Thanks for the views and comments here, we do drop in from time to time and it's always good to read.

As usual, it's easier for me to reply in the way of bullet points:

- Vectors. Yes, we are looking to take in vectors. For the next couple of months, we're only looking to take on collections over 1000 and they must be via hard drive. After this initial phase is complete, users will be able to upload smaller amounts via the usual online uploader. We envisage this will be available at the start of 2014. If you're interested in submitting high volumes now, please email me - [email protected]

- Payments. We've recently reduced our threshold from $250 to $175 but we are working on lowering that (announcement to come soon). If you cancel your contract with us, we check your closed account every month to see if any other pending sales have cleared. If they have, we pay you that amount at the beginning of the next month, even if it is below the threshold.

- Sale clearing times. Unlike many other agencies, we report sales in real time. This means, you get notification of the sale when the licence is ordered, not when the client pays. When the client pays, the sale becomes cleared and your balance updated in your Alamy account. Why do sales take at least 45 days to clear? For account customers, depending on who they are and their deal with us, some will have long payment terms. This is normal in the industry, and that's one reason for the time delay. The other, is to allow a grace period where a refund can be issued for the customer. Projects get swapped around and changed frequently and we need to be flexible and allow cancellations of licences within a short time period. If you've ever had a 'refund' on an Alamy sale as a contributor, then it's likely that the sale had never cleared. With that in mind, a refund is more like a cancellation.

- Key customers having images prior to paying. Related to the point above really. All agencies (aside from microstock) offer this service, it's essential. It may be less noticeable on other agencies as they may only report sales once they have cleared, not in real time like us, when they can still be cancelled by the client.

I'll pop back to answer any follow up questions if you have them and look forward to hearing from anyone interested in vector submissions. I've already had a few emails since this thread appeared, so that's great.

Thanks again for posting.

James Allsworth
Content Executive
Alamy

Thanks James, much appreciated.

Thanks James.  Most of the microstock sites seem to credit us almost instantly for most sales.  Would be good if alamy could take instant payments for the lower priced licences.

I hope vectors are soon opened up for everyone but I'm still disappointed that alamy haven't done that for video clips.  I don't see the point in not utilising all contributors and only offering buyers a small collection that isn't going to appeal to them.

Quote from: sharpshot on September 30, 2013, 12:11
Thanks James.  Most of the microstock sites seem to credit us almost instantly for most sales.  Would be good if alamy could take instant payments for the lower priced licences.

I hope vectors are soon opened up for everyone but I'm still disappointed that alamy haven't done that for video clips.  I don't see the point in not utilising all contributors and only offering buyers a small collection that isn't going to appeal to them.

The video collection is currently at 260,000 clips and we are seeing regular sales and get good feedback from customers. We would love to be able to allow online upload of video for everyone but aside from the technical complexities and load on infrastructure, it simply comes down to priorities. We have more pressing projects that we are working on that must come first before opening up video, which is why we are limiting video submissions to large volumes of clips from well established brands / collections.

Allowing all contributors to upload vectors is a far simpler process and will be available soon.

Cheers

James A

While we have your attention, are there any plans in changing the image editor? The keywording system could do with an upgrade.

Quote from: Ron on September 30, 2013, 12:38
While we have your attention, are there any plans in changing the image editor? The keywording system could do with an upgrade.

+1

Quote from: Ron on September 30, 2013, 12:38
While we have your attention, are there any plans in changing the image editor? The keywording system could do with an upgrade.

Yes - couldn't agree more that it needs an upgrade. We've been gathering feedback for a while and we know exactly what's required in order to make improvements. We've got a checklist of things there that we want to implement.

You'll want to know timescales and rightly so! However, I'm not going to be able to offer any I'm afraid. All I can say is that it is very much on our list but customer facing improvements have to take priority.

Cheers

James A

No worries James, thanks for chiming in. GOod to know you are working on improvements.

Quote from: ShadySue on September 30, 2013, 10:47

Quote from: KimsCreativeHub on September 30, 2013, 02:44
They seem backwoods behind the times

It's an advantage for certain buyers who can't pay in advance (because of their company's accounting system) or who have accounting cycles.

I've heard that plenty of other RM agencies work the same way.

Interesting, thanks Sue

Thank you for coming in here James. We appreciate that very much!

Alamy is one of the few fair trade agencies and the company has been around a long time. So we hope you will continue to be successful and grow your business.

Thanks James, you've cleared things up nicely, and it's always nice to hear from an agency.

Thanks guys, you're welcome!

James A

Quote from: Alamy on September 30, 2013, 11:49
we're only looking to take on collections over 1000 and they must be via hard drive.

