MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Adobe Stock => Topic started by: Dreamframer on August 31, 2010, 08:08
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I received this email from Fotolia today.
Dear Whitechild,
Recently, we've been receiving a lot of requests from contributors to
remove underperforming files from their portfolios. Apparently, most
photographers think that there is no chance of selling an image if it
hasn't been downloaded at least once in the last year.
Since then, our product and marketing teams have been working hard on
creating a solution that benefits both contributing artists and
customers alike. Our belief is that if one of your images was accepted
into Fotolia's collection, it is an image that deserves to be sold and
used.
To make your images even more attractive to customers, we're
introducing a new pricing strategy for images that have not been
downloaded in the last 12 months. These images will be priced at
Fotolia's best rates - $1 for XS, to $10 for XXL. If your images are
already priced at this level, images in your portfolio will remain
unchanged. Once the affected images are downloaded at least 5 times,
you will be able to set their maximum prices once again.
Along with our other sales and marketing initiatives, we're
anticipating increased sales when this new policy comes into effect
September 1st, 2010.
Best Regards,
Team Fotolia
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I never touched the prices for my uploaded files, so I guess mine are set to a minimum...
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I never touched the prices for my uploaded files, so I guess mine are set to a minimum...
This sound like normal (i.e. the only possible) credit price for all non-exclusive files and non-exclusive contributors up to Emerald level when you can start to set this normal prices higher.
Maximum sales price
Ranking Contributor royalty (%) Standard Licenses Extended
Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free
White 25 1 3 5 7 8 10 20
Bronze 28 1 3 5 7 8 10 50
Silver 31 1 3 5 7 8 10 100
Gold 34 1 3 5 7 8 10 150
Emerald 37 2 6 10 14 16 20 200
Sapphire 40 3 9 15 21 24 30 200
Rubis 43 4 12 20 28 32 40 200
Diamond 46 5 15 25 35 40 50 200
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Sigh...Again, Fotolia? >:(
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I never touched the prices for my uploaded files, so I guess mine are set to a minimum...
This sound like normal (i.e. the only possible) credit price for all non-exclusive files and non-exclusive contributors up to Emerald level when you can start to set this normal prices higher.
Maximum sales price
Ranking Contributor royalty (%) Standard Licenses Extended
Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free Royalty Free
White 25 1 3 5 7 8 10 20
Bronze 28 1 3 5 7 8 10 50
Silver 31 1 3 5 7 8 10 100
Gold 34 1 3 5 7 8 10 150
Emerald 37 2 6 10 14 16 20 200
Sapphire 40 3 9 15 21 24 30 200
Rubis 43 4 12 20 28 32 40 200
Diamond 46 5 15 25 35 40 50 200
Yeah I guess this wont effect most people, only emeralds or exclusive images. Since Fotolia pulled the rug out from under us with the downloads required to reach the tears there's not too many Emeralds out there to get worried! (I'm assuming it doesn't effect the extended license prices, which you can set.......or does it?!)
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I had one sell on istock yesterday for $15 that had zero downloads for over 3 years. Having said that, I don't mind this, seems sensible to me and they told us before it happens this time :) And did they really listen to requests from contributors? Makes a nice change if its true.
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This whole thing stinks of another one of Fotolia's "favors" to us. Lots of people want to delete their files, so we are helping you out by lowering the price on them. Then, when they sell, you can go through manually and adjust the prices (If you remember). And for your convenience, it will all be automated, so you'll never know it's happening.
Can I opt out of this now or do I have to wait for more details?
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This isn't going to impact you at all Cthoman. It appears that all your files are set to $1 for XS anyway.
Take care,
Mat
This whole thing stinks of another one of Fotolia's "favors" to us. Lots of people want to delete their files, so we are helping you out by lowering the price on them. Then, when they sell, you can go through manually and adjust the prices (If you remember). And for your convenience, it will all be automated, so you'll never know it's happening.
