Liberman's DVD v.1.2

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John Ranes II CPF GCF

John Ranes II CPF GCF

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Founding Member
Joined
Nov 5, 1997
Posts
3,810
Location
Appleton, Wisconsin, USA
Business
The Frame Workshop of Appleton, Inc
OK, I did a search first, and didn't find any real constructive analysis of this product....

We've been using Virtual Gallery in our shop for about 24 months @ $57/month and are happy with the overall performance. Naturally we compliment this with about 15 real catalogs (about half are current).

Just looking at this new Lieberman's 67 page "Guide to Poster Catalogs" and it looks interesting. I see they offer the four CD version of the catalogs or a DVD version. It appears that current subscribers can upgrade for $50, while new subscribers sign on at $100.

This may be too new to get evaluation, but anyone have a take on this product? Any experience from V.2002 Owners?

If this is effective at $100/year Vs. the $684/year we're currently paying for Virtual Gallery......I realize that I'me buying quarterly updates, but not sure that's really necessary?

John
 
About five years ago, we started subscribing to Virtual Gallery @$57 per month and found it did well in our shop. We had some problems with people choosing out of print or sold out limited editions and switched to the poster only version which is something like $150 a year. We also purchased the lieberman CD last year. I find it more user friendly with the searches easier to do. When our Virtual Gallery subscription runs out, I will probably only have Lieberman's.
 
We have been using the first addition of Liebermans for about 6 months. It is only one CD and it works fine for our needs of about 3 to 6 poster sales per month. With the new one haveing four CDs it should be even better.
 
John,
We purchased Lieberman's 2002 version and look forward to 2003 because it has probably worked out some of the kinks (minor), making it even more user-friendly.

My customers really like the search capabilities, especially chosing certain subjects by size.

The only drawback for us is a Lieberman limitation which is, often I have customers that want "fun art".....i.e. car posters, movie posters, broad motivational, or car racing - all comes to mind. Portal carries a lot of this sort of thing, but I'd LOVE to include such things with my Lieberman's orders. Maybe some day! Hope they are "listening" ;)

Back to the issue, we really watch our overhead costs and a $57/month fee for Virtual Gallery, I'm afraid is greatly needed to put towards my rapidly increased rates with CAPAX and Hartford Auto Insurances!.....sadly.
 
When I opened last year I evaluated both products. I thought the Lieberman's search features were poor, slow, and difficult, but the price difference overcame a lot of that. I did not subscribe to Virtual Gallery, but instead went with the Lieberman's CD. It has been more than adequate for my shop so far. I find most of my customers either don't know how to use the Computer or don't want to. So, I do many of the searches for them, or they use the catalogs. This overcomes some of the cumbersome aspects of the search. The letter I recieved says they have improved the search capability exactly the way I would like, so I am hopeful. Given the volume of print sales so far I think the L-CD is much more cost effective. I have even given some customers the Lieberman's web site so they can peruse at their leisure at home and then bring the ID in for me to order. I have had two people do that so far. As I recall, one thing the VG has that the L-CD doesn't is the "put a frame and/or mat on the picture" thing. Without true Calibrated Color Management on the computer my feeling was this is a marginal feature.

I will be purchasing the 2003 CD and stick with it for now.

Cliff
 
We've had Virtual Gallery for five years and like it. However, there have been ups & downs. For example, my computer has a problem with this latest disk -- it gives us the "blue screen of death" at least every half hour, and we have to reboot. For some reason, the screen saver is trying to write to the hard drive.

I haven't looked at the Lieberman CD since it was new. I didn't like it then, but will try it again.
 
wcox,

That's a good question! I think to really make the website be effective, you'd want a high speed connection at that computer, which doesn't make it entirely FREE.

If you're already paying for a connection or high speed connection to your shop anyway, then it would make all sorts of sense to hook up to Lieberman's website. I've just visited over the weekend, and it appears to have everything you'd want.

Anyone using this method as an alternative to the CD / DVD's?
 
I am. The only problem that I find with the web site, is that, when you search for a specific artist, you will have a lot of the prints with the image not shown, or image not available. When that happens, I go to that publisher's web site to look at the image that is missing. I've been getting along very well,though, without the cd, and just using the web site.
 
The difference between the website and the CD is:
1) Most of the time, the website says "image not available" (as previously mentioned). That is SO frustrating!
2) There is no way to search by specific size or color(that I recall). Example: I just worked with a customer that wants to do a grouping of small pictures of roses. I type in roses & the exact size, and that's what I get. Another customer wanted a long, narrow print for a particular space. I type in the measurements and voila! I use that a lot with interior decorators.
3) I can put it into my laptop and take it with me when I am doing consulting work.

I'd rather keep the money, but in this case, once the kinks are out, I think it is worth it.
 
I purchased the Lieberman's 2002 CD and will upgrade to 2003. I took some time to decide what to do, because a lot of my customers were coming in with posters/prints that they ordered online. At the time, I was debating on whether or not to carry prints and posters and if was worth it. The Liebermans' CD gives me flexibility and I get to keep my money. I decided to utilize this and market as an additional "service" that the gallery provides to its customers. I sent out a press release to the local paper that states the "New Services" that we had added to the gallery for their convenience - the print/poster search and online viewing, and the "husband registery" (where the wives can come in and shop, add to a list the things they like and then the husband can come in and buy it; we had a lot of husbands ask for this at xmas) - we had several calls from people after the press release went out, so I think this will work for us. We also will get people to come in and look, versus buying online and we can profit from the markup and get the framing piece of it also.

