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Topic: Istock is having a sale  

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Sadstock


« on: May 23, 2011, 20:30 »

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=329552&page=1

Apologies if already posted here and I'm not seeing it.


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DepositPhotos.com
traveler1116


« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2011, 20:53 »

Doesn't seem like a huge deal to me, correct me if I'm wrong.


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cclapper
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2011, 21:50 »

Must be trying to hit their sales targets, like Sean said. At least they're not making contributors pay for it. Though I'm not sure how anyone will be able to track it, given istock's crappy accounting system.


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jsnover
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2011, 22:41 »

As someone pointed out in the thread, if business were good, they wouldn't be having a sale.

As long as it's brief and this doesn't become a way of life (training buyers to shop only during sales if you have them many times during the year), it's possible it might generate more volume. I do sell a fair number of XL and up sales and I'm not thrilled about them being reduced in price (and the RCs reduced) unless overall volume goes up.

I think there are many other ways of offering sales that do get you more volume (where you have to buy more than one item to get a sale price, or you get a better deal the more you buy).

Here's a thread on 2008 sales (consensus seems to be it didn't do much) This was the promo for that sale.

I did a bit of searching, and I don't think we had another spring sale. There was last winter's Vetta sale (which was perhaps trying to roll back the huge price increase while helping some meet their RC targets by giving them double (I think)). There's been the dollar bin and subscriptions as ways of spending less, but not a sale per se.

There have been a few deals in the past where credit bundles were discounted and that's great if you think people won't mind buying new bundles. Having the credits be reduced affects contributors now in a way it didn't back in 2008 - we get fewer RCs as well as a reduced royalty. I wonder if all future sales will be of this type?


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helix7


« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2011, 23:04 »

istock doesn't do anything without a reason, so the whole "marketing just wanted to have a sale" thing is a load. There's always a reason for every move they make, and while they're certainly under no obligation to tell anyone why they do what they do, we can always hope they might give us a clue. Smiley

My guess: istock has been known to quietly test price increases in the past, so maybe they're testing a price reduction to see if it has any significant impact on sales volume. Could just be a sly way of testing out a different pricing structure.

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Lagereek


« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2011, 23:46 »

Sale???  oh dear me, why not an auction?  pic goes to the highest bidders,  if they can find them that is.


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caspixel



« Reply #6 on: May 24, 2011, 00:14 »

Big deal. I think most customers are

The Eagles- Already Gone


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sharpshot


Dreamstime GaugeiStock Gauge
« Reply #7 on: May 24, 2011, 03:04 »

Is it true that we don't have to pay for this sale with lower royalties?  I find it hard to believe for some reason.  Sales everywhere else seem to be quite good now, I can understand doing this in the middle of summer when sales slow down but it seems a strange time of the year to do it.


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Slovenian


« Reply #8 on: May 24, 2011, 03:53 »

Is it true that we don't have to pay for this sale with lower royalties?  I find it hard to believe for some reason.  Sales everywhere else seem to be quite good now, I can understand doing this in the middle of summer when sales slow down but it seems a strange time of the year to do it.

Of course we are, the number of credits the buyers have to pay will be reduced (not the credit price itself). So for instance an XXXL will cost 20 instead of 25 credits.

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Dreamframer



« Reply #9 on: May 24, 2011, 04:01 »

I worked in a wholesale for years. Each sale means that an item does not sell enough, or a company needs a little extra money for something. There are also promotional sales which are usually organized in the beginning of a business, to attract more customers for a better take-off.

On a very rare occasions a company would organize a sale that doesn't make profit, when it needs to get rid of some products that are close to their expiry date (which can't really be the case with pictures).

I'm sure Istock needs more money, probably because they didn't make enough to meet the financial plan. I trust them when they say the credit price will remain the same, but as I understood we will get the same percent of the new price that is 20% lower. Which means, we will get 20% less per sale that usual.


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ShadySue
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2011, 04:26 »

The last time they did this sort of thing, my figures didn't change at all.

@Sharpshot: we do lose out, by $$ and RCs. (especially if they might have bought an XL+ anyway - I get very few larger sales.)

