eCommerce Features
Licenced Download Systems
The e-commerce download systems in IMS are designed to offer a convenient, self-contained rights management solution. IMS offers user-defined licences, each being a legal document defining the scope of usage for an image, the duration and resolution. Licences can be grouped into plans, which allow different products to be offered to different buyers (eg. one set of licences for newspapers, another set for advertising agencies).
Using this system it is possible to present different purchasing models to different buyers easily, giving you control over how your buyers use it. This includes being able to offer royalty-free images along side rights-managed images, or to share images freely with trusted clients with optional volume quotas (essentially, subscriptions). Where e-commerce licencing is used, the exact nature and contents of the licences is configurable (and any number of licences can be used to achieve the desired results).
A customer can visit your site, select the images they require and the licences for their intended usage. Once the price has been produced, payment can be made either by credit card or - if permitted - by invoice. In both cases IMS generates complete receipts and stores all financial transactions for the IMS owner. Invoice payments must be processed off-line, while in the case of credit card payments Third Light will manage the complete purchase and pay the revenue directly back to the IMS owner.
Printing Systems
Printing is a specialist manufacturing process, which Third Light do not perform in-house. We have partnered with labs in the USA and UK to create a perfect combination of image management and print fulfilment. IMS is ideal for operating galleries, even on extremely large scale events, and will pass your customers into a purpose-built checkout when prints are being ordered. Using a secure, direct connection between Third Light and the printers, the high-resolution sources for orders are transferred directly to the production lines when your customer orders prints or gifts.
In addition to fulfilment of print orders automatically, we also support the sale of your own custom products through the same system, by emailing orders to you. The service also copes when high-resolution files are only supplied at the point of ordering, again by alerting the vendor by email.