BTW vectors are usually small in size, 1000 will easy fit into DVD

Quote from: cidepix on September 30, 2013, 01:25

Quote from: cthoman on September 29, 2013, 16:48
I guess I'll have to look at Alamy again. I thought the lack of vectors before didn't make it a very appealing agency, so this looks like a good move.

I have my raster versions on alamy and do not recommend it personally..

poll results are misleading.. alamy is below veer for me.. and that is consistent..

of course results may vary, but I think alamy ranks high on MSG polls, due to photographer votes..

I am actually getting ready to write them off soon.. just want my personal sites to reach a certain level of success..

their payment threshold is $175 and you have to wait for "at least 45 days" for sales to clear.. it makes it very complicated to leave them because when you reach $175 and decide that you are leaving there will very likely be some uncleared payments that they won't pay you for months after you left..

let's say you have $195 in you account.. $175 is cleared.. $20 uncleared.. they will pay that $175 automatically at the end of the month.. you can not just remove your images and wait for that $20 to clear.. because If you remove your images, and they pay you that $175, you will never reach the minimum payment threshold again even if that $20 clears..

Not sure if they would honor that $20.. it is just too complicated.. awful system they have there..

Thanks. I'll definitely have to keep that in mind.

Quote from: Ron on September 30, 2013, 12:38
While we have your attention, are there any plans in changing the image editor? The keywording system could do with an upgrade.

changes in the keywording system would impact all the actual rankings, it could easily backfire for many people !

what about giving us FTP uploads instead ?

one more suggestion @Alamy :

why not offering a paid service for in-house keywording ?
like, i send you a hard disk with 5000 images and you do the whole keywording for an affordable price ?

i'm sure many of us would be interested in something like that and willing to pay for it.

Slightly annoying now that I have almost 1,000 JPG versions of vectors up there. Oh well.

Quote from: Ron on September 29, 2013, 08:12
http://discussion.alamy.com/index.php?/topic/1022-why-not-sell-vectors/

QuoteWe're introducing vectors to Alamy during the last quarter of this year and we're currently looking for high volume contributors.

At the moment, the submission process is via hard drive only and you must have at least 1000 vectors to submit. If this works for you then please get in touch by emailing [email protected]

If you've got less than 1000, you'll be able to upload via the website soon, but not just yet.

Cheers

James A

I'm really disappointed that they're going into vectors.  I think one of the biggest reasons for the decline of stock photography is the "everyone selling everything to everyone" syndrome.   Agencies are giving up everything that made them distinctive or gave them identity. 

It's as if every retail store became a giant Walmart.   

Quote from: stockastic on September 30, 2013, 18:50
I'm really disappointed that they're going into vectors.  I think one of the biggest reasons for the decline of stock photography is the "everyone selling everything to everyone" syndrome.   Agencies are giving up everything that made them distinctive or gave them identity. 

It's as if every retail store became a giant Walmart.

I agree, but I think photos are the anchor on the market's neck not vectors. 

Quote from: TheBlackRhino on September 30, 2013, 18:40
Slightly annoying now that I have almost 1,000 JPG versions of vectors up there. Oh well.

Quote from: Ron on September 29, 2013, 08:12
http://discussion.alamy.com/index.php?/topic/1022-why-not-sell-vectors/

QuoteWe're introducing vectors to Alamy during the last quarter of this year and we're currently looking for high volume contributors.

At the moment, the submission process is via hard drive only and you must have at least 1000 vectors to submit. If this works for you then please get in touch by emailing [email protected]

If you've got less than 1000, you'll be able to upload via the website soon, but not just yet.

Cheers

James A

You can always send me the vectors (although they must be .eps files) and we'll replace your jpg files like for like. Just email me if interested.

Cheers

James A

Quote from: Alamy on September 30, 2013, 11:49

- Sale clearing times. Unlike many other agencies, we report sales in real time. This means, you get notification of the sale when the licence is ordered, not when the client pays. When the client pays, the sale becomes cleared and your balance updated in your Alamy account. Why do sales take at least 45 days to clear? For account customers, depending on who they are and their deal with us, some will have long payment terms. This is normal in the industry, and that's one reason for the time delay. The other, is to allow a grace period where a refund can be issued for the customer. Projects get swapped around and changed frequently and we need to be flexible and allow cancellations of licences within a short time period. If you've ever had a 'refund' on an Alamy sale as a contributor, then it's likely that the sale had never cleared. With that in mind, a refund is more like a cancellation.

"At least 45 days" is very vague. I had a $245 sale in early July, and we are going on 3 months without clearance yet. It doesn't give me much confidence that the buyer still hasn't committed to the image after a quarter of a year.

