MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => GLStock => Topic started by: Sean Locke Photography on August 04, 2016, 15:17
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GL opens to new contributors and drops royalties from 52% to 40%. Exciting!
http://blog.graphicleftovers.com/exciting-news-graphicleftovers/ (http://blog.graphicleftovers.com/exciting-news-graphicleftovers/)
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why do ALL agencies start news about taking your earnings with EXITING... are they from mars..
we have heard your concerns,... we cut your royalty down to 40%... are they actually for real??
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Will delete all. I don`t care GL.
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They aren't cutting for anyone already on the site. Only new contributors get 40%.
And yes. It is insane that any stock agency would use the word "exciting" in an announcement when it is now such a joke with contributors.
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Thank you for the post. I'd like to address some key points, while also addressing some concerns people may have.
First and foremost, after almost two years of negotiation, we acquired GraphicLeftovers from a group of 4 partners, all of which had full time jobs and GL was not a primary source of income for them. Because of this, the business was more or less set to autopilot, neglected the desires of many of it's members. The new ownership team will be investing a lot of time and money into not only better staffing the company for better customer support, faster approvals, streamlined payments, but also investing in marketing the business and repositioning it for future success.
Key Point # 1:
We have invested quite a bit of money and time in development in order to "Grandfather" in our old sellers to their 52% commission rate, and $50 payment threshold. While it is important for us to grow margins to be able to stay competitive and turn a profit (after all, this is a "for profit" business, and we did shell out significant amounts of money and time to acquire it), we find it most important to honor the commitments made by the previous owners to their customer base before we began operating the business.
Key Point #2:
Yes, we did cut the commission from 52% to 40% for all new sellers after 8/3/16. I understand that this may seem negative, but in reality, there are many benefits of working with GL that should still make GL a viable option for many stock photo & vector sellers.
- We do not require any seller to exclusively sell with us, and guarantee them that 40% commission regardless if they post with only us, or 100 other stock image sites!
- We give 40% for ALL licenses sold. This mean when people purchase the merchandising or ultimate licenses, or the standard licenses, the sellers will still make 40%.
- 40% is still one of the highest commission structures out there, and there are no minimum sales requirements to receive 40% on your product sales.
There are many changes that we have in the pipeline and are working on to make significant improvements to GL, as well as increasing sales for our contributors. With the site having been neglected, revenues dropped for many contributors. New ownership is committed to turning this around.
I understand many people will not have the most pleasant things to say. It's unfortunate. However, as a seller of your stock photography, you have many options as to where you sell your images. If you choose to partner with GraphicLeftovers, you have our word that we will do our best to not only earn your business, but to make you more with us at 40% than you ever made with us at 52%. For those of you who are already sellers with GL, again, you have been grandfathered in and will continue enjoying the same commissions that you always have.
I am happy to address any questions or concerns, and I welcome anybody to get in touch with us. Whether you care or not, we are still excited for the opportunity to be able to work with so many talented artists.
Regarding the comments about our use of the word "exciting" -- We are excited to be able to work on this company, so please bear with our enthusiasm!
Thank you!
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Thank you for the post. I'd like to address some key points, while also addressing some concerns people may have.
First and foremost, after almost two years of negotiation, we acquired GraphicLeftovers from a group of 4 partners, all of which had full time jobs and GL was not a primary source of income for them. Because of this, the business was more or less set to autopilot, neglected the desires of many of it's members. The new ownership team will be investing a lot of time and money into not only better staffing the company for better customer support, faster approvals, streamlined payments, but also investing in marketing the business and repositioning it for future success.
Key Point # 1:
We have invested quite a bit of money and time in development in order to "Grandfather" in our old sellers to their 52% commission rate, and $50 payment threshold. While it is important for us to grow margins to be able to stay competitive and turn a profit (after all, this is a "for profit" business, and we did shell out significant amounts of money and time to acquire it), we find it most important to honor the commitments made by the previous owners to their customer base before we began operating the business.
