There's nothing really too different I can say other than what I already said previously.  I am unhappy that sales are not good for many contributors, but outside of continuing to work on improving the site as it stands, I can't control which images sell.  Sales are admittedly low, which is something I have been honest about, and that affects me directly much more than it affects any individual account, so making GL a more profitable company for myself and our customers is always a priority and something we are working towards.  Your portfolios are your personal businesses, and you have every right to make any business decisions you feel necessary that will be in your best interest.  We never want to lose contributors, but it's a part of a micro stock agency big or small, with high sales or low sales.  I'm sorry I don't have a response that would be more satisfactory to any individual contributor, however the work I do, and the work I plan to do continues. 

Well, I used to have pretty regular sales.  I haven�t had one since January, I think.  So going from something to nothing is going to get negative feedback.

Of course, and I'm not telling anybody they are not entitled to their opinion regarding their personal experience, positive or negative.  I am simply responding.  If you are unhappy with sales, you have a right to do what you'd like to with your business.  There is nothing binding you to have your images on GLStock as there is no required exclusivity to use our service.  I have contacted you directly to continue the discussion.

Uploader is working now.  All should be well!  Sorry for the inconvenience.

I appreciate the kind words.  We also do not have exclusivity, meaning that buyers can often find the same images on SS or other larger agencies, and pay pennies on the dollar for the same image.  There are very real challenges we face based on the current pricing options, and that is why we are considering expanding upon the way buyers buy images through us with different packages.  There's no doubt there's a lot of work for us to do, and we've committed ourselves to do it.  Nothing is overnight, but nothing would make us happier than to make our contributors more money.  We have that common goal, and I rather work with our contributors to exceed that goal, than work against the grain of course. 

I think they forgot the No.1 priority, keeping enough buyers to make it worth contributors uploading.  The old site seemed fine to me, they could of spent money marketing while working on the new site design.  Now, like many other sites, it looks nice but isn't frequented by enough buyers.

It's silly to say we "forgot" that buyers are crucial to the business, as that is a given.  It's a lot easier said than done when competing with companies who are spending tens of thousands of dollars a day (if not more), and the average lifetime value of a buyer is dramatically higher.

There's a lot more than throwing marketing dollars that goes into converting visitors into paying members.  We are working on this every day, and we are finding obstacles that we have to overcome.

For those who don't think we're worth uploading to, you're welcome to your opinion.  At no point did we set unrealistic expectations for the members of MSG here.  We said from day one this is going to be a long process, and one in which we are working towards.  We receive significant amounts of uploads each day, and we review images each day.  Unlike our competitors with hundreds or thousands of employees, we're a couple of people doing everything.  We of course want to earn everybody's business, and attract more buyers, and there are things we are working on to do that. 

Some of our sellers do relatively well and are frequently seeing sales, some see a few sales per month, and of course some see little to no sales.

Giving up control of pricing to our sellers does in fact pose challenges.  We are in the works of pursuing additional purchasing packages that would enable us to control pricing for those packages, while trying to attract the larger buyers out there.  We are treading carefully around this idea, as we need to ensure that our sellers still have control of their pricing, as we believe (and most sellers believe) this is a source of positivity, since you can determine the market value of your images.

As you can imagine, our site attracts people looking for a few images here and there, and only some bigger buyers who buy more frequently.  It always has been the case.  That's the difference between a la carte buying, versus subscription buying.  The larger companies who have significant budgets much rather spend $.12 per image than $1 - $30 per image.   Yet, as a seller, you rather make $0.40 - $16 per download, than $.10 per download. 

Buyers could care less how much a seller is making per image, they only care about how little they can pay per image.  The challenge of paying contributors high commissions, and allowing you to determine your own pricing is one that often discourages buyers.  Unlike the buyers, we do care how much you make per image sale.  So we are trying to find that healthy medium where we ensure high commissions for our sellers, while putting together packages that are attractive for buyers. 

We are also not trying to make massive changes on a whim, and spend a lot of time doing research and planning, before queuing up our developers with new initiatives.

In the near future, you will likely see new buying options for sellers, where the price per image is controlled, and based on the package they chose, will determine the commission you earn.  This would be in addition to the a la carte pricing.  This is not set in stone, but something we are working on and discussing internally.

Doesn't seem to want me to log in with the Graphicleftovers username and password and reset doesn't work either.

Hi Sammy,

We are fixing this bug, should be working properly by tomorrow.  Please PM me your username and I will reset your password for you manually.

Thanks!

Phil

Quote from: stockastic on October 02, 2017, 11:46

I'm happy to see the site back up.

In line with a recent discussion thread here, I have a question.   Would GL's 'extended' license allow reselling as wall art on Etsy?

Perhaps to clarify the question - does it allow reselling of digital files, possibly slightly modified (like flipped, cropped, or background color changed.

No, a buyer of the license cannot "redistribute, resell, lease, license or sub-license" an image in any form.  The extended license allows the user to sell merchandise using the image, but does not authorize the user to "license" the image out, or resell the image itself.