My spin on the CD :D

Elaine
 
We use a highspeed wireless connection from Ricochet and www.images.google.com. That gives us every image on the www. We can cull them all down by narrowing the search info. With the wireless connection, we can use this on location while calling on cutomers. In the store, we have a slide show running with pictures of our best work. This seems to draw more attention than a slide show running with posters/art...and it's free. We shoot everything we frame that is unique with a digital camera, then process it with Photoshop to make it look like it's hanging on a wall in a gallery. Takes about 15 minutes per shot and allows for the correction of a lot of woes in lighting and skew of the framed piece in the picture. We also make prints of these pictures at a local photo store in our center and keep them in an album on the front counter. People really respond to seeing something that is exactly, or almost exactly what they are thinking of for their own piece. We also take the album on "house calls".
 
This is a great discussion with some good points. I use Google search all the time but didn't realize they had an image section. It's huge!

I haven't checked very closely into it but have noticed, just in a quick perusal, that there seem to be pretty extensive copyright protections of which one has to respect. I didn't narrow the search down to open editions or anything like that from publishing houses, but the number of images which come up in keyword searches is pretty impressive.
 
We had t ried the old Lieberman's CD and frankly thought it very confusing. Plus, it defaulted my homepage on the internet to the Lieberman's hojme page. Now that could just be dummy computer operatorfault, but the fact that the page was so confusing was bothersome.

Is the newer version simpler? Or do I just need to take more time to study it???
 
This may be a stupid question, but why do they charge ($100 or $684/yr) for these dvds when they are a tool for dealers to sell their product, and when it's also available free on the net?

It costs about 0.50-0.89 to make a (4.3gb) dvd, less than the postage to send the package out. (and in bulk, its probably less)

The dvds sound like a great idea. We currently use print catalogs and an infrequent web search when we can't find what the customer needs.
 
When I called Lieberman's after their new booklet arrived, I was told that the charge for the CDs or the DVD is $100 for 6 months. After that you have the option to get an update every 6 months for $100 each time. I think there's a $50 rebate on your first update. Lieberman's doesn't charge as much as Virtual Gallery, we figure, because Lieberman's makes money on the prints they sell.

We have Virtual Gallery, but might switch. When we order from Lieberman's, we find many things shown on VG are out of print. Also, we're not real interested in the Limited Editions.

VG doesn't show anything available from Bruce McGaw. Lieberman's does. I like Bruce McGaw's prints. All we have now is an out-of-date catalog.

Wild Apple and Canadian Art Prints sent us free catalogs!

[ 02-28-2003, 09:13 PM: Message edited by: Jana ]
 
Yesterday, I had a phone call from Bruce Lieberman himself thanking me for my comments and using the CD. I have always had good service from them, but I think the phone call from Bruce was a nice added touch - it says a lot about a company when the top guys take time out to make a phone call and say thanks


Elaine
 
But does anyone know if this DVD version is easier to use than the CD??? Or am I just stupid and it really isn't that hard.

C'mon guys, tell me the truth. I can take it. Am I dumb? Or was that CD tough to learn?
 
I brought this back to the top . . .


So, it's been 10 months since this thread first appeared. Any new thoughts on the updated Lieberman's DVD or CD?


MAX


(edit=typo)

[ 12-30-2003, 10:46 AM: Message edited by: MAX ]
 
Max,
I'm still quite happy with Lieberman's product. I'll be happier still when they have ALL pictures of their items rather than having some lists (w/o pictures).

Sometimes customers pull up a subject (i.e. horses)- they don't find it pictured but they think it is "listed" - since they aren't sure, they get frustrated and the purchase is foiled. They want to be sure before putting out money - and I don't blame them. Occassionally I can do further searches for them, but most don't want to wait. You know, we must "hook" them when we can!...it's SO true!

I certainly still think this is the most cost effective route.
 
I thought the Lieberman's CD was great as well. The only hassel has been a customer who ordered a print weeks after the program was installed, and the print had been discontinued for some time.
 
I have been using the Lieberman's CD since I opened a year and a half ago. I don't think it pays for itself in print sales profit, but probably does when I include the framing it generates. I find there are customers that want to know I can find them something even if they don't need it now. I think a nominal fee like liebermans charges to offer one more service is reasonable. I think the public today expects me to have search capabilities and this is the most cost effect way I found. ( I think web only looks like I am being cheap. This gives me a "custom" look and feel without a big expense.)

I upgraded 1.2 once. I did not purchase the 1.3 version, but will probably upgrade with the next release. I just didn't see the value in the improvements.

I don't find it difficult to use except for it's lack of speed and the fact that it subsets the available prints with every field entry even when I know I am going to give it more data. Soemtimes I run out of things to say to the customer to keep them interested while I am waiting to enter the next field. :(

But, mostly I think it is worth the money to have it available.

[ 12-30-2003, 02:37 PM: Message edited by: Cliff Wilson ]
 
Wow, this is some enduring thread!

When I replied in February, I was still using Virtual Gallery.

In March I switched to Lieberman's, and I like it a lot. It isn't quite as fast or user-friendly as VirGal, but it contains a lot more images, has a much lower cost, and serves our purpose well.

I've bought two Lieberman's updates so far, and will keep buying them.
 
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