Key Point #2:
Yes, we did cut the commission from 52% to 40% for all new sellers after 8/3/16. I understand that this may seem negative, but in reality, there are many benefits of working with GL that should still make GL a viable option for many stock photo & vector sellers.
- We do not require any seller to exclusively sell with us, and guarantee them that 40% commission regardless if they post with only us, or 100 other stock image sites!
- We give 40% for ALL licenses sold. This mean when people purchase the merchandising or ultimate licenses, or the standard licenses, the sellers will still make 40%.
- 40% is still one of the highest commission structures out there, and there are no minimum sales requirements to receive 40% on your product sales.
There are many changes that we have in the pipeline and are working on to make significant improvements to GL, as well as increasing sales for our contributors. With the site having been neglected, revenues dropped for many contributors. New ownership is committed to turning this around.
I understand many people will not have the most pleasant things to say. It's unfortunate. However, as a seller of your stock photography, you have many options as to where you sell your images. If you choose to partner with GraphicLeftovers, you have our word that we will do our best to not only earn your business, but to make you more with us at 40% than you ever made with us at 52%. For those of you who are already sellers with GL, again, you have been grandfathered in and will continue enjoying the same commissions that you always have.
I am happy to address any questions or concerns, and I welcome anybody to get in touch with us. Whether you care or not, we are still excited for the opportunity to be able to work with so many talented artists.
Regarding the comments about our use of the word "exciting" -- We are excited to be able to work on this company, so please bear with our enthusiasm!
Thank you!
I appreciate being "grandfathered" and hope GL succeeds in finding customers.
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Any thoughts on rebranding? I always felt that "leftover" lowered perceived value.
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Any thoughts on rebranding? I always felt that "leftover" lowered perceived value.
Well, they rebranded as GL Stock Images.
Good news about the grandfathering. I don't see that anywhere.
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So can we upload again?
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How do you want to attract photographers and artists?
What's the purpose of the agency?
What is unique about this agency compared to others?
Why would buyers use this agency over the dozens of other well established agencies and other general options?
What is the profile of the target buyer?
How will you attract buyers?
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rebranding my behind https://graphicleftovers.com/ it is still in the url and on their blog they call themselves graphicleftovers, worst name for an agency trying to sell high quality images
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Any thoughts on rebranding? I always felt that "leftover" lowered perceived value.
Well, they rebranded as GL Stock Images.
Good news about the grandfathering. I don't see that anywhere.
It was in the email i got.
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@ Sean - we sent out an email to all sellers, and an internal message to all sellers about this. The blog post was primarily targeted towards new visitors/members. But we sent notice via several means.
@ Pixart - Yes. Many thoughts on rebranding. However, we want to first put together a product that we are fully satisfied with before spending the significant amounts of time, effort, and money that goes into a successful (and not a sloppy) rebrand. There are so many potential "hazards" if done incorrectly, particularly when it comes to SEO rankings, which are obviously incredibly important. We want to be fully prepared when the time comes to rebrand so it does not do any major damage.
@ topol - Yes, you can upload through our interface, and can upload many images at once. We are manually adjusting "upload limits" based on quality of images submitted. Those who have a great internal reputation do not have limits, though new posters start at 20 per day until we see the quality of images being submitted.
@ Hellou, very good questions, and I appreciate them.
- This business has been established for 8 years, so the purpose of it initially was to provide a cheap alternative to the bigger players in the industry, who charge tremendous amounts of money for stock photography, vectors, videos, and more. Our "purpose" is to continue with the intentions of the original owners, while providing better service for all parties involved, and adding on features to the site to make significant improvements to what you currently see.
- What is unique about this agency compared to others is a very difficult question to answer. When there are hundreds of companies who are all doing similar things, sometimes there are small differences that set them apart. For us, our pricing for buyers is much lower than many of the bigger players. You may be able to find the same or similar images at 50-80% less with us. Additionally, we do not offer subscriptions for buyers, which means that sellers' earnings will not be diminished based on a package that any particular buyer has.