Quote from: djpadavona on October 02, 2013, 04:38

Quote from: Alamy on September 30, 2013, 11:49

- Sale clearing times. Unlike many other agencies, we report sales in real time. This means, you get notification of the sale when the licence is ordered, not when the client pays. When the client pays, the sale becomes cleared and your balance updated in your Alamy account. Why do sales take at least 45 days to clear? For account customers, depending on who they are and their deal with us, some will have long payment terms. This is normal in the industry, and that's one reason for the time delay. The other, is to allow a grace period where a refund can be issued for the customer. Projects get swapped around and changed frequently and we need to be flexible and allow cancellations of licences within a short time period. If you've ever had a 'refund' on an Alamy sale as a contributor, then it's likely that the sale had never cleared. With that in mind, a refund is more like a cancellation.

"At least 45 days" is very vague. I had a $245 sale in early July, and we are going on 3 months without clearance yet. It doesn't give me much confidence that the buyer still hasn't committed to the image after a quarter of a year.

Hi Dan, same here, 21 June, I emailed MS and their reply was distributor sales will take longer than 90 days to clear. MS said it could take up to 120 days or more !!!

So I have to wait another 3 months to get paid, thats 8 months. Screw that, I am dropping Alamy as soon as that payment has cleared.

Well distribution sales work slightly differently and yes, quite often the clearing terms for those can be 90 days, sometimes 120. The chain of payment is much longer:

>client informs distributor of useage>distributor informs Alamy (and therefore you, the photographer because we report live)>Distruibutor obtains payment from client>Distributor then pays Alamy>Alamy process the payment to you

This is quite common within the industry but please remember - with some other agents, you will not see this long process because they will only report the sale to you at the end of the process - we tell you at the start.

Some of the large publishers require long billing cycles, it's how they pay all of their providers, and we have to be flexible in order to retain business. That's the reality of the industry, there is nothing untoward going on here.

Is it frustrating waiting to be paid for an image use? Yes of course, but we will always be working to get the payment to you as quickly as possible. We've paid out over $135 million to photographers since we started and we're working on lowering the payment threshold further so there is less time our photographers have to wait before getting hold of their well earned money.

Happy to answer any other questions you've got.

Cheers

James A

To be honest, I'd rather wish you tell me at the end, so I can get the money asap, instead of showing me sale which I have to wait 8 months for to get paid, and even when the sale is reported, I am not sure if it will stick because of your refund policy. It wont be the first time a 1000 dollar sale gets retracted and then sold for 100 dollar instead. In fact, someone on your forum mentioned yesterday he started the October balance in the red, owing you money. LOL

All agencies I am with show me the sale in real time too, so I dont know why you say they dont. But when those sales happen, I know that within 45 days I have the money.

Doesnt matter anyway, I will be closing my account. The extremely tedious editor and the lack of sales and the 8 month period to get paid add too much frustration to my hobby.

Appreciate your comments James, I am sure you will do fine without me   

Quote from: Ron on October 02, 2013, 10:15
To be honest, I'd rather wish you tell me at the end, so I can get the money asap, instead of showing me sale which I have to wait 8 months for to get paid, and even when the sale is reported, I am not sure if it will stick because of your refund policy. It wont be the first time a 1000 dollar sale gets retracted and then sold for 100 dollar instead. In fact, someone on your forum mentioned yesterday he started the October balance in the red, owing you money. LOL

All agencies I am with show me the sale in real time too, so I dont know why you say they dont. But when those sales happen, I know that within 45 days I have the money.

Doesnt matter anyway, I will be closing my account. The extremely tedious editor and the lack of sales and the 8 month period to get paid add too much frustration to my hobby.

Appreciate your comments James, I am sure you will do fine without me   

Sorry you feel that way Ron. Sounds like your decision is made but just a couple more points in response to your reply:

1 - "he started the October balance in the red, owing you money. LOL" - not correct. A cancellation of a license may have appeared at the beginning of his gross statement for the month but that doesn't mean he owed us money. Looking through his net revenue reports via my Alamy would confirm this.

2 - there will be varying degrees of exactly what real time sales reporting means I guess. We report as soon as the customer is billed. For RM sales in particular, this is useful as it keeps the photographer updated as to whats in the pipe line. This means though that we report the sale to you during the refund window for the customer rather than after (like others do) so you may see some cancellations come through. These however are pretty rare in the grand scheme of things.

3 - Your lack of sales is likely down to your low numbers of images on Alamy. We've got a different model to other agents you are with and I'm sure if you continued to grow your collection steadily and keyword well, you'd start to see regular sales.

Cheers

James A