Microstock Photography Forum - General > General Stock Discussion
What would YOU pay for your own subscription site? +what options would you need?
Pauws99:
--- Quote from: charged on August 24, 2019, 10:52 ---I could be wrong, and I'm often wrong.... it would seem to me that with how advance the big agencies are at this point, the only way a new method could work is if it is a superior product. Developing your own site is not a superior product to accessing 300 million images on Shutterstock. A superior product is having a very large amount of highly coveted exclusive images, think Stocksy. I still remember the days before Shutterstock and iStock got big, there were more traditional stock agencies all with a lot of their own exclusive images, and customers (me) would go search from site to site to find the images I needed for my work as a graphic designer. Now I assume there is not much difference between any of the large micro stock sites, iStock being an exception with how ever many exclusive images they have.
--- End quote ---
No I don't think you are wrong. I would only add that having an "exclusive" product is not the same as having something uniquely suited to the buyer.
cthoman:
--- Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on August 22, 2019, 15:49 ---What was “wrong” is that buyers don’t care about looking at an individual’s site. Those that have niche content that is very valuable already have a way to sell.
--- End quote ---
I had regular customers that wanted to buy directly from me.
Sean Locke Photography:
--- Quote from: cthoman on August 24, 2019, 15:59 ---
--- Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on August 22, 2019, 15:49 ---What was “wrong” is that buyers don’t care about looking at an individual’s site. Those that have niche content that is very valuable already have a way to sell.
--- End quote ---
I had regular customers that wanted to buy directly from me.
--- End quote ---
Sure, if you have regular customers. But buyers don’t go about looking to buy from an individual’s site if they don’t already have a connection.
cthoman:
--- Quote from: SuperPhoto on August 22, 2019, 15:23 ---Seeing as certain agencies are trying to "force" the bigger ones in a race to the bottom through a subscription model (and seem to forget what made them BIG was the contributors contributing content)...
What would you pay for your own subscription site? IF you had an easy to use/plug & play solution?
(Also - by 'plug & play' - I don't mean a wordpress plugin. I mean something where *literally* all you have to do is upload your assets, and enter your payment information, and then start marketing - unless you want that included too).
a) Images? Video?
b) $29/month? $59/month? $99/month? More? Less?
c) Features you'd want?
d) What would you pay for 'marketing' of your content?
e) What is your portfolio size? (100 items? 1000? 10000?)
I'm thinking a good solution to the "content crisis" was if individual authors could manage their own content, and collect 100% of the fees for their work.
Not only would it help stop the race to the bottom (simply because the "mega" agencies would receive significantly less new content), but it would help make authors feel more in control of their work, and not have to undermine their own efforts.
What are your thoughts?
--- End quote ---
$30 seems to be around where dedicated hosting prices are. You usually get charged a little bit more for extra space for a larger portfolio. Good features are probably just organized, professional price setting and a good search. All that said, it would be tough for me to jump into another one of these. Most of them just aren't stable enough to trust for an extended period. You put in a lot of effort to build it just to have the software get abandoned or other issues.
cthoman:
--- Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on August 24, 2019, 16:07 ---
--- Quote from: cthoman on August 24, 2019, 15:59 ---
--- Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on August 22, 2019, 15:49 ---What was “wrong” is that buyers don’t care about looking at an individual’s site. Those that have niche content that is very valuable already have a way to sell.
--- End quote ---
I had regular customers that wanted to buy directly from me.
--- End quote ---
Sure, if you have regular customers. But buyers don’t go about looking to buy from an individual’s site if they don’t already have a connection.
--- End quote ---
True. Most of it is still Google foot traffic. It seems like they squeezed a lot of the little players out of that though in the last several years.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version