- Why would buyers use us? We will have images they want at lower prices. We will be pushing out free images on a weekly basis, and we are committed to the growth of the business. By opening new contributors, we are expanding the volume of quality images that will come through our doors, and this will pique the interest of more and more buyers.
We have a marketing background, specifically lead generation, and will be attracting users via various methods. There are various "target buyers" from one time users to marketing agencies and everything in between. It would not be appropriate for me to publicly outline our marketing plans.
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I didn't get an email. I saw a link on FB to the blog article. Then I checked the contributor info on the site and saw 40%.
I'm on vacation this week. I had to log in to GL on my phone to check the agreement. I saw no notification of a message. I just went back, clicked the link and saw a message dated today with the info.
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I like the 52% commission and all, but sales have been dead for a while now and I doubt you guys can reanimate this dead horse. Wish you all the best though.
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rebranding my behind https://graphicleftovers.com/ it is still in the url and on their blog they call themselves graphicleftovers, worst name for an agency trying to sell high quality images
I get it. Had I started this company, I certainly would not have chosen it. However, during our due diligence, we discovered that the company was referred a lot more frequently by "GraphicLeftovers" than GL Stock Images, and since GL is just short for GraphicLeftovers, we are not trying to shy away from a name that is recognized in exchange for a name that is less recognized, until we are ready for a full-blown rebrand.
Rebranding the right way is not easy. It takes immense planning, work, and money to be done properly. It is something we are working towards, but we are not there yet.
@ Noedelhap, I appreciate the sentiment. While you may think it's dead, the website receives a significant amount of traffic, and still to this day, despite the significant decline, pretty strong sales figures on a daily basis. We're encouraged by that, and not to sound like a broken record, but we are committed to turning it around.
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competing on price, pushing out free images, stuff contributors love to hear these days,
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We have a bowl full of suggestions, but please do not hesitate to make more. We are listening, and as long as the suggestions are possible, we will be working on them.
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After uploading i see all in a list.
Page1 until 200.
Each image in one line.
"Recent Uploads"
image 1
image 2
image 3
..
image 2102
Question: I need to click them one by one and need a second click "submit"?
That`s a crazy waste of time.
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you seem to be wet behind the ears if you didnt take my comment as sarcasm, were sick and tired to see images be sold for less and less and pushing out free images gives the wrong impression to buyers. attracting buyers with free images is the wrong approach, once they have something for free they dont want to start paying for it. if you had been connected to the stock world you would have known that earnings for contributors are coming down all over the place, images are getting cheaper by the day, and people have stopped investing in high value shoots for microstock. its not worth it, stop giving our work away for free, change the buyer mindset, images are valuable and expensive and time consuming to make, you are devaluing our assets by lowering the prices and giving them away
edit: GL - you deleted part of your comment where you said you would be pushing out more images for free
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competing on price, pushing out free images, stuff contributors love to hear these days,
I think GL will encounter negative reaction to the idea of competing primarily on price. Although current contributors (I am one) are locked in at 52% commission, can we expect current prices to be maintained?
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After uploading i see all in a list.
Page1 until 200.
Each image in one line.
"Recent Uploads"
image 1
image 2
image 3
..
image 2102
Question: I need to click them one by one and need a second click "submit"?
That`s a crazy waste of time.
Just to reiterate, we are not suggesting that this website is perfect. We did not develop the technology, we did not come up with the name, nor the upload process. It will take some time, but we will be making improvements in areas that are lacking. Considering the tremendous amounts of development that goes into an application of this size, there is a lot to be done. We are here to help, and we will roll out improvements as quickly as possible based on what is most important to all parties.
What you have now with GL is a team of more committed people, who are listening to the feedback we are receiving in an effort to make positive changes.
I'm sure there are negative things to be said about the technology, as there is to be said about any technology created by somebody other than yourself, so we are coming the learn the technology fully in an effort to make significant changes/improvements that will allow buyers and sellers alike a more seamless user experience.