And the new site comes with exciting news!!!


- a comission cut.

40% instead of 50%.

This commission change happened 1 year ago.  We grandfathered all users who were at 52%, and their commission remains at 52%.  All new accounts after we made the change last year were at 40%.

The site is up and running, but there are still a few things we need to fix.  We will make an announcement later today.  Thanks for your patience.

Still here, redesign is completed, we're just doing significant analysis and fixing bugs prior to launching.   We're moving as quickly as we can, but as documented in other posts, we're taking our time to do it right the first time so that we can launch the best product possible.

GL has a lot of untapped potential (ie: video, audio, and other file formats).  We are hopeful that changes we make will benefit our contributors and buyers alike.  Our key focus during the redesign is to improve the buyers flow, as well as add functionality for them to more efficiently use our site.

We appreciate our contributors (as is clear by our royalty rates and our committment to keeping them as high as possible).  I understand a high percentage of few sales may not amount to a lot of money, but if we are successful at turning it around and increasing sales, that high royalty percentage offers a lot of opportunity to our contributors. 

Dead. I used to see ads for them on Facebook and the like, now nothing. I suspect they pulled the plug on marketing in the run up to relaunch, but something must be up because the relaunch has been in the making for ages now.

Hi All,

We do not have a large team of developers working on this.  GL is a significant app with lots of components and moving parts, and the redesign and development requires time, diligence, and testing.  We expect the new app to be live within the next 4 weeks.

Indeed, marketing has been on halt until the redesign as I've mentioned in other posts.  We are adding various features that will make GL more competitive in terms of the functionality we are offering our buyers, making for a better and more efficient purchasing process.

The new app will catch GL up to speed technology-wise.  The app has not been updated in several years, prior to new ownership taking over.  So the technology, and what we are able to offer to buyers is of course not where we want it to be.  We are investing in our technology before investing in marketing.  Our redesign is not just a makeover, but it is a much needed technology update that will yield much better results in our marketing efforts. 

In addition to the new features that are being developed, there are various markets that the former owners of GL have not approached, and these are areas we expect to be moving into in the very near future (ie: video, audio, etc.). 

We're still here, working.  Emails are always answered, calls are answered, payments are always made promptly, image review is done daily, and we are here to answer questions.

Quote from: sharpshot on June 06, 2017, 17:22

How much longer do we have to wait?  I don't understand that if the previous owners were bad at marketing, they seemed to be selling more for most of us?  I wish you well but have very low expectations now, hope you prove me wrong.

My questions exactly.  If you could give an estimate of when you expect the site revamp to be finished and the serious marketing push to start, it would be reassuring.

And as bad as you say the prior management was at marketing, I still had regular sales with them.

It's very difficult to give an exact date of when the process will be completed.   We have internal goals, but there are many factors that can slow down the process.  There is a lot of complicated development work that is being done.

Like I mentioned, we have made philosophical changes to the business so that we can move forward in a manner that we feel will be most profitable for us and our contributors in the long term.

Indeed, some of our changes were relatively drastic, and some have slowed sales down a bit.  Specifically, having one price for all image sizes was an important philosophical change that we feel strongly about for the long term strategy of the business.

While constantly keeping our contributors in mind, we are committed to compensating them fairly.  We gave flexibility of pricing and have honored one of the highest commissions in the industry.  It is very challenging to make both contributors and sellers simultaneously happy, and I think that is very evident when reading through the tens of thousands of negative posts about the top tier agencies, where most contributors generate the majority of their revenue.  Most agencies are buyer-centric, and apparently the contributors here in MSG do not seem to believe they are fairly compensated for their work, despite those being their highest revenue sources.

I've looked back through MSG and noticed that for 7 years, people have been asking about GL; asking if it's dead, why people aren't working on it, asking why they would shut down new contributors, asking if anybody is even reviewing image uploads, etc. etc. 

I think it's important that expectations are properly managed.  We never came here and told everybody that sales will quadruple in 6 months. When your images do not sell with GL, we are the ones who actually lose. We are here to answer questions, and to form a dialogue between GL and members of this forum. 

The larger firms are racing to the bottom, finding ways to offer the cheapest prices to their buyers.  By doing this, they are neglecting the desires of their contributors because they feel that they can do so.  Since they have the largest databases of buyers, they know that their contributors have to accept pretty much any changes that they make, regardless of whose best interest it is in.

We're not sitting here talking negatively about the previous owners of GL.  We purchased a business that was neglected, and on a significant decline.  Reading through MSG, the decline has been documented for many years, prior to us coming along.

The difference now, is that we are holding ourselves accountable to make the business succeed.  To stabalize a business on the decline is very important, and we have done so, albeit at a lower level of sales/revenue than most were expecting.  However, there is no magic switch that we can flip that increases sales.  There is no magic marketing switch that makes all ads and landing pages effective.  There are no magic switches here.  Even if we are the greatest marketers in the world, which we are not claiming by any means, we are still competing in an industry filled with multi-billion dollar companies, with tremendous margins leading to tremendous advertising budgets.  We offer something different.  Our margins are slim because we are providing the contributors with what they want --which is fair royalty rates, and pricing flexibility.  What we have been working on since we acquired GL was laying a NEW foundation for future success.  While sales may be low for some contributors here, GL has always been a low earner according to MSG.  If we want to make it a medium - high earner, we need to do things differently than the previous owners did, and we are committed to the changes we have and will be making.

