MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Stock Discussion => Topic started by: rinderart on October 05, 2011, 15:13
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Im just curious for a discussion on what would you do IF....... all the microsites suddenly dropped there commissions to 20 cents per download Like it was when I joined in 2004. No EL's, No OD's and no subscriptions,No referrals just 20 cents per download payment.
Would you stay? would you give up? I know we would Pull our hair out but..Bottom line what would you do.??? Im asking this because i'm fairly confident that whoever left would be replaced in 2/3 weeks willing to accept this and in a short time [A few months] fill the shoes of those that left with some degree of quality and Quantity. Tell me what you think. Or do you think that what you do is that good and can never be duplicated. Tough question, Just curious.
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this is absurd, you said here that you had 8 ELīs last month on a day, why on earth are you talking about this now? donīt see a point sorry
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Commissioned photography... or something else. It's no way for a full timer to make a living in those conditions.
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I'd set my neighbours on fire in protest.
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Im just curious for a discussion on what would you do IF....... all the microsites suddenly dropped there commissions to 20 cents per download Like it was when I joined in 2004. No EL's, No OD's and no subscriptions,No referrals just 20 cents per download payment.
Would you stay? would you give up? I know we would Pull our hair out but..Bottom line what would you do.??? Im asking this because i'm fairly confident that whoever left would be replaced in 2/3 weeks willing to accept this and in a short time [A few months] fill the shoes of those that left with some degree of quality and Quantity. Tell me what you think. Or do you think that what you do is that good and can never be duplicated. Tough question, Just curious.
I'd pull my port, not because I'm so wonderful but because I can afford to deny the greedy a33holes who'd make money off me the opportunity to do so. Let them go recruit and train some new sucker - that will cost the agencies time and money.
If I get to what I consider a no-win situation (for me the contributor) I'll make it as miserable and expensive for the agencies as I possibly can.
I'd still be selling via the collective site (WarmPicture) unless Dan gets eaten by a zombie and wants to suddenly pay 20 cents per :)
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this is absurd, you said here that you had 8 ELīs last month on a day, why on earth are you talking about this now? donīt see a point sorry
Hey man, try to stay focused. How I do and what I do has no bearing On my question and It affects me also. Im just curious. Don't answer. This is not an arguement like just about everything else on this site. This is a simple question or a poll if you will. I get out of this business exactly what I put in.
And my answer to my question would be I wouldn't upload anymore. and since I really don't consider this any more than 10/15% of my Income or what My Nut is every month as to where I live and my expenses. It won't matter that much. And if no one cares or answers this thread will just disappear anyway. As I said....Just curious.
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Commissioned photography... or something else. It's no way for a full timer to make a living in those conditions.
+1 Thanks
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I'd set my neighbours on fire in protest.
Good Idea. LOL
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Im just curious for a discussion on what would you do IF....... all the microsites suddenly dropped there commissions to 20 cents per download Like it was when I joined in 2004. No EL's, No OD's and no subscriptions,No referrals just 20 cents per download payment.
Would you stay? would you give up? I know we would Pull our hair out but..Bottom line what would you do.??? Im asking this because i'm fairly confident that whoever left would be replaced in 2/3 weeks willing to accept this and in a short time [A few months] fill the shoes of those that left with some degree of quality and Quantity. Tell me what you think. Or do you think that what you do is that good and can never be duplicated. Tough question, Just curious.
I'd pull my port, not because I'm so wonderful but because I can afford to deny the greedy a33holes who'd make money off me the opportunity to do so. Let them go recruit and train some new sucker - that will cost the agencies time and money.
If I get to what I consider a no-win situation (for me the contributor) I'll make it as miserable and expensive for the agencies as I possibly can.
I'd still be selling via the collective site (WarmPicture) unless Dan gets eaten by a zombie and wants to suddenly pay 20 cents per :)
So would I. And a great answer. Thanks.
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...unless Dan gets eaten by a zombie and wants to suddenly pay 20 cents per :)
There are a lot of Zombies wandering around Wall Street now, so watch out!
Anyway... I don't really see this happening, but if it did, it would probably cut my stock income in half. So, I'm not sure it would be worth continuing with these sites. I probably could eventually earn more on my own, so I'd keep selling at my own store and open a contributor shop.
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there's another way besides staying or leaving completely
that is, staying but without too much enthusiasm, repeating the same cheap pictures over and over without investing too much time and inspiration: that's what they deserve in your 20% scenario. And it's already happening now in part, after many commission cuts
such sites will start losing buyers, and some better sites will replace them
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If it ever got to the stage where I wasn't able to make enough money through taking photos I'd start selling photography lessons.
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I'd still be selling via the collective site (WarmPicture) unless Dan gets eaten by a zombie and wants to suddenly pay 20 cents per :)
Well it is almost Halloween, so you never know!