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@Microstockphotos -- I apologize for missing your sarcasm, after all of your kind-hearted responses, that one went over my head. Your comment has been heard though and I understand where you are coming from. Everyone is entitiled to their opinion, so I will just respond by reiterating that we are marketing professionals and we know how to increase traffic volume and revenue for businesses; it’s what we do. We have already seen an increase in sales since we have taken over the site. We of course understand the high value and big time committment associated with stock photos, and once again it is our goal to help contributors earn more money. You don’t have to agree with every marketing plan we have, and every word that I say, but if you choose to continue working with us you will see the results over time.
@Stockastic - We do not have any plans to lower pricing. In fact, we have plans to give more freedom over the pricing of your images. There are a lot of things in the pipeline, and we will listen to all of our members for suggestions as to how to best serve them. The previous owners felt that what the current prices are set to was the sweet spot for both sellers and buyers alike. However, with any business, things change over time. We will evaluate the pricing, and will adjust accordingly as needed to ensure that buyers are happy with the pricing, but sellers are happy with their earnings. It's obviously paramount for us to find the sweet spot, and rest assured, we will be working on this.
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forgive me my kindhearted comments, we have been here many times before, seen many promises. just mind the pitfalls, good to have proper marketing, but if you dont know the stockworld, you are in for a big let down, and with that, us too, because soon will realize you have to lower your cost to be solvent, cut prices to be competitive and you'll stop communicating because you get tired of the abuse
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Compared to the emails I usually get from sites, this one was great. I wish you the best of luck. Only problem with the email was this line, did you leave "one" out?
" If GraphicLeftovers is not already your number source of income for selling your Stock Photos, we are confident it will by the time we are done with all of the improvements we have in store."
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@Microstockphoto: I'm sure you've received many false promises, so have we all. That is not unique to the "stockworld".
You are already let down by GL, which you've made perfectly evident here, so regardless of what we do with the company, you will be "abusive", or will display dissatisfaction with us, when in reality, your life is likely very much unchanged by our presence here.
The best we can do is be in front of the issues at hand and address them head on. Do we have more to learn? Yes. We've owned this website for all of 2 weeks, so there is a learning curve when taking over any business.
If you want to see positive changes, your opinion is just as valid as anybody elses, and we are open to discussion and we value your opinion, especially if you consider yourself an expert in the field.
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Compared to the emails I usually get from sites, this one was great. I wish you the best of luck. Only problem with the email was this line, did you leave "one" out?
" If GraphicLeftovers is not already your number source of income for selling your Stock Photos, we are confident it will by the time we are done with all of the improvements we have in store."
Thank you @sharpshot, I'm embarrassed about the typo! We've been dying to reach out to our customer base, but have been waiting until the developer finished with a few functions that we needed! A bit too excited, but thanks for pointing it out.
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I think some degree of contributor control over pricing will be essential.
Since you're very forthrightly coming here to MSG looking for input, notice the discussion in another thread about the loss of the 'niche' market. To us, 'niche' means anything that takes some time and money to shoot, but won't sell very often. There's no point in submitting such photos for sub-$1 returns. Some of us think the existing agencies are just writing off this part of the market.
Microstock has become like the Middle East - no one can figure out how to make things work. Years of competition on nothing but price have taken a huge toll on the perceived value of stock photos. New thinking is needed.
FYI, I never had a single bad thing to say about GL's previous owners. They were unfailingly friendly, fair and helpful. The business seemed to get off to a good start but at some point took a huge hit when Google changed their game.
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Well compared to all the news from microstock sites these days ("Good News! We are lowering your commissions to 10%") I think what the new owners have done here is very commendable and I really do hope they succeed.
I for one am all for GL working, and always have been, its just never really gotten off the ground. But 52% commission was always great, and to be honest guys, 40% for newcomers is still above average.
While skeptical on the viability of huge sales growth, I hope to be able to come and report massive earnings increases on GL in the coming months :)
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FYI, I never had a single bad thing to say about GL's previous owners. They were unfailingly friendly, fair and helpful. The business seemed to get off to a good start but at some point took a huge hit when Google changed their game.