We care about our contributors, and are not satisfied that many of you are not satisfied.  There are plenty of short term ways of increasing our margins and sales count, but we are taking the long term route, and will continue to work towards long term success.   It is obviously in our best interest, and our contributors' best interest to increase sales. 

If our business were a ship, we purchased an old rusty ship that was taking on water with several little holes in it, and a faulty engine (let's consider the engine the backend technology that runs the ship).   Instead of plugging up the holes in the boat and leaving it rusted, we decided to rebuild the ship, repaint it, and add a new engine.  To keep up with the fresh new look and feel, we're also changing the name from GLStockImages / GraphicLeftovers to GLStock.com.  If we just repaired the ship, it will stay afloat for a while, but would require a lot of ongoing maintenance and may take on water again at any time.  However, ideally by rebuilding it and adding a new engine, the ship will be able to perform at a higher level for a long time.

So to answer your questions, we still cannot say exactly when everything is going to turn around.  We are confident that when our rebuild is complete, overall sales will increase.  We are adding several features to make a better experience for buyers, which will help us be more competitive.  It will enable us to implement a marketing strategy that certainly will produce better results than that of the current site.  The task ahead of us is not small, but we are committed to it and will continue working as hard as we can to acheive better results.  In the meantime, there is no cost to have a portfolio with GL, we do not require exclusivity, nor are there any obligations to contribute work to GL.  However, our data shows that those actively uploading are seeing better results than those who are not.  To reiterate, we stand to lose the most when sales are low, when we have carrying costs regardless of sales volume.  So rest assured, we are working on this, and we are committed to turning it around.  There's just no obvious answer as to the date that any one contibutors sales will increase.

@Stockastic, we certainly appreciate your understanding and your feedback.  To give some insight, we are about 90% finished with all of the new designs, we are just putting some finishing touches there.  However, the development is where movement has been very slow.  Neither myself or my partner are developers, so being able to pull off a major redesign while adding new functionality and improving the user experience has been and continues to be a challenge for us, but one that we are making great progress on.

We have completely upgraded the site with tracking technology, allowing us to better optimize our paid marketing efforts, as well as make informed decisions by collecting data the previous owners did not have the ability to collect.  We have added various ways of "suggesting" a user sign up for a Buyers account.  We are adding lightboxes for a more efficient working process for our buyers. 

We are also building the foundation to be able to accept new media types (ie: video, audio, etc.).  Currently, our foundation is only able to handle images.

We are trying to make it so that when we launch the site, the Buyers will have many more reasons to use GL, rather than simply having a new look and feel.  We are also ensuring that we do not launch prematurely, to the extent that the changes we are making will not be as effective as we anticipate.  We are waiting until we are pleased with the product, and it will be released in a version that we are most proud of.

I have only mentioned a few things that will be coming out in the upcoming release(s), but as a software developer, I'm sure you can appreciate that this requires hundreds of hours of design and development work.

We actually did send an email out to our buyers about some upcoming changes, here are a few things we touched up on:


"Here is a brief rundown of what we're working on:

-  Complete Redesign of Buyer & Contributor Interface
-  Making significant improvements to search results pages.
-  Addition of Lightbox Functionality, giving you the ability to work and search more efficiently.
-  Offering a quicker, more seamless purchase and download experience.
-  Change to Credit system: Rather than receiving deposit bonuses for deposits of $100+, you will receive discounts on many credit packages. This will enable you to spend less on each image you purchase! IE: If an image costs $10.00 (or 10 Credits), you will pay significantly less than $10.00 for that image by purchasing a discounted credit package.
-  We will be experimenting with Bundle Packages, offering a collection of photos to be purchased together (ie: 25 Image Vector Set, 25 Seamless Pattern Vectors, etc.)"

We anticipate an increase in credit purchases, and thus an increase in image sales by making the switch from "deposits" to "credits".  Based on the technology our site was built on, we are not able to offer tiered discounts, we are only able to offer "bonuses".  As a buyer, a bonus is nice because it allows you to get some free images.  However, most buyers are more interested in paying less per image, and our new credit plans will incentivize buyers to pay less per image by buying more credits.

Unlike other agencies, if a buyer purchases a discounted credit plan, you will not receive less commissions.
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This is a big process for us, and I can assure you all that we are doing the best we can to make it happen as quickly as possible, but we are not willing to sacrifice the overall quality of the project we've been working on for quite some time, solely to launch something prematurely.

I know some of you believe that we are "waffling", and that's okay.  You're entitled to your opinion, but the reality is, we are taking a neglected site/business and giving it the TLC it deeply needs.