(http://www.warmpicture.com/demon_girl_sjpg7000.jpg)
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there's another way besides staying or leaving completely
that is, staying but without too much enthusiasm, repeating the same cheap pictures over and over without investing too much time and inspiration: that's what they deserve in your 20% scenario. And it's already happening now in part, after many commission cuts
such sites will start losing buyers, and some better sites will replace them
That is whats happening mostly, and the buyers are super happy with it. The vast majority of buyers don't need or want anything new or creative at all, they just want a descriptive space-filler.
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there's another way besides staying or leaving completely
that is, staying but without too much enthusiasm, repeating the same cheap pictures over and over without investing too much time and inspiration: that's what they deserve in your 20% scenario. And it's already happening now in part, after many commission cuts
such sites will start losing buyers, and some better sites will replace them
One of the reasons this came to mind.
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I will replace all my photos with 2-3 mpx and will become fabulously wealthy since mine are sure to be the only photos on the sites.
Let's see....$0..20 x 500,000 dls/year and I'll finally be making a good living!
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The reason I formed Warmpicture was as a preemptive strike against exactly this sort of thing happening.
FWIW the latest MSG poll results show Fotolia has fallen into the Middle Tier for the first time in years, exactly as many of us predicted. They drove away many fine contributors, while also accepting the risk that it would make for horrible P.R. with buyers who read blogs and forums. They have been replaced by an agency which pays 50% commissions and 36 cent subscriptions.
Look at the agencies which have attacked contributors with ridiculous commission structures over the last 2 years. Look at the MSG forums, which have a Google Page Rank of 4, suggesting that there are many people reading these boards besides contributors.
Have the agencies which attacked contributors gained, or lost, market share over the last 2 years? Independent polls suggest a pretty easy answer.
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The reason I formed Warmpicture was as a preemptive strike against exactly this sort of thing happening.
FWIW the latest MSG poll results show Fotolia has fallen into the Middle Tier for the first time in years, exactly as many of us predicted. They drove away many fine contributors, while also accepting the risk that it would make for horrible P.R. with buyers who read blogs and forums. They have been replaced by an agency which pays 50% commissions and 36 cent subscriptions.
Look at the agencies which have attacked contributors with ridiculous commission structures over the last 2 years. Look at the MSG forums, which have a Google Page Rank of 4, suggesting that there are many people reading these boards besides contributors.
Have the agencies which attacked contributors gained, or lost, market share over the last 2 years? Independent polls suggest a pretty easy answer.
Great answer. and the #1 reason I asked this question. I read just about everything here,Ignore button is very useful also and there are strange trends going On. If this Domesday scenario were to take place ...In my view it wouldn't be about the sites making More money, it would be about charging Much less and then the term "Penny stock" would be a reality all this taking into consideration the megapixel Count going up and opening up the use of web size Images which is the overwhelming sales majority to A vast sea of more submitters. Pile them High and sell them cheap. "Sam Walton"
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this is absurd, you said here that you had 8 ELīs last month on a day, why on earth are you talking about this now? donīt see a point sorry
Hey man, try to stay focused. How I do and what I do has no bearing On my question and It affects me also. Im just curious. Don't answer. This is not an arguement like just about everything else on this site. This is a simple question or a poll if you will. I get out of this business exactly what I put in.
And my answer to my question would be I wouldn't upload anymore. and since I really don't consider this any more than 10/15% of my Income or what My Nut is every month as to where I live and my expenses. It won't matter that much. And if no one cares or answers this thread will just disappear anyway. As I said....Just curious.
sorry but I dont understand the fact that some (a lot here in this forum) top photographers talk about their income like microstock ainīt helping them but they spend all day on forum talking about a new BME or the current royalties on the different agencies and such.. I love the way you guys say you make only 10% on microstock and do 90% outside, if so why all the "stress"?
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The reason I formed Warmpicture was as a preemptive strike against exactly this sort of thing happening.
FWIW the latest MSG poll results show Fotolia has fallen into the Middle Tier for the first time in years, exactly as many of us predicted. They drove away many fine contributors, while also accepting the risk that it would make for horrible P.R. with buyers who read blogs and forums. They have been replaced by an agency which pays 50% commissions and 36 cent subscriptions.
Look at the agencies which have attacked contributors with ridiculous commission structures over the last 2 years. Look at the MSG forums, which have a Google Page Rank of 4, suggesting that there are many people reading these boards besides contributors.
Have the agencies which attacked contributors gained, or lost, market share over the last 2 years? Independent polls suggest a pretty easy answer.
Yep, the best thing microstockers can do is let graphic artists, designers know that there are indeed real people behind the pictures, and they are conscious of the fate of their pictures and care a lot about them, because designers in general have a very strong solidarity towards photographers. Use every possible channel to get it out there that you a real people, because I for example shamefully admit to downloading images for almost 2 years without even realizing that they belong to portfolios, and without having 'that notion' of those belonging to individuals. They were just a pile of pictures on a site responding to keywords that you have to chew thru as quickly as possible... rush-rush-ASAP-supposed to be ready yesterday
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I would design my own website to sell just my own stock photos direct. 100% exclusive. That would be much more fun than seeing income streams drying up with no alternative. I love the name Warmpicture but I don't know much about it other than the mention earlier here and visiting the site briefly.