Couldn't agree more. Kelly and Daniel are great people, and have always been highly capabale. They started something great, and we are hoping to continue in their footsteps, while offsetting the slow down in traffic. There are a lot of opportunities that they didn't have the time to commit to, and we are excited to fill in those missing spots, while also continuing the things they were very good at!
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It will never cease to amaze me how negative people here can be about absolutely anything. GL was barely showing up on anyone's radar until this week and it the news that it was sold to new ownership with plans to bring it back to prominence. And no part of that announcement had anything negative in it as far as existing contributors are concerned.
But that won't stop anyone from coming in here and crapping all over some good news.
I seriously think some folks around here want things to always be bad.
Anyway, to the point of this discussion...
I love that GL is back and under new ownership. I had the chance to chat with Phil from the new GL via facebook this week, something that in and of itself should be refreshing to everyone who has ever tried to communicate with most stock companies. Open communication and a willingness to interact with contributors is already a step in a really good direction.
GL was always fair with royalties, and that doesn't change for most of us. Again, more good news.
The new ownership team comes from a marketing background. Honestly I'll take a non-stock background over a stock background when it comes to these companies today. Which companies led by people from within the business have done well lately?
On the other hand, I'm looking at companies like Creative Market, who emerged out of Autodesk, a company with almost no background in the stock business, rising to success (for me anyway, they're my #2 earner every month, beaten only by SS) despite no background in stock and doing things completely differently than the other stock companies. So I say "bring on the non-stock ownership," it could be the best thing for growth in this industry today.
All I can see here in this announcement is good news. If this didn't happen and GL just quietly went away, I wouldn't have benefitted from that at all. Instead, GL is aiming for a reboot and future growth, and if it works, I'll definitely benefit from that. Its a chance for something positive to happen, and maybe re-open a good source of royalty income for us. How is that a bad thing?
Best of luck to everyone at GL. Some of us are pulling for you and hope to see you succeed. ;D
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The email just came through here.
Nothing wrong with GL, Kelly was always great. Small sales, but simple interface. Good luck trying to bring it back to life. There's no particularly stand out USP.
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The new ownership team comes from a marketing background. Honestly I'll take a non-stock background over a stock background when it comes to these companies today. Which companies led by people from within the business have done well lately?
Agreed. Someone new has to come in and challenge some of the assumptions. One such assumption, I think, is that the typical buyer is working on a 5-figure project with a budget of exactly $5 for photos. :-) I think the one-size-fits-all pricing model had more to do with simplifying an agency's accounting and IT operations than it did with actual buyer expectations.
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Agreed. Someone new has to come in and challenge some of the assumptions...
But not here, not at MSG! A lot of folks around here just want these companies to stick to the script and do things exactly like everyone else does them, but do them better and somehow be more successful. Change everything, but don't change anything really. Make it better, but don't do it any differently.
;)
People want companies run by industry insiders? No innovation is going to come from the same old people trying to rehash the same old stock business model. The best thing we can hope for these days is that more people come along who are looking to challenge assumptions and defy the status quo.
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Thanks for coming here to answer questions - it's appreciated. I did get the e-mail and obviously will be very happy to see things pick up.
I had suspended uploading when things appeared to stall, but obviously have a lot of other stuff to upload if that makes sense (I'm on vacation at the moment, but once home again).
Good luck with relaunching the agency
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It is always welcome news if another agency can step in and find success in this business
However even Adobe with its deep pockets and established niche with designers and ad agencies, it has not had as much success and as deep an impact as i would have thought
So just how much success GL will have has me a doubting Thomas until I see tangible evidence
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I think some degree of contributor control over pricing will be essential.
Since you're very forthrightly coming here to MSG looking for input, notice the discussion in another thread about the loss of the 'niche' market. To us, 'niche' means anything that takes some time and money to shoot, but won't sell very often. There's no point in submitting such photos for sub-$1 returns. Some of us think the existing agencies are just writing off this part of the market.