@JoAnne: I know what you mean. LandsEnd (UK) have taken to having regular sales of different types (e.g. %age off everything, higher %age off certain stock, 3 for 2, no p&p, 'specials') and I always hold off to see if the next sale will be better, which often means I don't 'get around to' buying at all. (Which proves I didn't 'need' it in the first place, and makes me feel virtuous.  Grin
BodyShop seem to be doing it too now: every week or so, there's a different 'deal'. It's a pain working it out, so I just delete the emails.
eSpares, a company I bought something from about two years ago, and which is strictly a 'needs only' source (spare parts for electrical appliances) very recently has taken to sending out fortnightly emails, with links to some informative and potentially useful content, a couple of months ago. The message I took out of that was, "oh, what a shame, they must be struggling" ('shame', as they're a very good source for spares for older equipment).
« Last Edit: May 24, 2011, 05:30 by ShadySue »

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cclapper
« Reply #11 on: May 24, 2011, 05:27 »

Is it true that we don't have to pay for this sale with lower royalties?  I find it hard to believe for some reason.  Sales everywhere else seem to be quite good now, I can understand doing this in the middle of summer when sales slow down but it seems a strange time of the year to do it.

Of course we are, the number of credits the buyers have to pay will be reduced (not the credit price itself). So for instance an XXXL will cost 20 instead of 25 credits.

Here's the announcement:

Quote
Starting next week we’re going to run a short sale on our largest images. We’re sending an email out to our clients letting them know that XL, XXL and XXXL files in all collections are 20% off from May 24 to June 6. So we should see people downloading those big files in higher volumes during that period.

As far as details go, it’s the cost in credits that’s being reduced by 20%, not the cost per credit. Contributors will still get the same royalty per value of credit used like always – again, people will be using fewer credits but downloading more so it should be a net boost for everybody.

You're right, it is costing the contributors.  Roll Eyes  I'm surprised. (not) I misspoke in my earlier post, sorry about that. I only half read it.


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Dreamframer



« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2011, 06:01 »

Exactly, the prices of images will be 20% lower, and the earnings will be 20% lower as well. But the percent of earnings will remain the same in relation to the price of the image. They actually said only the last half of the sentence, skipping the absolute numbers, which will be 20% lower.
For example, I will still earn 15% of every sale, but that will be 20% less money than before sale.


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klsbear

Dreamstime GaugeiStock Gauge
« Reply #13 on: May 24, 2011, 06:47 »

I worked in a wholesale for years. Each sale means that an item does not sell enough, or a company needs a little extra money for something. There are also promotional sales which are usually organized in the beginning of a business, to attract more customers for a better take-off.

On a very rare occasions a company would organize a sale that doesn't make profit, when it needs to get rid of some products that are close to their expiry date (which can't really be the case with pictures).

I'm sure Istock needs more money, probably because they didn't make enough to meet the financial plan. I trust them when they say the credit price will remain the same, but as I understood we will get the same percent of the new price that is 20% lower. Which means, we will get 20% less per sale that usual.

There is also the theory that getting feet in the door will result in the purchase of non-sale items too, or bring in shoppers that might have otherwise shopped the competition. 


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lthn


« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2011, 07:10 »

Customers were complaining about pics getting 3-4-10 times more expensive, and the totally broken, useless search.... so a 20% discount won't do sh*t. istock = bunch of dilettants, as always. The owners of shutterstock are probably laughing their asses off at them, maybe they'll buy lobo just put him in the office doorway in clown costume to greet people : ) "welcome to shutterstock, I love you... welcome to shutterstock, I love you... "

Best of Idiocracy - Welcome to Costco


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Dreamframer



« Reply #15 on: May 24, 2011, 07:46 »

I worked in a wholesale for years. Each sale means that an item does not sell enough, or a company needs a little extra money for something. There are also promotional sales which are usually organized in the beginning of a business, to attract more customers for a better take-off.

On a very rare occasions a company would organize a sale that doesn't make profit, when it needs to get rid of some products that are close to their expiry date (which can't really be the case with pictures).