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Jsnover summed up my feelings perfectly. Not that I am anyways near a great photographer, but I have other things going on. The ODs and ELs somewhat make up for a lot of lost income the past couple of years, but if they disappeared, so would I.
And the scenario I see happening is that the top 4 or 5 agencies form an "opec" sort of club, whereby they all collaborate on what the price to the customer will be, and no one will go lower. But of course they will pay the contributor the lousy 20 cents, no matter what the selling price is.
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If it ever got to the stage where I wasn't able to make enough money through taking photos I'd start selling photography lessons.
That's a classic :)
I'm not wasting any time thinking about this. I don't see this worst case scenario happening. The sites that have cut commissions have dropped in the earnings poll. Shutterstock hasn't cut commissions and is doing very well. That gives me confidence that the current trend to cut commissions by a few sites wont last. If they don't learn the lesson, I'm sure there will always be sites like alamy that offer a good deal for contributors and make it possible for us to earn some money. Instead of worrying about the future of microstock, I'm working harder with them.
Perhaps we could all be replaced by people that would accept 20 cents a download but we can also replace sites that are too greedy.
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A question for Tyler Please....How many folks actually Vote on the microstock Poll Results. 50,100,1000? a month on average.
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A question for Tyler Please....How many folks actually Vote on the microstock Poll Results. 50,100,1000? a month on average.
Oh, good question.
Then the answer, I'm already into the don't give a hoot category, uninspired, hobby mode. Also since Warmpics is a private "good old boys" club, kind of like the old agencies, there are many of us who can't even consider that option. Kind of interesting that the answer is exclusionary?
My answer without all the side issues? Go 100% on Alamy and smile as 20c microstock falls down from cutting off it's own feet.
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If it ever got to the stage where I wasn't able to make enough money through taking photos I'd start selling photography lessons.
lol, best post so far
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SCARY! because the way things are going, it could be a possible scenario, in a few years. Yes, I would bail out, pull my ports. Go back fulltime to commercial freelance photography, fortunately, I have got many old clients but nowdays, I prefer to get lazy.
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remember when photos were 20cents they cost much cheaper to the customer.
I'd stop uploading
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Here's what I would do...
As soon as I saw signs of this happening, I would try to protect the high prices my images sell for at the top agencies by removing my ports from the small new agencies that offer my images for a fraction of the price the big dogs offer, and thus push the "race to the bottom" forward.
Guess what... this has started already. The signs are all around us... wheels are already in motion to reduce our take to something like .20 per image. So I'm taking action now... removing my port from the smaller sites that sell my images for too cheap. I have to protect my high prices (and commissions) at the top sites.
And guess what else... this is what FT asked me to do. And after being enraged about it for a few days, I now see that they're right. Maybe your RPD is low at FT and my story is different (I'm getting a good RPD at FT because I'm Emerald and get 37% and can double my image price)... but the principle is the same. If you want to protect your returns from SS, IT, DT and any other site you really like... STOP jumping on board every low-cost agency that pops up. By supporting the bargain basement sites, YOU'RE driving your returns down to .20 per image.
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Here's what I would do...
As soon as I saw signs of this happening, I would try to protect the high prices my images sell for at the top agencies by removing my ports from the small new agencies that offer my images for a fraction of the price the big dogs offer, and thus push the "race to the bottom" forward.
Guess what... this has started already. The signs are all around us... wheels are already in motion to reduce our take to something like .20 per image. So I'm taking action now... removing my port from the smaller sites that sell my images for too cheap. I have to protect my high prices (and commissions) at the top sites.
And guess what else... this is what FT asked me to do. And after being enraged about it for a few days, I now see that they're right. Maybe your RPD is low at FT and my story is different (I'm getting a good RPD at FT because I'm Emerald and get 37% and can double my image price)... but the principle is the same. If you want to protect your returns from SS, IT, DT and any other site you really like... STOP jumping on board every low-cost agency that pops up. By supporting the bargain basement sites, YOU'RE driving your returns down to .20 per image.
So you would go, give up all alternatives and actually help the ones who are really greedy and make a lot on photos and clearly signalled that they intend to give next to nothing if possible, get as close to monopoly as possible. Just genial. With such geniuses around, no wonder these agencies can just freakin' shaft subbmitters to freakin' death.
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If you want to protect your returns from SS, IT, DT and any other site you really like... STOP jumping on board every low-cost agency that pops up. By supporting the bargain basement sites, YOU'RE driving your returns down to .20 per image.
I agree in principle that people should stop uploading to every new agency purely for the reason it's new and they desperately want another source of revenue, but you were right in that folks are "supporting" these agencies, meanwhile these agencies do absolutely nothing to market the images and take commission off contributors.
Can anybody here tell me what marketing (other than the odd google ad) any of the agencies in the 'low tier' or even some in the 'middle tier' actively do to sell your images?
The next question would be 'why do you upload there then'?
I even wonder if some people understand the principles of selling via an agency.