Microstock has become like the Middle East - no one can figure out how to make things work. Years of competition on nothing but price have taken a huge toll on the perceived value of stock photos. New thinking is needed.
FYI, I never had a single bad thing to say about GL's previous owners. They were unfailingly friendly, fair and helpful. The business seemed to get off to a good start but at some point took a huge hit when Google changed their game.
I don't post much here anymore as I am not actively doing microstock. But I would like to say that I agree with everything Stockastick has said here - great post. I too always liked GL, always considered Kelly a friend, and still have a couple thousand illustrations on GL.
Re niche markets and setting our own (high) prices for images which would only sell a few times - if I could do that I might consider doing microstock illustrations again. Right now, it is neither fun enough nor lucrative enough.
Good luck to the new owners!
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Thanks for grandfathering in the 52% commission - I'm sure we all appreciate that. It was very annoying when 123rf went to a RC system and at first said the old 50% would be grandfathered in and then changed their minds. I hope GL will stick with it.
When GL stopped accepting uploads a couple years ago (or whenever it was) and sales dried up it seemed like the site was moribund. I'm glad to see new owners giving it a go in this difficult business. As others have said, competing solely on price will only go so far and won't generate a lot of enthusiasm from contributors. Most of us probably agree that the ideal site would have a good commission rate, easy uploads, fast and fair reviews and no subscriptions - you are batting 100% on those so far (assuming reviews are fast and fair with the new owners). However, the number that is most important is how much we can make at the end of the day. Right now GL is at 0.3 in the poll with 37 votes so you have a long way to go. I stopped uploading there in 2014 but will start again to see how it goes. I also do not see the USP for the new site and it is hard to know what that might be. Do you accept PNGs? Canva is doing quite well with those although of course they have a very different approach (with a great USP). Not sure what else you can do to be different but I hope you are successful.
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First off, I must have missed the email. This is the first I am hearing about a change of ownership. I always liked Kelly, April and the gang at GL and wish them success in whatever they're going on to next.
That said, sales there this year have been beyond pitiful. The worst of any of the low earners I contribute to. I would LOVE to see this site come back to life and start earning me money. Thank you for the grandfathering.
May I suggest that since you will have new contributors making 40% and established contributors making 52 %, that you do NOT do as some other sites and jerry rig your search to favor newer 'cheaper' portfolios and bury the work of your skilled and experienced artists. This sort of short term policy has hurt the long term solvency of the sites that tried it.
Wishing you the best and looking forward to once again drawing an income from GL.
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Thanks for braving the playground. It's tough being the new kid at school. ;D
Best of luck to Kelly and the rest. Hopefully, sales will pick up at GL.
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GL has also always been one of my favourite sites, it's a shame the Google shake up destroyed sales there. I hope whatever they do they continue to respect contributors.
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embermike, sorry for being so negative, but you agree that lowering prices and giving away images for free is good news?
remember jon from shutterstock, he spoke to contributors too in the beginning, remember lee from canva, he spoke here too in the beginning, remember mat from adobe, he spoke here too in the beginning, etcetera. of course they talk to us now, because they need us, at some point that will stop too
i WANT GL to succeed, nothing bad about the previous owners, but we've heard the same thing over and over again,
anyway, carry on, i wish the new owners all the success in the world and lots of fortune, and may we all benefit from it,
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It is always welcome news if another agency can step in and find success in this business
However even Adobe with its deep pockets and established niche with designers and ad agencies, it has not had as much success and as deep an impact as i would have thought
So just how much success GL will have has me a doubting Thomas until I see tangible evidence
It might be easier to boost a smaller site that has less wrong with it, like GL. There were so many problems with FT that still haven't been fixed by Adobe, like how they managed to make my portfolio almost invisible to buyers :)
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...May I suggest that since you will have new contributors making 40% and established contributors making 52 %, that you do NOT do as some other sites and jerry rig your search to favor newer 'cheaper' portfolios and bury the work of your skilled and experienced artists. This sort of short term policy has hurt the long term solvency of the sites that tried it...