I'm sure Istock needs more money, probably because they didn't make enough to meet the financial plan. I trust them when they say the credit price will remain the same, but as I understood we will get the same percent of the new price that is 20% lower. Which means, we will get 20% less per sale that usual.

There is also the theory that getting feet in the door will result in the purchase of non-sale items too, or bring in shoppers that might have otherwise shopped the competition. 

I'm afraid that non-sale items always remain non-sale items, regardless of 20% discount. Non-sale items are usually given away for free in the end because no one wants them. Also, discounts usually attract those customers who want cheap stuff, not the ones who are willing to pay more, and those customers usually disappear after the discount waiting for another one.

This is all from my experience. I would like to be wrong tho.


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Dreamframer



« Reply #16 on: May 24, 2011, 07:50 »

Look at the IS numbers according to Alexa:


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Dreamframer



« Reply #17 on: May 24, 2011, 07:53 »

In comparison with Shutterstock:


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klsbear

Dreamstime GaugeiStock Gauge
« Reply #18 on: May 24, 2011, 08:44 »

@dreamframer - I was refering to the items that were not on sale, as opposed to those that are bottom of the barrel and never sell anyway.  Supermarkets constantly have something on sale - it brings feet in the door to pick up the sale item, but while they are there customers pick up items at full price too.   If IS can get more feet in the door then they may get sales on the "sale" items, but may also get those same buyers picking up additional items that are not on sale - video, audio, smaller files, etc.  Bring them in the door with the sale then load up the cart with everything.  We can only hope....


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Dreamframer



« Reply #19 on: May 24, 2011, 10:27 »

@dreamframer - I was refering to the items that were not on sale, as opposed to those that are bottom of the barrel and never sell anyway.  Supermarkets constantly have something on sale - it brings feet in the door to pick up the sale item, but while they are there customers pick up items at full price too.   If IS can get more feet in the door then they may get sales on the "sale" items, but may also get those same buyers picking up additional items that are not on sale - video, audio, smaller files, etc.  Bring them in the door with the sale then load up the cart with everything.  We can only hope....

Oh I understand now. And yes, we can only hope.


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gclk

iStock Gauge
« Reply #20 on: May 24, 2011, 12:04 »

Hmm  Undecided

I wonder how many customers have asked iStock for a 20% price reduction for larger file sizes versus the number of customers that have asked to be able to filter out unwanted Vetta and Agency results.

If customers are walking away from iStock, maybe the company would be best advised to give customers what they keep asking for.


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lisafx
« Reply #21 on: May 24, 2011, 12:51 »

Here's a thought.  Why don't they have a sale on Vetta and Agency files.  Those are the prices the customers are complaining about.  Not the piddly prices we get for regular collection.

Should have known the income boost from P+ was too good to last. 


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click_click


Dreamstime GaugeiStock Gauge
« Reply #22 on: May 24, 2011, 13:10 »

Should have known the income boost from P+ was too good to last. 

What if Is never introduced P+ ? Where would our income be then?
I know it's impossible to tell but I sure appreciate higher prices for my P+ images and if the rule that 20% of our images generate 80% of our income then I'm all for the P+.

Sales and discounts are happening all the time at any given agency. And I'm sure that SS even offers steep discounts for huge clients as well. We just don't hear about it.


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microstockphoto.co.uk


Dreamstime GaugeiStock Gauge
« Reply #23 on: May 24, 2011, 13:29 »

Sales and discounts are happening all the time at any given agency. And I'm sure that Shutterstock even offers steep discounts for huge clients as well. We just don't hear about it.

But (if they do) they still pay us the same full amount - so (if they do) they are entitled to offer all discounts they feel like.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2011, 13:31 by microstockphoto.co.uk »

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click_click


Dreamstime GaugeiStock Gauge
« Reply #24 on: May 24, 2011, 13:39 »

I kind of agree, but this business goes (or should go) both ways. Technically we're in this together (agency and contributor) so if a successful agent has a sale I don't mind taking a small hit if it leads to the promised outcome.

If the sales decisions don't lead to the desired income the question will come up if that agent is performing as good as he (she, it) should...?


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