MicrostockGroup

I agree with this, it's an old retail trick that microstock sites have adopted, but in typical fashion they've adopted it with a few twists.

In retail it's generally the retailer that takes the hit not the supplier because the idea of loss leaders is to introduce the consumer to more profitable lines irrelevant of the supplier and thus boost the retailers nett profit. The microstock version still enables the retailer (or agency in this case) to introduce buyers to a more profitable line the main difference is they expect the supplier (i.e. us) to take the hit whilst they take none.

Here's something that anybody considering offering free images in order to boost their sales should try and it will help reinforce my point, go onto any site offering free images and download one, you will get the image and the title will be the agency name followed by the file number, in the exif data will be the creators name which in 8 out of the 10 examples I tried were different to their username on the site, now wait a week and go back to buy an image from the person who's free image you downloaded, you'll know which agency it was because their name is the first part of the title, good luck finding the contributor!

Don't get me wrong I'm no saint and did offer a few images when I started out, I didn't notice any boost whatsoever but I accept that some may have.

Edited to add: I would go for the iStock (not that I'd ever get it) or Shutterstock free image deal where it's featured on the front page, that to me is like good value for money advertising.

Excellent point Richard, about the supplier taking the hit in the micro free image model.

The (hypothetical, I admit) extra exposure on 123 and DT is that when you click on the free image to download it you also see a variety of, much better, paid images from that contributor's portfolio which hopefully will entice you to buy something  

Also, on Dreamstime rumor has it that donating free images helps boost your overall search position.  I don't know if that is true for sure, but since my search positions are pretty strong it could be having an influence.  

FWIW, though, I stopped donating freebies at 123 a few months back and haven't seen any change at all in my downloads.  So maybe you guys are right and it doesn't work.

I just wanted to let Xposurepro know it isn't only hobbyists who have tried donating.

You're wrong, Stockastic.  I've been contributing for four years now and have seen strong signs that many of these agencies are serious about creating successful and sustainable businesses.  I lived through the dotcom era, and was likely a lot closer to the insanity than you.  And I'll tell you that I don't see the sort of shortsighted management decisions that led to so many failures, both dramatic and barely noticed.

In fact, I'd say the successful micros are far more like traditional businesses than like dotcom era startups.  I doubt any of them are running at a loss, burning through millions of VC dollars.  They're trying to find a balance between their investors, suppliers and customers.  Some are doing better at that than others.

I suspect I had a better view of management, having worked in senior roles at four startups, as well as four very large and well known computer firms.  Having been in sales or marketing at each firm, I worked closely with both product development and the corporate decision makers.  Three of the four startups never showed a profit, spending furiously to get the attention of customers well in advance of having anything those customers could use.  I also had connections to a lot more Silicon Valley firms where the patter was repeated ad nauseum.

That's generally not true of the micros, which have a handle on their expenses, know what business they're in and can see how much they're making.  The big question is how much to spend on infrastructure, on marketing and on paying suppliers (i.e. us).  Where a tech startup expects to lose money in search of market share, for a while at least, someone like Getty expects their micro investments to make money, and a lot of it.  They see it as a cash cow, and they'll milk that baby until it runs dry.  On the other hand, some of the micros seem more interested in a long term game.  They're still learning the rules of the game, including how much they can change them before we do more than squawk, but their goals are both to grow and make money.

On the unsold files page, check (select the box on the left) the donated pics.
Then the "add to free section" list drops down and you can select "remove from free section"

Yes this works, I have just removed all the images I had in the free section. And 50 cents was deducted from my earnings for each image.

Those are all good points. But at this point, things have gone too far. A perfect 'buyers' market has been created where contributors have no leverage .  It's all been said here before - the micros intially took in enormous quantities of junk, buyers lost their sense of quality, if it's on the web it should be free, etc.  Somehow the pendulum has to start swinging back in the other direction.  There has to be a new kind of market where people producing unique, high quality imagery can somehow get it in front of buyers who will see the difference and pay a few dollars for it. 

Like I said, the owners of these microstocks aren't necessarily bad people. I just think they've created a big mess that's going to take quite a while to unwind itself.

I would be much more upset about things if we could only sell our images ONCE at the mentioned prices! The bottom line is that whether you get .25 or $2, it's how often an image sells that is the real number to watch.

Just my two cents.

That's a big part of what's wrong.  In this market the only products that make money are those that sell in mass quantities.  There's no place for photos that appeal to a small number of buyers who would gladly pay a few dollars instead of 25 cents.  No one will produce those photos for microstock so that entire portion of the market is left to macro, I guess.  Take a walk through the next "Everything's $1" store you pass by in the mall. What sort of things do you see in there?

Actually I haven't been submitting for weeks, I got bummed out after about 10 months.  All my images sell, but not in enough quantity to make it worth doing more at these miserable prices.  The things I shoot tend to be unusual objects.  Maybe macro would pay off, but it's a PITA compared to micro.   That's what I'm complaining about - I want something in the middle, where I can charge a little more for my 'niche' images.  There is no good reason micro should be leaving all that money on the table - they've just gotten themselves locked into a one-size-fits-all pricing model.  Give me some pricing tiers and some choice.

I tried CutCaster, and set everything at $5, and have yet to make a single sale. I  don't even get any views.  In theory CutCaster is exactly what I want, but it's not happening yet.