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There is one big difference between now and back in 2004. The big difference is that in 2004, most of the folks shooting for the micros had point & shoots, or lower end camera equipment - Canon 10D, Digitial Rebels, the Nikon equivalent. 3mp files were (and still are at some places) very acceptable. Lower image quality was acceptable as well.
Move forward 3 years and folks are shooting with everything from point & shoots to 1Ds MK III to Hasselblads (why someone would make the decision to submit images to the micros at full resolution from a Hasselblad blows my mind but it is what it is).
My response - I would keep doing it. There's a market for every image....there are also other priorities and you bet that the agencies that represent me in a more fair and equitable manner are going to be much higher on my priority list.
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If it ever got to the stage where I wasn't able to make enough money through taking photos I'd start selling photography lessons.
Bingo!
It's clearly a hypothetical scenario but should anything like that happen then we would collectively remove our ports and set up our own agency. At that point we would simply have nothing to lose by doing so. The microstock market is currently worth about $500M annually, maybe more, the vast majority of which is probably earned from the portfolios of about 1000-2000 contributors. The number of full-time microstockers, who currently earn the majority of their living from microstock, is quite possibly fewer than 500. That's not too many to organise.
The fact that the "New images approved this week" on SS has almost halved over the last 18 months essentially proves that as the incentive/reward reduces (mainly through increased competition) then the motivation to submit new content also reduces. Increased competition alone will almost certainly ensure that the number of 'active contributors' will actually reduce in the future.
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There's a market for every image....there are also other priorities and you bet that the agencies that represent me in a more fair and equitable manner are going to be much higher on my priority list.
I should qualify this because I say it often.....
My best selling image was taken from a Canon 20d at 3200 ISO. DT and SS have both accepted the image - most other agencies don't. The image was downsized to 5.2mp. I won't post a link because I don't need everyone and their brother copying it.
I would NEVER give this image to a client as commissioned work and it would never qualify as an RM image at any RM agency that I submit to.
This is what Micro was initially intended to be.
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So you would go, give up all alternatives and actually help the ones who are really greedy and make a lot on photos and clearly signalled that they intend to give next to nothing if possible, get as close to monopoly as possible. Just genial. With such geniuses around, no wonder these agencies can just freakin' shaft subbmitters to freakin' death.
I rose to the level at FT that they allowed me to double the price of my images, and they elevated my commissions at the same time. My RPD is high there. SS treats me very well... and they must have done something recently to encourage EL sales because I'm getting 3-6 of them everyday. DT has always been great, especially with the tiered pricing based on number of downloads. I have tons of high level images and get a great RPD there. The only Tier Tier agency I'm disappointed with is IS. I still get a good RPD, but I don't like their recent policies, so I've stopped uploading.
So given how well the Top Tier (and even Middle Tier) have done for me (except maybe for IS) why would I stab them in the back and undercut my own RPDs by jumping on board every fly-by-night upstart that wants to steal market share from them? You have to admit that's pretty stupid in principle.
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Im just curious for a discussion on what would you do IF....... all the microsites suddenly dropped there commissions to 20 cents per download Like it was when I joined in 2004. No EL's, No OD's and no subscriptions,No referrals just 20 cents per download payment.
Would you stay? would you give up? I know we would Pull our hair out but..Bottom line what would you do.??? Im asking this because i'm fairly confident that whoever left would be replaced in 2/3 weeks willing to accept this and in a short time [A few months] fill the shoes of those that left with some degree of quality and Quantity. Tell me what you think. Or do you think that what you do is that good and can never be duplicated. Tough question, Just curious.
It depends a lot.
If the agencies start paying only 20 cents but charge only 21 cents to their customers, it might be a really great scenario. On the other hand, if they maintain the current pricing, it would be an absolute killer.
The microstock market is currently worth about $500M annually
Put aside whether the number is correct or not, but one very important question is: What is the main driver behind that number? Is it the number of pictures needed by the buyers multiplied with the market price (which would mean rasining prices would increase this number)? Or is it fixed budgets by buyers (so changing image prices changes only the number of licences sold, since the money will be spent anyway)?
It surely is somewhere between these extremes, the main question is where?
I tend to believe that a big part of this market is driven not by the individual image price, but rather by restricted budgets of buyers. That means (within certain limits) the price charged to end users will have a bigger influence on the number of images sold than on the total money spent on images.
If that assumption is correct, than for the contributors (as a group) it is a lot more important what royalty percentage we receive from the agencies than what RPD we receive.
So as a conclusion: If prices are lower, but royalties higher, that might be a positive case. While at the same time the argumentation of agencies that lowering royalties is offset by increased prices is flawed - it would only work out if budgets would grow linearly with price increases.
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I think the .20 originally paid in the early days of microstock was accepted by contributors because it was literally for found snapshots "sitting on your hard drive".
If sites went back to that, then the ms pros who spend thousands yearly on equipment and production costs would all leave en masse.
