited to be a part of the website/marketing

Con: photos might not be of great quality... that's trainable
Con: someone might have to "remind" people to take photos
Con: how to manage the same car getting photos multiple times

There are a lot of other logistics I'm not listing out here that come to mind. However, all the objections that are coming to mind seem to be overcome by training. I have maybe 10 minutes into this thought path, so take this post with a grain of salt.
 
Trust me when I say, "dealers over-think this, and under-think this."

First off, start by building a solid process. Then, bring the physical resources to bear; geography, hardware, and software. Finally, a person. Your process should not be "a" person dependent ("I've got a guy") Your process should be plug-n-play. Onboard a person in 30min. Give them the keys and off to work they go.

It tends to be true, the more you pay the less turn-over. However, I can handle turn-over in a TASK position. When your process is solid it's no problem. We are not creating Van Goghs here. All of your inventory done well is better than some of your inventory winning awards. Bottom-line. Just get them done on Day 1.

Our process: After the vehicle is made lot ready (before stickers) position the vehicle indoor studio (we use Booth360) the lighting is consistent. The advantage: weather in a non-issue.

GEO:
If outside then be aware of and know the position of the sun throughout the day and seasons.
If indoor, lighting is critical, size (dealers underestimate the amount of space. Think full-size king-cab, then stand back) finally ease of entry/egress.

HARDWARE:
We use AUTOSONVIDEO.com. Their system only requires an iPhone. No computer, No Software, No Office. We do 20+ photos, 2 Videos, with a human voice in under 10 minutes per car.

We fully merchandise 15-20 vehicles per day and pay $13/hr. Which comes to about $7/car on the high-end. We're not afraid of turn-over at this position, because that's what the job is worth. Check them out at, https://www.smarttoyota.com/searchused.aspx. Btw, today we have 91 Used Cars online, we will deliver 170ish this month.
 
We've been back and forth on this a few times. Internally it's a bit of work, externally it can be expensive. I like Wayne's idea for freelance photographers.

We are currently looking into a 3rd party software that will allow us to streamline the process and use it internally, I'll update once we progress on it further.
You might want to look into AutosOnVideo.com. Read my post below.