One size fits all?  I'm not really sold on that.  It's a nice idea and makes the selling/buying experience more straight forward. 

Hypothetical:  what if I'm a small time blogger and want to write a post to my blog from my phone, I don't want to download a 32 mp photo to my phone.  I wouldn't want to post a huge photo to my blog, and the photographer wouldn't want me to either.  I happen to have Photoshop on my desktop, but it's a PIA to download, open in PS, resize, name, save.  Now I have 2 copies on my computer - not to mention my hard drive is red because I had to download 70 photos today and they are all so huge these days.

I know, it's a case of "what type of customer do I want?".  Of course you want the big corporations with graphic design and marketing departments and not the small time bloggers.

From my own selling experience - I have hundreds of released photos of dancers - but they are just not a huge money maker so I only upload a few here and there when I'm not so busy.  So, hardly worth my time UNTIL a bump during Recital/Competition Season and Fall Registration.  Even then - not a big money maker - the only L/XXL I sell are inside cheap subs so a majority of the sales are S/M.  The thing about dance schools is - 95% are owned by a woman who is passionate about dance and children.  She is artistic director, teacher, choreographer, social worker, front desk and marketing all rolled into one.  She lives a very modest life, because there is a limit to how much you can charge, how many kids fit in a classroom, how many days in a week.  Earnings fluctuate from year to year.  Why do I describe her?  Because every town has a dance school.  Some towns you can't drive down the street and throw a rock without hitting one.  I do know of a couple local schools with 1200 kids, most have 200-300 and only operate 9/10 months of the year.  Those studio owners are not paying a marketing team, like cleaning the toilet - they do it themselves.  Think about the age of their clients, the studio owner is slowly becoming aware of the importance of social media.  They have a limited budget and can't buy anything from a $15 site when the other site charges $4 for a web-ready size and get 3 or 4 photos for the same price.   Moral of the rambling story:  they are not a big buyer, but there happens to be a LOT of them.  You are excluding an entire niche of thousands of studio owners who buy twice a year and maybe make an attempt at social media.   I mention dance because it's a genre I have small experience in.  I'm certainly not the only photographer with a few dance photos so the agency might actually do pretty well twice a year from this genre.  What else is seasonal like this:  Obviously Christmas, but back-to-school (albeit, likely bigger budgets), little league, summer camp etc.  There's a lot of little seasonal genres you may exclude with XXL pricing - how much do they add up to in the course of a year?

But - what type of buyer are you looking for?   I would love to see data on who buyers actually are these days.  What is the balance of corporation vs the rest of the buyers.

First and foremost, you are still able to download any size available of the image.  We are charging one price for the license.  With that purchase, you can download whichever size you'd like to work with.

We are gearing the site up to be able to appeal to buyers of all budgets, not just small budgets, and not just high budgets.  If you know that the only people who would be buying your images are the lower budget individuals, then this is the perfect example of why you would price your images in the lower $1, $3, $5, or $7 range. 

We are giving sellers the ability to appeal to their target audience when creating/selling their images.  Instead of asking us "what types of buyers are you trying to appeal to" the seller must ask themselves, "what type of buyer am I trying to appeal to?" and the answer to this question will be what helps you price your images accordingly.

We will be [and are] working diligently to put together a product that will appeal to more and more buyers of all types of budgets, hence the wider range of pricing options.

The reality is that turning a business on the decline into a successful business is not as simple as many of the members here are insinuating.  The state in which GL was in upon our purchase is not the state that we felt comfortable spending our advertising budget on to promote the site.  The user experience needs to improve greatly, and the business has to be set on a path to succeed.  Some of these changes were difficult for us to make knowing that some of our buyers and sellers alike will be not pleased with it.  However, any major changes will always be met with approval and disapproval, regardless of what we do, which is not something that we can control. We have a long term plan for the business, and we will implement it to the best of our ability.  We expect to enable our sellers to earn more, our buyers to have a wide variety of quality images (with more content types to come) priced for all budget sizes, and subsequently greater success for the company as a whole.
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On a personal note, while it's very difficult for me to read condescending criticism, rather than constructive criticism, we are still here listening.  I have been positively overwhelmed by the great comments and feedback by so many in such a short period of time (both inside and outside of this forum).  So we are excited for the journey we have set out on.  I can't stress enough that to turn GL around will take a lot of work on our end and patience on our sellers/buyers end with the process and to adjust to changes that we make.  But I am confident that a majority of our clients will understand the value we are trying to provide, and that we will be able to successfully market our vision to new buyers/sellers alike. 

But I have to say that the scenario given earlier - a buyer searches for an image, downloads it, and composes a blog post all on his phone  - seems a bit far-fetched to me.

I'm sitting here laughing because you must be my age!  My tween daughter (who would not in a billion years PURCHASE a photo) shoots video, edits, posts and/or creates tutorials all the time from her phone.  Trying to win a parents-of-the-year award we bought her a laptop but the only one who uses it is her brother's friend when he's here and wants to connect to the game my son is playing.