Almost certainly there would be sites cropping up that paid and charged a more reasonable amount for professional quality work. Those sites would get the best selling artists, and shortly after, the customers too. The top micros are not likely to be stupid enough to try such a drastic move.
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I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to, because they have so few sales but at the same time they are a threat to the big sites? Some of the big sites will use any excuse to lower commissions. If there were less sites, do people really think we would be better off? They would just think of a different excuse to lower commissions whenever they want to.
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I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to, because they have so few sales but at the same time they are a threat to the big sites? Some of the big sites will use any excuse to lower commissions. If there were less sites, do people really think we would be better off? They would just think of a different excuse to lower commissions whenever they want to.
I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
I sell my widgets through 4 stores that do great volume, sell at good prices, and give me a fair commission.
When a bunch of new stores open up in the same neighborhood wanting to sell my widgets at a fraction of the price of the established stores, should I:
a) blindly say "Yes indeed, anything to get more sales!!!"
b) realize this would steal business from the stores selling a great deal of my widgets at good prices, and ultimately be a big blow to my own bottom line.
Everyone keeps saying this is about commissions. Based on Chad's posts here and all my recent emails with people at FT, I believe them when they say it's about image pricing. Just do the math. An Emerald's pics at FT will sell for as little as 1/6th the price at a site like DP. If I were FT, I would be shaking my head and wondering why on God's green earth my suppliers would want to undercut their own sales.
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I don't understand what defines a small site anyway. If I earn more from a site with 50 contributors than I do from a site with tens of thousands of contributors, is it still a small site.
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I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to, because they have so few sales but at the same time they are a threat to the big sites? Some of the big sites will use any excuse to lower commissions. If there were less sites, do people really think we would be better off? They would just think of a different excuse to lower commissions whenever they want to.
I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
I sell my widgets through 4 stores that do great volume, sell at good prices, and give me a fair commission.
I don't understand why it's so difficult for you to grasp that most people are uploading to smaller sites after the big ones repeatedly dropped our "fair commissions"(this is not just directed at fotolia, BTW). If everyone was still making the commissions rates we originally signed up for at 3 of the top 4 sites, then the smaller sites would probably be starved for content.
I get it, you don't agree with uploading to the smaller sites. Fair enough, but you don't have to be so hostile and insulting to people who see things differently to you.
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Everyone keeps saying this is about commissions. Based on Chad's posts here and all my recent emails with people at FT, I believe them when they say it's about image pricing. Just do the math. An Emerald's pics at FT will sell for as little as 1/6th the price at a site like DP. If I were FT, I would be shaking my head and wondering why on God's green earth my suppliers would want to undercut their own sales.
I guess it depends on what side of the fence you sit on. As a former Silver contributor, the price my images were sold at and the royalties I received at FT were vastly lower than most other sites. I could name at least 10 sites. I'm sure there are worse paying sites, but that seems like a shorter list than better paying sites.
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I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
Believe it or not but FT was once a 'small newcomer site' too. Being a lazy person I didn't bother to upload to them until they had proved themselves. I was quite happy with being on SS, IS, DT and CanStockPhoto at the time. I only actually bothered to upload to FT when a friend told me that they were paying out money for each image accepted and by then I had a big enough port for that to appear attractive. As it happens my delay in uploading has cost me $K's mainly because I just missed out on getting to Emerald before they changed the rankings. Not only that but early images on a new site often gain sales that can ensure a top spot in the search order rankings for many years to come __ so I didn't make as much of that opportunity as I could have either.
If you have a crystal ball and can tell us all which will be the significant microstock sites in say 5 or 10 years time then maybe we could take notice of your advice.
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I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to...........
Speaking personally it's because I view uploading my images to a site and the time it takes me to do it as payment for them to market my images, the commission they take from any sales I see as an ongoing payment for ongoing marketing. So I don't understand why anybody would upload to a site (big or small) if that site is doing diddly squat about marketing your images.
Put another way, say it takes you a whole day to upload your portfolio and complete the process to get them online, say your normal 'day rate' is between Ģ500-Ģ1000, that's how much you've just paid site x to market your images, on top of that they then take 50% plus of any sales commissions - now don't you think they ought to be doing a bit more than the 'fingers crossed Google will find it' campaign that the likes of (insert pretty much anybody in the lower tiers) is doing.
I may be wrong and it's a free world but am I the only one that believes these agencies should be working on our behalf to sell our stuff, or did I miss the charity clause.
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I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
I sell my widgets through 4 stores that do great volume, sell at good prices, and give me a fair commission.
When a bunch of new stores open up in the same neighborhood wanting to sell my widgets at a fraction of the price of the established stores, should I:
a) blindly say "Yes indeed, anything to get more sales!!!"
b) realize this would steal business from the stores selling a great deal of my widgets at good prices, and ultimately be a big blow to my own bottom line.
Everyone keeps saying this is about commissions. Based on Chad's posts here and all my recent emails with people at FT, I believe them when they say it's about image pricing. Just do the math. An Emerald's pics at FT will sell for as little as 1/6th the price at a site like DP. If I were FT, I would be shaking my head and wondering why on God's green earth my suppliers would want to undercut their own sales.