Can I opt out of this now or do I have to wait for more details?
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So it's just a discount on images from emerald and up non exclusives and for bronze and up exclusives.
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when contributors will be able to change price? more than 100 download?
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This isn't going to impact you at all Cthoman. It appears that all your files are set to $1 for XS anyway.
Take care,
Mat
I realize it won't impact me, but I still don't agree with the policy.
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To be honest, I don't really have a problem with this. I have been emerald for a couple of years and I wondered if having all my images set to a base of $2 might be losing me some sales in this economic climate.
Reducing the price of my non-performers to a base of $1 may give them a chance to be more competitive and ultimately bring in more sales volume. At least I hope so.
Also, the fact that images which sell 5 times at base price are boosted back up to the higher price does give the images a chance to earn more again.
Since lowering the price will cost Fotolia more than it does me, I assume they will be watching how this affects sales and will change the policy if they notice themselves losing revenue.
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Also, the fact that images which sell 5 times at base price are boosted back up to the higher price does give the images a chance to earn more again.
The formulation in the email says that they won't be boosted back. They will allow you to set the price to higher values again. I guess that may be huge issue for someone like you with thousands of images, that is unless they provide some easy to use tool to do so or some type of notification emails.
(And yeah, unfortunately I'm far from being affected either)
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Also, the fact that images which sell 5 times at base price are boosted back up to the higher price does give the images a chance to earn more again.
The formulation in the email says that they won't be boosted back. They will allow you to set the price to higher values again. I guess that may be huge issue for someone like you with thousands of images, that is unless they provide some easy to use tool to do so or some type of notification emails.
(And yeah, unfortunately I'm far from being affected either)
I'm afraid I understand it the same way, that Fotolia is not bumping them up automatically after 5 sales.
It's up to the contributor to keep checking the files regularly so we can adjust the prices ourselves...
I'm not sure if this is a good solution...
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Ah. My mistake. That will be more difficult to keep track of.
Might make sense to every 6 months or so just write support and ask that all your base prices be set up. That way any that have met the sales quota at that time will be upgraded.
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Having said that, I don't mind this, seems sensible to me and they told us before it happens this time :) And did they really listen to requests from contributors? Makes a nice change if its true.
The mail starts with: "Recently, we've been receiving a lot of requests from contributors to remove underperforming files from their portfolios."
As far as I know, if you wish to remove a file for whatever reason, you just 'delete' it. If an image is 'underperforming', halving the price won't help if it's in position 2,015 in the search..........it may never be seen again. Possibly quite rightly so!
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doesnt affect me as my images are all at the base of $1, but sounds like a good plan
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when contributors will be able to change price? more than 100 download?
For exclusives, yes. For non-exclusives it's a lot more: 25000 downloads - and subs only count 1/4 download.
http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors (http://us.fotolia.com/Info/Contributors)
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This whole thing stinks of another one of Fotolia's "favors" to us. Lots of people want to delete their files, so we are helping you out by lowering the price on them. Then, when they sell, you can go through manually and adjust the prices (If you remember). And for your convenience, it will all be automated, so you'll never know it's happening.
Can I opt out of this now or do I have to wait for more details?
It seems to me that Fotolia (like any other site) wants our images to sell for the most money possible, because they get paid a PERCENTAGE. Why would they not want you to remember to increase your prices again? Would you rather they just delete files that haven't sold in a year?
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I'm not affected at all, so I don't really care.
But I do have one question: Do EL prices stay the same or are they lowered (to what) as well? That would be something I could not accept...
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I'm not affected at all, so I don't really care.
But I do have one question: Do EL prices stay the same or are they lowered (to what) as well? That would be something I could not accept...
Yeah that's what I was asking too, as that would effect everyone
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If they are going to have so many levels and rules I wish they would just adopt a system like dreamstime and have automatic image levels that are based on the individual image and not the photographer.
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If they are going to have so many levels and rules I wish they would just adopt a system like dreamstime and have automatic image levels that are based on the individual image and not the photographer.
