Author Topic: How do you imagine "perfect" stock agency (Read 4905 times)

SandBoxStudio · « **on:** November 16, 2015, 10:06 »

We can only imagine it. so... Hello to all my colleague photographers.

Recently i spoke with few local photographers (good friends) about imaginary "perfect" stock agency for us photographers. I found out that every single of us have very different views/demands.

Some of them would love that keyword system is not so complicated, some of them think that agencies should be more strict on reviewing process, some of them not.
One friend told me that he would love to see stock agency where you don't need to review images (all approved) which i found weird.

Of course we all agreed that we should have more money from our sales than we have today.

My thoughts were that review times should be shorter.
Subscription system is wrong on most of them.
Images should be more promoted.
Our income from one sold image should not be bellow 50%

Of course this would be very bad for people who are owners of the agency... or buyers...

Anyway i would love to hear your opinions on how would perfect stock agency look like.

Sorry on bad English and cheers.

sgoodwin4813 · « **Reply #1 on:** November 16, 2015, 10:13 »

Quote from: SandBoxStudio on November 16, 2015, 10:06

review times should be shorter.
Subscription system is wrong on most of them.
Images should be more promoted.
Our income from one sold image should not be bellow 50%

I agree with all of those and would add:
Easy upload process with no categories or controlled vocabulary
Minimum pricing of $5 per image (would prefer higher but that may no longer be realistic)
Negotiating for higher-value sales as SS does with SODs

Featurepics has most of those except for not many sales - I like that agency, just wish they sold more.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #2 on:** November 16, 2015, 11:02 »

It can only be somewhere like stocksy, a coop where the needs of contributor an owner are perfectly aligned (because they are the same people)

Where agencies make money by contributors making less, eg. the standard percentage model or even more so with subs where the agency wants buyers to continue paying for the subscription but not utilise their download allowance, things are bound to go bad.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #3 on:** November 16, 2015, 13:21 »

what ss used to be, a long time when dinosaurs ruled the world

the subs were still there but at least you make enough money with it
that, and add the single sales of 28 to 102 bucks which used to be more
prevalent .
+ fire that rogue reviewer and his/her atilla offsprings
+ fire that marijuana smoking boss
+ fire the eff-up genius who came up with the large downloadable preview

and there you have it. the same agency as before which earned the right to be #1
with close to 100% rating, not 87 shameful rating

but i could be just dreaming or even comatose like dt with someone blowing
marijuana smoke up my ....

rimglow · « **Reply #4 on:** November 16, 2015, 13:56 »

GL Stock Images is pretty close to perfect, except they can't attract enough buyers.

4seasons · « **Reply #5 on:** November 16, 2015, 20:40 »

For me it's enough three short things for agency to be perfect:

1. Accept my images.
2. Sell them.
3. Pay money.

What's the point of the best uploading engine if they reject photos?
What's the point of good keywording/preparing system and beautiful interface, if don't sell?

Of course, images' prices, payout minimum and some other things are worth to be discussed then

weathernewsonline · « **Reply #6 on:** November 16, 2015, 22:59 »

Video here:

In a perfect world/agency I would like to see a 50% or 100% cut for the contributor depending on the business model of the agency/site, we must remember their server costs must be astronomical.

So a 50-100% cut and what I would like to see are less rejections for shots that are not perfect. define perfect? I've seen comments by the purists on another forum that a certain site should delete all the complete and utter crap in favour of their fine art. Well....what I shoot is not fine art but and out of my collection many times my worst stuff sells, stuff I didn't mean to upload but since I batch convert everything to photoJpeg in media encoder, batch upload and template it I leave it to the curators to make the call and some less than perfect stuff gets in and with near perfect shots from the same scene available to the customer the customer chose the shot that was not perfectly steady or whatever, why? because it works for their project.

TV news used to be super strict about perfection, now we have home videos being used as professional video....oh wait! User Generated content....cell phone cam crap, times and styles are a changing.

Was thinking the other day, an agency that accepts and markets the stuff that's a little rough around the edges might end up being a massive runaway success.

So fair commission and less rejections.

Julied83 · « **Reply #7 on:** November 17, 2015, 08:38 »

GL stock don't accept new contributor ! Wow !

sgoodwin4813 · « **Reply #8 on:** November 17, 2015, 09:20 »

Quote from: Julied83 on November 17, 2015, 08:38

GL stock don't accept new contributor ! Wow !

They also hardly ever sell anything so you're not missing much, unfortunately.

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #9 on:** November 17, 2015, 19:13 »

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on November 16, 2015, 13:21

what ss used to be, a long time when dinosaurs ruled the world
the subs were still there but at least you make enough money with it
that, and add the single sales of 28 to 102 bucks which used to be more
prevalent .
+ fire that rogue reviewer and his/her atilla offsprings
+ fire that marijuana smoking boss
+ fire the eff-up genius who came up with the large downloadable preview

and there you have it. the same agency as before which earned the right to be #1
with close to 100% rating, not 87 shameful rating

but i could be just dreaming or even comatose like dt with someone blowing
marijuana smoke up my ....

SS always had a 100 because they used to be the standard for all other sites. Leaf changed it to a number, based on $500 maybe. New 87 could be higher than old 100 now. Do you understand that? Shameful is somebody who make criticism without the facts.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #10 on:** November 17, 2015, 19:33 »

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on November 17, 2015, 19:13

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on November 16, 2015, 13:21
what ss used to be, a long time when dinosaurs ruled the world
the subs were still there but at least you make enough money with it
that, and add the single sales of 28 to 102 bucks which used to be more
prevalent .
+ fire that rogue reviewer and his/her atilla offsprings
+ fire that marijuana smoking boss
+ fire the eff-up genius who came up with the large downloadable preview

and there you have it. the same agency as before which earned the right to be #1
with close to 100% rating, not 87 shameful rating

but i could be just dreaming or even comatose like dt with someone blowing
marijuana smoke up my ....

SS always had a 100 because they used to be the standard for all other sites. Leaf changed it to a number, based on $500 maybe. New 87 could be higher than old 100 now. Do you understand that? Shameful is somebody who make criticism without the facts.

so you have the facts to provide us that new 87 is or could be higher than old 100 now???
or is it just another pot calling the kettle black???

YadaYadaYada · « **Reply #11 on:** November 19, 2015, 21:58 »

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on November 17, 2015, 19:33

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on November 17, 2015, 19:13
Quote from: etudiante_rapide on November 16, 2015, 13:21
what ss used to be, a long time when dinosaurs ruled the world
the subs were still there but at least you make enough money with it
that, and add the single sales of 28 to 102 bucks which used to be more
prevalent .
+ fire that rogue reviewer and his/her atilla offsprings
+ fire that marijuana smoking boss
+ fire the eff-up genius who came up with the large downloadable preview

and there you have it. the same agency as before which earned the right to be #1
with close to 100% rating, not 87 shameful rating

but i could be just dreaming or even comatose like dt with someone blowing
marijuana smoke up my ....

SS always had a 100 because they used to be the standard for all other sites. Leaf changed it to a number, based on $500 maybe. New 87 could be higher than old 100 now. Do you understand that? Shameful is somebody who make criticism without the facts.

so you have the facts to provide us that new 87 is or could be higher than old 100 now???
or is it just another pot calling the kettle black???

You called SS shameful based on the 100 number. They were the 100 number. You going to admit that you are talking out of your ass as usual? Do you read English and know the word could?