The reason this is so difficult to grasp is because this is how business is done. You set up a store and your role is to cater to your customers. Your role is to differentiate your store from other stores. Coca Cola does not place it's product in a store based on what that store sells Coca Cola for - it places it's product in the store to sell it's product. You can buy a Coke at a Baseball game for $4 or you can buy the same Coke at McDonalds for $1.50. At a grocery store, you can buy a liter of Coke for $1.29. Does the baseball park tell coca Cola it won't sell it's product because the grocery store chooses to sell it for $1.29? No - the Baseball Park is selling an experience to it's customers...and pricing the product it sells accordingly.
Do you really think that Coca Cola would listen if the ball park told them not to sell coke products to the street vendor outside of the park on the corner?
I believe someone posted something similar to this in the forum at Fotolia. This is the difficulty.
I also remember when Fotolia first started - and was paying selected contributors to upload images to their site. This REALLY upset some of the big players - who still don't contribute to the agency.
Do you remember the good old days when iStock was popular? It was a COMMUNITY. The contributors were also picture buyers - a community of designers. iStock's revenue has decreased according to many since the acquisition by Getty. The community has faultered - iStock has recognized this (obvious through the latest survey). Were they just selling images or were they selling an experience?
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I get it, you don't agree with uploading to the smaller sites. Fair enough, but you don't have to be so hostile and insulting to people who see things differently to you.
You're right, Lisa. Guilty as charged. I certainly didn't mean to offend... I sometimes get over-passionate about making my points.
I'll work on dialing my tone back a notch or several. Thanks for pointing it out. We can always count on you as a reasonable voice around here.
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The reason this is so difficult to grasp is because this is how business is done. You set up a store and your role is to cater to your customers. Your role is to differentiate your store from other stores. Coca Cola does not place it's product in a store based on what that store sells Coca Cola for - it places it's product in the store to sell it's product. You can buy a Coke at a Baseball game for $4 or you can buy the same Coke at McDonalds for $1.50. At a grocery store, you can buy a liter of Coke for $1.29. Does the baseball park tell coca Cola it won't sell it's product because the Baseball Park chooses to sell it for $4.00? No - the Baseball Park is selling an experience to it's customers...and pricing the product it sells accordingly.
With all due respect that's not how it works, Coca Cola sells it's product to the retailer who then decides what mark up to make and they price it accordingly, Coca Cola can sell it's product to a larger retailer or wholesaler at a lower price than a smaller one because of volume, most small retailers will buy Coca Cola from a wholesaler. Coca Cola has determined the value of it's product no matter how much or how little the retailer then sells that product on for.
We do not sell our product to an agency, we use them to sell our product on our behalf in return for a percentage of the sale price.
Two different types of business practice completely.
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With all due respect that's not how it works, Coca Cola sells it's product to the retailer who then decides what mark up to make and they price it accordingly, Coca Cola Shutterstock can sell it's product to a larger retailer or wholesaler at a lower price than a smaller one because of volume, most small retailers will buy Coca Cola images from a wholesaler Bigstock so they don't have to buy a subscription . Coca Cola Contributors has determined the value of it's product no matter how much or how little the retailer then sells that product on for - they know a 20% commission is a 20% commission whether it's from Fotolia, or Bigstock, or Photodune, or wherever.
See how that works ;D
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I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to, because they have so few sales but at the same time they are a threat to the big sites? Some of the big sites will use any excuse to lower commissions. If there were less sites, do people really think we would be better off? They would just think of a different excuse to lower commissions whenever they want to.
I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
I sell my widgets through 4 stores that do great volume, sell at good prices, and give me a fair commission.
When a bunch of new stores open up in the same neighborhood wanting to sell my widgets at a fraction of the price of the established stores, should I:
a) blindly say "Yes indeed, anything to get more sales!!!"
b) realize this would steal business from the stores selling a great deal of my widgets at good prices, and ultimately be a big blow to my own bottom line.
Everyone keeps saying this is about commissions. Based on Chad's posts here and all my recent emails with people at FT, I believe them when they say it's about image pricing. Just do the math. An Emerald's pics at FT will sell for as little as 1/6th the price at a site like DP. If I were FT, I would be shaking my head and wondering why on God's green earth my suppliers would want to undercut their own sales.
That wasn't really the point I was making. The price differences has been dealt with in the other thread, I don't think that's the only reason people think small sites are a threat. The fact is that for most of us, FT have reduced subs commissions below some of the smaller sites and if there is a difference in pay per download prices, we don't see much of a difference in commission because they have reduced it so many times. They have made it almost impossible for most contributors to reach the higher levels and raise their prices to get that big price differential. There are also sites that have prices far higher than FT and they don't threaten to reduce prices or commissions.
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I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to, because they have so few sales but at the same time they are a threat to the big sites? Some of the big sites will use any excuse to lower commissions. If there were less sites, do people really think we would be better off? They would just think of a different excuse to lower commissions whenever they want to.
