Microstock Photography Forum - General > General Stock Discussion

I NEED YOUR HELP

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cliffordthebigreddog:
Hi guys,

I got into selling stock footage when I was producing and shooting travel videos for advertising. There were just too many clips I’ve never gotten to use and I wanted to put them into a different use. I tried out different stock video selling websites, like Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, etc, but there was always one thing that didn’t suit my needs and I had to go off looking for another platform. I’ve been talking to my videographer and developer friends about it and we have decided that we want to create a whole new platform — just like Shutterstock and Pond5, but starting from square one.

For a bit of context, I’ve always been frustrated at how I had to send my work off to agencies that take majority of the royalties, or doesn’t give you the liberty to edit your submission afterwards. The keywording part is always an issue as well, as I’ve heard from many others. In addition to all these, what prompted the development of this process is the recent boycott at Shutterstock. I noticed that the recent changes are inconvenient and inefficient, most of all it is inconsiderate to the users. This seemed to emphasize a need for a contributor-friendly, contributor-prioritizing space.

The dream is to make a website where it is easy for users to upload, manage and edit their submissions. Something that looks great but is also efficient, where the contributor's interest is the top priority.

I have been scouring through various communities on Reddit, Shutterstock, Microstock, Facebook directed at stock video creators and gathering information about what each website does well or fails. But I would like to ask for your opinions directly. As a stock video contributor using these websites, how has your experience been like? What worked well for you? What were the inconveniences? What improvements should the current stock video websites implement? Any thoughts on the current platform you are using? Price, design, function -- Anything (and by that I do mean absolutely anything!) would be golden.

If carried out well, I think it would potentially be a great push for many of the stock videographers here. We are still in the beginning stage, but your input is absolutely necessary in order for us to create a platform that is 100% suited to your interest and needs. Our goal is to reflect all these upsides and downsides that these current stock video websites have and refine ours with the utmost convenience.

Yours,

Shim   

marthamarks:
Your post is falling into a dark hole because (in my opinion) there's nothing in it to indicate what kind of response or information you want from us.

I didn't understand it yesterday, and reading again today, it's still not clear.

Are you pitching us for some great new stock opportunity? Asking us to tell you how to create a great new stock opportunity? Bemoaning the fact that there is no great new stock opportunity?

Or are you genuinely asking about our experiences… which are clearly spelled out in mind-boggling depth over years throughout this forum?

If you'd like to clarify, perhaps somebody will be motivated to respond.

Copidosoma:
You are approaching this backwards, as have previous people who have attempted such things.

Your priority should be on buyers. Find markets that will provide large volumes of sales. Build a site and the contributors will come in a massive tsunami.
Having a nice site and a million contributors with no buyers will be pointless (and has been done before).

Get your market access set up and then we'll talk.

cliffordthebigreddog:
Ok, thanks guys for specifying how my previous post is spiralling into the no-response hole, so here's an updated version. Will provide tdlr in the end.

I didn’t mention this in my previous post, but we started out with a solid plan and some progress has been made so far. Right now we are working on expanding the current scope of categories to suit more needs for both users and contributors and a service that would significantly reduce the amount of time devoted to coming up with keywords and descriptions.

So it’s not like ‘oh i wanna make a website but idk anything so help’ kind of situation. We definitely have something going for sure, it’s just that it’s still early to say much about it at the moment. But it will be revealed. Soon.

We are focusing on the sellers for now because I believe that only when we provide an ideal platform for the contributors we can then gather a decent number of contributors. The buyers would naturally follow. So gathering buyers and actively promoting our site would be a later step. I mean, what use is the site with buyers when there isn’t anything to buy? So I am trying to balance things out here.

To address previous concerns, we are asking for your experiences because we need the most updated opinions. It is also a part of connecting with you guys because we are not based in US / Europe where the stock video market is the biggest. We are also gathering very general info because we are using those to come up with a survey and an interactive event.

So yes, we are pitching a great new stock opportunity, but not just yet. But for now here’s what I want to ask first:

How do you choose where to upload? Do you just straight up go for the big ones like Adobe, Pond5 etc, or do you use smaller platforms too? If you do use the smaller websites as well, why did you decide to do so? (eg. Good commission, neat website design, easy uploading process, stuff like that)


TDLR:
1) Making a new Shutterstock but better (hopefully)
2) Need your opinions and feedback along the way
3) Doing market research / survey prep
Q: What’s your criteria for choosing where to upload your videos?

Shim

Firn:

--- Quote from: cliffordthebigreddog on July 10, 2020, 01:33 ---
We are focusing on the sellers for now because I believe that only when we provide an ideal platform for the contributors we can then gather a decent number of contributors. The buyers would naturally follow.


--- End quote ---

There you are completely wrong. Buyers won't just follow and there is nothing happening naturally here - It's a highly competitive market where you need a good business strategy. 

 We already have plenty of stock agencies with good interfaces for contributors and millions (high quality) images, illustrations and videos in the database  - but without buyers. We don't need even more of these. Many of us already don't submit to many of the agencies that already exist, not because the contributor interface wasn't good enough, but because these sites don't have enough buyers and don't generate enough sales for it to be worth our time.
Look at the poll on the right: 43 stock agencies listed. To how many of these do most contributors submit to? I submit to a total of 4 and I have tried out more, but they did not generate enough sales and I gave up on them again.

You are focusing on the wrong end. You don't just create a stock site, have hopefull contributors join and submit their images and then magically expct buyers to flood in.

You want to know what contributors care the most about in a stock agency? The question is answered easily: Many sales and good payment. I can deal with the most gruesome interface, if my income is good. I will not bother with the most awesome interface in the world if the site is not generating sales for me.

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