I agree
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Actually, this seems to impact non-exlusive and non-emerald contributors negatively. When this goes into effect and a user searches by "price" - I guess this is the only time this really comes into play - there will be more images at the low prices than there are now. Non-exclusive and non-emerald contributors will be competing with exclusive and emerald contributors for sales at prices they were not having to compete at before.
Probably no big dieal - and I may have it wrong - but we will just have to see.
fred
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It seems to me that Fotolia (like any other site) wants our images to sell for the most money possible, because they get paid a PERCENTAGE. Why would they not want you to remember to increase your prices again? Would you rather they just delete files that haven't sold in a year?
Well, I probably overreacted a little bit, but it bothers me when everybody gets painted with the same broad brush. Make it optional, so it works for everyone. I'm a little more patient with my files, and a year without a sale is less than ideal but not out of the ordinary. 2 or 3 makes more sense. As far as FT selling things for the most possible, tell that to the tiered vector system that halved a lot of vector prices for contributors. But nobody cared about that because "it didn't affect them".
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I think this is great :) Good way to maximize sales from all the photos in your portfolio.
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As far as FT selling things for the most possible, tell that to the tiered vector system that halved a lot of vector prices for contributors. But nobody cared about that because "it didn't affect them".
While I agree that Fotolia (and everyone else!) makes mistakes, I'm fairly certain that none of the sites would ever do anything on purpose that they thought would hurt sales overall. Sometimes, stupid ideas look good on paper, I guess.
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Sigh...Again, Fotolia? >:(
Not me. Account closed and I don't exist on their system anymore. It was fun taking the ride, but I finally took the Exit.
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Hi All,
Time to do a bit of spring cleaning. I think many of the Micro sites should follow suit. It is a slow search with millions of images for our buyers to dig through. Maybe this will give some room for quality to continue to grow and bring higher prices for us all. I am all for it.
Best,
Jonathan
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To be honest, I don't really have a problem with this. I have been emerald for a couple of years and I wondered if having all my images set to a base of $2 might be losing me some sales in this economic climate.
Reducing the price of my non-performers to a base of $1 may give them a chance to be more competitive and ultimately bring in more sales volume. At least I hope so.
Also, the fact that images which sell 5 times at base price are boosted back up to the higher price does give the images a chance to earn more again.
Since lowering the price will cost Fotolia more than it does me, I assume they will be watching how this affects sales and will change the policy if they notice themselves losing revenue.
I'm emerald and that's my take on it as well.
I don't think that Fotolia are going to do anything that will stop them making money. I think the people that should be concerned are the ones that it doesn't seem to effect as the buyers may now buy images from emerald and exclusives that were previously too highly priced for them instead of images from lower level non exclusives.
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Today I have a mail sent by fotolia, 130 of my files was unsold for 24 months, and they suggest to give them for free, locking for five years in they partner sites. In that batch of photos there are many that sell well in other agency, and one was sell yesterday for 360$ in alamy as RF. I agree with a survey warning that images very low seller need some work in keywords, category, etc. But I can't imagine how giving it for free will improve my sales.
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Today I have a mail sent by fotolia, 130 of my files was unsold for 24 months, and they suggest to give them for free, locking for five years in they partner sites. In that batch of photos there are many that sell well in other agency, and one was sell yesterday for 360$ in alamy as RF. I agree with a survey warning that images very low seller need some work in keywords, category, etc. But I can't imagine how giving it for free will improve my sales.
Never, ever give 'em free. Remove them. The original agreement was for all images offered in the free section to be offered for a period of 18 months.
That period was extended by FT to 5 years without consultation and without notice. It's corporate kleptocracy at the expense of the little guy. It's unlikely to boost your sales of other images either as free buyers only want stuff for free and your images probably end up in some archive in Timbuktu offered for sale, for money by some scammer.
Your work is good and is worth paying for. :)