Not sure if there is anything to be concerned with the iPhone gen, they don't pay for anything anyway.

I think it's obvious - as advertising and blogs are increasingly viewed on phones and not desktop systems, we're gutting ourselves if we price based on pixel size.  Many applications of stock photos are in fact mobile-only and those buyers will never again buy a "full size" image.  Do we give them a huge price cut for life? 

The fact that the price doesn't involve pixel size doesn't mean an agency can't offer small sizes for download, if that's what the buyer wants.  But I have to say that the scenario given earlier - a buyer searches for an image, downloads it, and composes a blog post all on his phone  - seems a bit far-fetched to me.

we had the notebook and laptop before the mob. i am not one to be convinced
that everyone that is working in advertising,etc is suddenly going to be using a mob
to do business...
anymore than i believe film producers would use a videocam to produce the next gen of "Avatar", "LOTR",etc...

regardless of my subjectivity, GL is giving us an option ;
the slew of agencies based on size is countless out there,
those who do not like the idea  can always stay with ss, is, etc..

Quote from: Pixart on August 16, 2016, 16:20

Quote from: stockastic on August 16, 2016, 16:07

But I have to say that the scenario given earlier - a buyer searches for an image, downloads it, and composes a blog post all on his phone  - seems a bit far-fetched to me.

I'm sitting here laughing because you must be my age!  My tween daughter (who would not in a billion years PURCHASE a photo) shoots video, edits, posts and/or creates tutorials all the time from her phone.  Trying to win a parents-of-the-year award we bought her a laptop but the only one who uses it is her brother's friend when he's here and wants to connect to the game my son is playing.

Not sure if there is anything to be concerned with the iPhone gen, they don't pay for anything anyway.

Yeah I'm dimly aware this is happening (doing everything on a phone) but I freely admit I don't get it.  Why restrict yourself to 2 thumbs?  Somehow, it's a social thing - having to do with working in odd locations, isolated, not sitting at a table.

I deal with a client that thinks all business should be conducted on his phone, and it isnt a matter of who is what age with me...its the lack of professionalism...the phone auto corrects everything so i usually cant even figure out what it is he is asking for. That requires at least one or two more emails back and forth just to get the gist of what he wants. I cant figure out how businesspeople are willing to give up that professionalism just so they can spend hours a day typing with two thumbs on a screen thats 3 or 4 inches wide. 

Just tried the web uploader
Hate it
It is slow and got bogged down and quit uploading altogether 3 xs

Need ftp uploader or a revamp on the web uploader
Also please make batch editing possible esp for setting the price instead of having to do it individuLly 

To update your portfolio pricing, when logged in please go to the dashboard --> Account --> Seller Preferences.

Here you will be able to mass adjust the pricing for all of the images in your portfolio, as well as adjust the licenses you would like to offer for your images.  Please note if these are modified, it will change every image in your portfolio.

@w7lwi - [email protected]

by forcing one price for all sizes you are forcing us to lower our price. perception of value. buyers dont like to pay for something they don't need

Paying for size seems quite an old fashioned notion to me. Maybe because I also do vectors. Screen resolutions are getting higher even on mobile, maybe when high pixel count on digital cameras was rare it made some sense, but my main concern is that it doesn't relate to costs of production. I am happier to be able to price images on a single price that I can set based on how rare the subject is or expensive the shoot.

vectors are completely different as you can size them anyway you want

images for a blog dont need to be bigger than 1000x1000, no blog uses the full resolutiuon of a wide screen monitor

They would use a smaller resolution image but the smaller res version hasn't cost me any less to produce, so why should they pay less for it?

Please make sure to follow the path I mentioned:

Dashboard --> Account --> Seller Preferences.

This is a new page that was only released yesterday.  There is another section in the profile page for portfolio pricing, that is not what will adjust ALL your images. 

Please let me know if it works.  I just tested several test accounts and it worked properly.

-- We will be cleaning up the interface quite a bit.  I know it can be a bit confusing.

Please make sure to follow the path I mentioned:

Dashboard --> Account --> Seller Preferences.

This is a new page that was only released yesterday.  There is another section in the profile page for portfolio pricing, that is not what will adjust ALL your images. 

Please let me know if it works.  I just tested several test accounts and it worked properly.

-- We will be cleaning up the interface quite a bit.  I know it can be a bit confusing.

It looks like it's already set to $25.  Is that reflective of the current setting, or do I need to hit it again?

Please make sure to follow the path I mentioned:

Dashboard --> Account --> Seller Preferences.

This is a new page that was only released yesterday.  There is another section in the profile page for portfolio pricing, that is not what will adjust ALL your images. 

Please let me know if it works.  I just tested several test accounts and it worked properly.

-- We will be cleaning up the interface quite a bit.  I know it can be a bit confusing.

Cool. Thanks. I tried this the other day and wasn't working, but it looks like it works now.