I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
I sell my widgets through 4 stores that do great volume, sell at good prices, and give me a fair commission.
When a bunch of new stores open up in the same neighborhood wanting to sell my widgets at a fraction of the price of the established stores, should I:
a) blindly say "Yes indeed, anything to get more sales!!!"
b) realize this would steal business from the stores selling a great deal of my widgets at good prices, and ultimately be a big blow to my own bottom line.
Everyone keeps saying this is about commissions. Based on Chad's posts here and all my recent emails with people at FT, I believe them when they say it's about image pricing. Just do the math. An Emerald's pics at FT will sell for as little as 1/6th the price at a site like DP. If I were FT, I would be shaking my head and wondering why on God's green earth my suppliers would want to undercut their own sales.
I strongly encourage you to examine the case of ppl dropping exclusivity on istock. Maybe then you'll get the picture.
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You say that photographers are dispensable, there are so many they will just be replaced by new ones if people leave.
True, but it will take a long time to replace the top 100 or 500 contributers if they all left.
Agencies are also dispensable, if all the top agencies decided to pay unacceptable commissions and the photographers left, there would be a very ripe market for an agency who treated the photographer fairly. Said site would become very popular very quickly and the 'old agencies' (with 100,000's of images to try and replace with their replacement photographers) would be quickly overshadows by the new agency.
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But sadly, the fair successful agency would soon be fielding offers from greedy insensitive parties and there we go again. Who can blame a fair businessman who is offered $100M for their 3 year old company?
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Im just curious for a discussion on what would you do IF....... all the microsites suddenly dropped there commissions to 20 cents per download Like it was when I joined in 2004. No EL's, No OD's and no subscriptions,No referrals just 20 cents per download payment.
Would you stay? would you give up? I know we would Pull our hair out but..Bottom line what would you do.??? Im asking this because i'm fairly confident that whoever left would be replaced in 2/3 weeks willing to accept this and in a short time [A few months] fill the shoes of those that left with some degree of quality and Quantity. Tell me what you think. Or do you think that what you do is that good and can never be duplicated. Tough question, Just curious.
It depends a lot.
If the agencies start paying only 20 cents but charge only 21 cents to their customers, it might be a really great scenario. On the other hand, if they maintain the current pricing, it would be an absolute killer.
The microstock market is currently worth about $500M annually
Put aside whether the number is correct or not, but one very important question is: What is the main driver behind that number? Is it the number of pictures needed by the buyers multiplied with the market price (which would mean rasining prices would increase this number)? Or is it fixed budgets by buyers (so changing image prices changes only the number of licences sold, since the money will be spent anyway)?
It surely is somewhere between these extremes, the main question is where?
I tend to believe that a big part of this market is driven not by the individual image price, but rather by restricted budgets of buyers. That means (within certain limits) the price charged to end users will have a bigger influence on the number of images sold than on the total money spent on images.
If that assumption is correct, than for the contributors (as a group) it is a lot more important what royalty percentage we receive from the agencies than what RPD we receive.
So as a conclusion: If prices are lower, but royalties higher, that might be a positive case. While at the same time the argumentation of agencies that lowering royalties is offset by increased prices is flawed - it would only work out if budgets would grow linearly with price increases.
Great point which brings up. what is the vast majority of buyers using our work for? who is the bulk of buyers.
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You mean I would have to transfer all my pics to iStock but wait they pay only 8 cents from what I read a while ago on one post...
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I think the .20 originally paid in the early days of microstock was accepted by contributors because it was literally for found snapshots "sitting on your hard drive".
If sites went back to that, then the ms pros who spend thousands yearly on equipment and production costs would all leave en masse.
Almost certainly there would be sites cropping up that paid and charged a more reasonable amount for professional quality work. Those sites would get the best selling artists, and shortly after, the customers too. The top micros are not likely to be stupid enough to try such a drastic move.
Thanks. I do hope they go the other way .
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Great point which brings up. what is the vast majority of buyers using our work for? who is the bulk of buyers.
I believe bloggers and article writers make up a significant percentage of downloads. But in terms of revenue, I doubt they have nearly the impact that buyers making products, large circulation publications, etc. Those are the people purchasing XXXL resolutions and Extended Licenses.
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We can always count on you as a reasonable voice around here.
If only that were true! I could stand to dial things back a notch myself sometimes lately. :)
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You mean I would have to transfer all my pics to iStock but wait they pay only 8 cents from what I read a while ago on one post...
I have had 12 cent XS sales on iStock, but the OP's premise was that there were no extended licenses, on demand sales, XL sales or anything else, just a flat 20 cents a download. So while the 12 cents sales are wretched, the ELs and XXXL sales bring my RPD at iStock to around $2, not 20 cents (or 12 or 8 cents)
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Great point which brings up. what is the vast majority of buyers using our work for? who is the bulk of buyers.
I believe bloggers and article writers make up a significant percentage of downloads. But in terms of revenue, I doubt they have nearly the impact that buyers making products, large circulation publications, etc. Those are the people purchasing XXXL resolutions and Extended Licenses.
