A lot of questions came into the support box after announcement lab integration inside of NextGEN Pro.
So we compiled the top questions so far and are sharing them down below.
Do I need to be a WHCC customer to use it?
No, you do not need to be a WHCC customer or even have an account with them. But if you do, then you will notice the same speed, quality, and consistency that you have come to love with WHCC even when submitting through NextGEN Pro.
If I have a problem, who do I contact?
Imagely handles the customer service for all orders submitted through NextGEN Pro to WHCC. For questions about an order or for general support, please open a ticket here.
Why only USA and Canada?
During the development of the shipping features, we discovered that WHCC does not automatically calculate the cost of shipping outside of USA and Canada, so we have no way to know if you were undercharged or overcharged for shipping.
What if my clients are in the USA or Canada but I am not?
You can totally use it then! The limitation of shipping to USA or Canada is for your customer, not you. So if you are in England, but your customers are in the USA or Canada, you can still use lab integration.
Will international ever be supported?
Yes, we explore the options here. The first of which is to add a second lab which is already in Europe and ready to handle shipping. If there is a lab you want to request, share it with us!
Can I still manually fulfill orders?
Without a doubt! Now when creating a price list, and go to add a product, you are presented with a beautiful modal window asking if you want lab prints, manual prints or digital downloads.
Is there a guided walkthrough to set up lab integration?
Yes, we have two ways for you to follow along. The first is the Wizard which can you launch from the Ecommerce Setup tab. The other is a video we commissioned WP101 to create. It's amazing! You can watch it here.
Is there documentation?
Yes, we have been building out the documentation and will continue to do so as additional questions come up and the plugin is continually improved on. All of our documentation can be found here.
How long is the turnaround time on orders from WHCC?
From our testing, we have found that the average order arrives between 2 and 4 business days. Of course, this would depend on Holidays and whatnot.
How much is shipping from WHCC?
Shipping is automatically calculated during checkout based on location and products ordered.
How is tax calculated?
We have integrated with the best tax calculation service, called TaxJar. Typically this comes with a fee for the end-user, but we are covering the cost for all active NextGEN Pro members. As long as your license is active, you will have access to automated tax calculations and lab integration.
What happens if my Imagely membership expires?
Because of server overhead of lab integration and the associated costs with automated tax calculations, we are requiring that an active NextGEN Pro membership is in place. If a license expires, then you can continue using NextGEN Pro and manually fulfill orders. But you will lose access to automated print fulfillment, automated tax calculations as well as updates of the plugin.
How do you add additional states where we may be registered and required to collect sales tax other than our home state?
It is possible with a snippet of code which is available in our documentation.
Do we have access to any TaxJar reports?
We will be providing a report to pull of tax collected for a specific jurisdiction at a given time frame. It’s being worked on now.
What if I do not have credit cards?
You can use your debit card as long as it has a Visa or MasterCard sign on it.
I'm setting up the size options and want to offer them in the price list, and wanted to find out how the images are cropped if the image size ratio is different from the printed size ratio.
NextGEN Gallery will actually show the print selection when available depending on image sizes.
Why if the settings to resize on upload are small?
This won't affect print sizes because we send the original full-size image to the print lab, not the resized one.
The idea is to have both "Backup the original images?" and "Automatically resize images after upload". User uploads large images (for sending to the lab), but resized images are shown on the web for speed/performance.
Are customers allowed to choose their crop area, is the image cropped equidistant on all sides, or should I only offer prints in sizes that match the image ratio?
Your clients would be able to control the image crop in case that the image's size exceeds the Print option's size directly from the Shipping Cart page.
WHCC charges a wholesale rate to photographers and then charge customers the marked up price and receive the difference. Is there any fee to do this?
NextGEN Pro does not take any commissions from your sales.
Does WHCC have a minimum order?
Not when ordering through NextGEN Pro.
How are shipping costs handled?
For a print lab only order, shipping will be calculated and charged to the customer.
WHCC calculates the shipping cost according to the end user's location to the nearest laboratory. The order is segmented into shipments as dictated by WHCC's drop-shipping specifications and the shipments are submitted to WHCC using their API. The photographer will be billed for that amount in the cost of goods for the print order. You can show that amount when the visitor is checking out on the shopping cart. In that way, you can charge the visitor for that shipping amount as well.
Another case scenario will be whenever the photographer is using Manual Print Fulfillment, NextGEN Pro's shipping settings will determine the shipping price.
Orders that include both manual fulfillment items and Printlab prints will have the shipment cost combined listed at checkout. You will receive the total shipping amount for your manual fulfillment prints.
What type of paperwork gets sent to the customer when an order is processed? Do they get a receipt? Do they see my wholesale pricing? Is my business name listed anywhere?
It will be a pretty generic email with your studio name, no WHCC branding at all. No paperwork, no receipt. We hope to offer customizable receipts potentially with a PDF in a future update.
Jay
17 Sep 2019Will there be any other print vendor options in the future? Bay Photo for example?
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
17 Sep 2019Yes, without a doubt. All in due time 🙂
David Wilson
2 Oct 2019I love Bay Photo; it would be great to have that integration.
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
2 Oct 2019Thanks for your input, David!
Melissa
30 Jan 2020Please look into NPhoto! Their Products are amazing.
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
30 Jan 2020Thanks for sharing your request!
Bex Garrett
12 Jun 2020Scott, probably a silly question, I am an artist in the UK, and would like to sign up to pro, would the auto forfillment not be availible at the moment for me, or, if i do sign up, would my website offer it, but only to buyers in the USA or Canada and I would need to source my own print house for the rest of the world? – Thanks!
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
12 Jun 2020At this moment in time, you wouldn’t be able to use automated print fulfillment. But the UK is next on the list to add a lab for.
Bex Garrett
12 Jun 2020Fab stuff, Thanks Scott. on the off chance, do you have any idea on a rough/planned timescale for this that you are able to share?
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
12 Jun 2020I don’t have an ETA at all because so many labs have their own APIs. When we first looked at Loxley Colour they only had ROES, but now they have their own as well.
Bex Garrett
12 Jun 2020Awesome, Thankyou so much and have a lovely day!
Lee Jones
14 Jul 2020I checked out Imagely about 18 months ago and saw mention of possible lab integration. I have just returned and can now see it was implemented around September last year. Disappointingly, not for the UK and it’s now 10 months later. As soon as UK is included, you will have another customer. Thanks guys, I may finally get to self host my own photos.
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
15 Jul 2020We’re working on it.