Good point. I would much rather we all got 45% and have no bias in the search than get 52% if it means my images are going to sink down the search, like they have with several sites now. If I was in the position of the new GL team, I would keep it simple and pay everyone 50%, like Pond5, Alamy, Stocksy, Stockfresh and a few others do. 50% seems fair and I'm sure those sites make decent profits. The way things are going, there might be a time when they are the only sites worth uploading new images to.
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I've always liked GL and for me the only thing lacking was sales. Hopefully with the right marketing you will be able to remedy that. Thank you for the grandfathering in.
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[…]
For those of you who are already sellers with GL, again, you have been grandfathered in and will continue enjoying the same commissions that you always have.
For how many time?
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[…] Those who have a great internal reputation do not have limits, though new posters start at 20 per day until we see the quality of images being submitted.
I find that 20 a day is very uneasy to manage.
From my point of view 600 a month will be very better.
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Can I suggest you start of with a different payment structure that is actually sustainable in the long term for both contributors and the site?
It could seem harsh to start off with but we have seen the alternative which is sites constantly cutting commissions to try and increase profits.
What about a tiered payment structure? Ones based on an absolute number of downloads inevitably end up with promises of volume that are never met, as the agency plays it safe with unrealistic predictions. How about one based on contributors' performance compared to other contributors. So those earning in the top 10% of contributors get 75% commission, the next 10% get 60% and so on down to say 25%. It will keep people motivated. Plus people can't really complain because if they are on a low tier they know it is directly based on their sale-ability compared to other contributors and how much they are contributing to the site's success, not because they have failed to meet an arbitrary level set by the site.
People will like the 40% commission and grandfathering for now, they wont like when the "exciting" announcement is made that everyone has to be moved to standard commission, or when it is 30% then 25% in a few years when more money is need for marketing the site.
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I'd be more interested in finding out who the "mysterious" new owners are.
As to rate cuts for new contributors they also paired that up with increasing the payout amount from $50 to $100.
The rate of sales at GL will probably mean that very few contributors will reach payout for years.
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embermike, sorry for being so negative, but you agree that lowering prices and giving away images for free is good news?
I didn't read anything about that in the announcement. In fact, as I understand it there is no plan to lower prices. Where did you get that from?
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Will you take video?
Thank you for coming in here to talk to us. It would be great to see your business grow.
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You know what? I'm not expecting a miracle. I'd just like to see some of the arrows moving in a different direction - up, not down. So many of us got disgusted and gave up. We felt like we'd been taken advantage of, and that the future was only going to be worse.
Imagine, 10 or more years ago, if you were told that someone wanted to use your photo in a magazine - a really good photo that took you an afternoon to produce. And that asking $5 for that use would get you laughed out of the room.
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Can I suggest you start of with a different payment structure that is actually sustainable in the long term for both contributors and the site?
It could seem harsh to start off with but we have seen the alternative which is sites constantly cutting commissions to try and increase profits.
What about a tiered payment structure? Ones based on an absolute number of downloads inevitably end up with promises of volume that are never met, as the agency plays it safe with unrealistic predictions. How about one based on contributors' performance compared to other contributors. So those earning in the top 10% of contributors get 75% commission, the next 10% get 60% and so on down to say 25%. It will keep people motivated. Plus people can't really complain because if they are on a low tier they know it is directly based on their sale-ability compared to other contributors and how much they are contributing to the site's success, not because they have failed to meet an arbitrary level set by the site.
People will like the 40% commission and grandfathering for now, they wont like when the "exciting" announcement is made that everyone has to be moved to standard commission, or when it is 30% then 25% in a few years when more money is need for marketing the site.
This is a great idea, and I think we have some variations of it in mind already. In our other business, and in this business, quality is of utmost important. In development, which we haven't announced yet, is the ability for us to manually adjust contributors commissions, instead of the default rate. So we will be able to do these types of things to reward the highest quality sellers.
I don't want to commit to any one method, as we still are doing a lot of internal planning, but to respond to your points -- we are thinking of the best approach for all parties to reward the highest quality contributors.