Thanks dan.
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If it ever got to the stage where I wasn't able to make enough money through taking photos I'd start selling photography lessons.
Bingo!
It's clearly a hypothetical scenario but should anything like that happen then we would collectively remove our ports and set up our own agency. At that point we would simply have nothing to lose by doing so. The microstock market is currently worth about $500M annually, maybe more, the vast majority of which is probably earned from the portfolios of about 1000-2000 contributors. The number of full-time microstockers, who currently earn the majority of their living from microstock, is quite possibly fewer than 500. That's not too many to organise.
The fact that the "New images approved this week" on SS has almost halved over the last 18 months essentially proves that as the incentive/reward reduces (mainly through increased competition) then the motivation to submit new content also reduces. Increased competition alone will almost certainly ensure that the number of 'active contributors' will actually reduce in the future.
Im truly surprised this idea hasnt come up yet? I wouldnt be able to organize it but there are people here that could. I mean many of us here are among the top 800 contributors at IS and SS.
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Well, I've learned the lesson Fotolia has been teaching. For a long time I've been arguing against supporting new sites on the grounds that the return is usually so low that it isn't worth the effort and it is better to try to concentrate sales on the sites which are established and make regular payouts.
Now Fotolia comes along and tells me that upstart sites that offer high commission percentages are taking off so well that it poses a serious threat to the industry's viability. And all the while I've been missing out on the 50% commissions from these rising stars while Fotolia and Istock have been viciously hacking back the rate of return that they pay me from businesses that Fotolia apparently believes are being outcompeted by newcomers.
It's obvious, isn't it? Instead of sitting taking a shrinking percentage of returns from businesses that say they aren't sustainable, I'm now going to climb aboard the businesses that Fotolia tell me are taking the market share from them - and are paying more to contributors.
Thanks for the heads up, Chad.
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If it ever got to the stage where I wasn't able to make enough money through taking photos I'd start selling photography lessons.
Bingo!
It's clearly a hypothetical scenario but should anything like that happen then we would collectively remove our ports and set up our own agency. At that point we would simply have nothing to lose by doing so. The microstock market is currently worth about $500M annually, maybe more, the vast majority of which is probably earned from the portfolios of about 1000-2000 contributors. The number of full-time microstockers, who currently earn the majority of their living from microstock, is quite possibly fewer than 500. That's not too many to organise.
The fact that the "New images approved this week" on SS has almost halved over the last 18 months essentially proves that as the incentive/reward reduces (mainly through increased competition) then the motivation to submit new content also reduces. Increased competition alone will almost certainly ensure that the number of 'active contributors' will actually reduce in the future.
Im truly surprised this idea hasnt come up yet? I wouldnt be able to organize it but there are people here that could. I mean many of us here are among the top 800 contributors at IS and SS.
People usually say the big problem in setting up out own agency is money, it takes a lot to launch a new site. I don't think that's the biggest problem. Just look at all the arguments we have between us here. To get the top 800 contributors to all work together in their own agency would be very difficult. And none of them are going to want to be in charge of this. It would need someone very special to make it work. People that might be able to do this are already earning a very nice wage from the current sites. They enjoy their current work and don't want to jeopardise what they have. The sites are making sure that they don't cut their commissions as much as the average contributor.
I think the only way it would work would be if an outside business was interested in this market and could see the opportunity to get all the top suppliers, by paying them a fair commission that would still make them a healthy profit. Bill Gates saw the potential but Corbis doesn't seem to of made a big impact. I'm sure there are others that could do a much better job but are they really interested? It might be the reason why the investors in some sites are applying pressure to get their money now. If a really big player took an interest in this market, the current sites wouldn't look like a good investment. There's also the chance that someone will come up with a simple idea that makes the current way we sell images look really inefficient. Microstock changed the industry but I'm sure someone will come up with something even more radical one day.
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I don't understand how people think the smaller sites aren't worth uploading to, because they have so few sales but at the same time they are a threat to the big sites? Some of the big sites will use any excuse to lower commissions. If there were less sites, do people really think we would be better off? They would just think of a different excuse to lower commissions whenever they want to.
I don't understand why this is so difficult to grasp.
I sell my widgets through 4 stores that do great volume, sell at good prices, and give me a fair commission.
When a bunch of new stores open up in the same neighborhood wanting to sell my widgets at a fraction of the price of the established stores, should I:
a) blindly say "Yes indeed, anything to get more sales!!!"
b) realize this would steal business from the stores selling a great deal of my widgets at good prices, and ultimately be a big blow to my own bottom line.
Everyone keeps saying this is about commissions. Based on Chad's posts here and all my recent emails with people at FT, I believe them when they say it's about image pricing. Just do the math. An Emerald's pics at FT will sell for as little as 1/6th the price at a site like DP. If I were FT, I would be shaking my head and wondering why on God's green earth my suppliers would want to undercut their own sales.
This is a classic tragedy of the commons scenario ie
"The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen."