Author Topic: If competition plays it right this could be a check mate for Istock and Shutter (Read 2775 times)

everest · « **on:** June 02, 2020, 07:36 »

It has to be seen how the competition will react to this recent move. Istock and Shutter are in a heavy price war and hope that in the meantime they can suffocate the other players in the battle for customers. At the same time they don't want to affect the profit of their investors so they have slashed contributors percentages.

What will happen next.........It will depend on what the other players do.

When Getty/Istock kicked the face of contributors Stocksy appeared. Of all the great contributors that left I heard of not a single one that has gone back to Getty. They work now on a fairer agency. They might or might not earn what the golden (Vetta/Agency) years brought at Istock but they get a fair compensation for their work and they can thing medium long term.

I believe in this hard competitive market with only a few other players only exclusive content distributed on an honorable agency will save us. Once you no longer compete on price for the same content you push the burden on clients. This is exclusive content, you will not get it for cents so you pay higher for it or that particular file will not end in your basket.

Pond5 has their exclusive content program ready at 60% and ability to set prices. If Adobe follows with something similar Istock and Shutterstock will be in deep trouble. The exodus has just begun of these leeching agencies. If they implement a good alternative now that we are in a disruptive moment, they could fade away in only a few years.

I really hope that agencies and contributors are well aware of this opportunity.

cobalt · « **Reply #1 on:** June 02, 2020, 07:43 »

If Adobe comes out with an attractive new exclusive program it is, probably game over for most agencies.

They will completly dominate, like ebay or amazon.

But...because we are all customers it will not be an unbalanced relationship.

r2d2 · « **Reply #2 on:** June 02, 2020, 07:47 »

Quote from: cobalt on June 02, 2020, 07:43

If Adobe comes out with an attractive new exclusive program it is, probably game over for most agencies.

They will completly dominate, like ebay or amazon.

But...because we are all customers it will not be an unbalanced relationship.

hopefully that will happen!

In the meantime we have to stop Shutterstock by making them unpopular for buyers and sharholders.

charged · « **Reply #3 on:** June 02, 2020, 07:52 »

iStock still has a ton of exclusive content. All my images are exclusive with iStock. I regularly see late night American TV shows use my images. But yes, I agree it is super important for a stock website to have exclusive images. I remember years ago when microstock was very young and I use to work at a very large ad agency, I would browse several legacy stock websites to search for images. At the time, everyone knew you had to look at several websites because everyone had different images. If I didn't look around, how could I know I got the best image for my project?

cobalt · « **Reply #4 on:** June 02, 2020, 08:10 »

Getty has fantastic exclusive content. Not just from istock, but also from their house contributors.

If I put on my buyers hat, I have to admit that getty has the best offer for commercial photos.

But not for video, pond5 and SS have a much better selection.

wds · « **Reply #5 on:** June 02, 2020, 08:50 »

I agree, exclusivity is key. It is the only way that agencies will compete and pay us more for content. It has to be done in such a way that there is a clear advantage for going exclusive. And then there is the question of image vs. artist exclusivity.

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Author Topic: If competition plays it right this could be a check mate for Istock and Shutter (Read 2775 times)

everest

cobalt

r2d2

charged

cobalt

wds

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