People don’t tend to think about what something is actually ‘worth’. They think about what they are prepared to pay for it. For many people, they would never be prepared to pay more than £50 for a few photos, and have no concept of what the business actually costs to run. Normally these people would not bother getting professional pictures done, obviously, because they find out in advance that it’s going to cost ten times that figure.
There are plenty of services where I initially have unreasonable expectations of how cheap it’s going to be. I’m normally set straight at the negotiating stage when I get a quote, then I decide if I want that service or not.
The Groupon type deals attract customers who haven’t been through this process, then puts the onus on the photographer to conduct a further negotiation when the customer is already pretty heavily committed.
It’s a bit like being quoted 500 quid to get your roof replaced, then the firm saying the 500 was for putting up the scaffolding and they’d need another 2.5K to actually stick some tiles on. That particular con is perpetrated by Groupon, and left for the photographer to clear up.
That’s the problem here, not what photographers deserve to be paid.