@Chichikov - There is no time limit for the grandfathering of sellers prior to 8/3/16 at 52%. We will honor this rate moving forward. Also, the limit of 20 per day can be changed, please PM me your account name or email address and i'll take a look!
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Several of you had expressed concerns about rigging the search to display images from newer sellers at the 40% so that we can encourage the higher margin images. If we had any negative intentions of stacking the deck against the "old" sellers, we simply would have lowered all rates to 40%. To be frank, the thought crossed our mind to lower all members to 40%, but we saw much more value in trying not to waste 8 years of a company's history and tick off a lot of loyal customers to make a few extra bucks and quite possibly lose a significant amount of sellers in the process.
Since the previous owners created a natural divider by shutting down new sellers for almost 2 years, we felt that if we honor the commitment the previous owners made to their clients at the time, they will [hopefully] remain happy, and moving forward with our new clients that we bring on, we will be making our own unique commitment to them. I see a lot of people saying that we are "Dropping the royalty" rate, however, by grandfathering the old sellers in, I don't see this as a royalty drop. I see this as a fresh start, and it was a LOT easier for us to change the royalty rate immediately upon opening new contributors back up, rather than at a later time down the road. For our new customers, there is no "shock" of lowering their royalty rates, they will simply come to our site and see that they can earn 40% selling their photos. They have the ability to sign up, or click the big X on the top right of their screen. We hope they work with us, and we know that this rate of 40% is still very competitive in an incredibly competitive market.
Customers are the most important part of every business, but simultaneously, every business needs to make money in order to provide the customer with a better experience. We are trying to make the business more profitable, while keeping as many people happy as we can. Interestingly enough, the influx of new sellers since we opened the doors only 1 1/2 days ago is incredibly positive feedback which tells us a lot about peoples opinions of our royalty rates!
@Teddy the Cat - Similar to the 52% being grandfathered, we also left old sellers at $50 payout thresholds. So the idea is that nothing is changing for old sellers. New sellers will sign up seeing 40% and $100 payment threshold, correct. This really is not as outrageous as you may think. We run a marketing company sending hundreds - thousands of payments per month, and we are simply adding the responsibility of payments on to our existing accounting team in an effort to streamline payments. We are also going to be offering more payment options other than paypal and skrill (such as ACH/Direct Deposit, Checks, and Wire for int'l clients earning over a certain threshold). The idea of increasing the threshold is simply to make things manageable for our existing team, while also ensuring that the cost of making payments on a large scale makes sense. Each transaction costs money to make, whether in fees, staff time, or both, so we are just addressing that in this way.
We are not just making these 2 changes, and "setting and forgetting" the site. These are two changes that will help us move forward in the future and make many positive changes. The reality is, we had to make these changes sooner than later so we can focus on positive changes to come.
@Cobalt - Yes, we are very eager to be able to accept videos. This is on our priority list.
@Microstockphoto - When it comes to free images, the previous owners had a tab for free images, we truly didn't think anything of it since we saw that on many stock sites. Having said that, your feedback was very much heard, and your points are incredibly valid.
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Our success will benefit our members, so there is no harm in us trying ;).
Thanks guys. Don't hesitate to send us PM.
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"This is a great idea, and I think we have some variations of it in mind already."
It's not a great idea. It's a bad idea. It causes confusion, continual stress about meeting 'levels' and is ripe for abuse by the agency twiddling the numbers when they aren't making enough. Witness IS and its RC system.
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Like I said, our intentions have nothing to do with volume of sales. Our priority is quality of images in our marketplace, not the amount of sales that any individual seller receives over another. Let's not jump the gun, we will be rolling out some new things in the near future that I'm sure will only be met with positivity.
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I like DT's system of individual images gaining in value over time. In other words, tier advancement per image rather than per contributor. It takes forever to move up a contributor tier, but if it's per image, you can get the motivation of seeing a couple of successes. Eventually a good selling image starts to make a few bucks per sale, and you don't feel like a total sap for participating.
You'll get all sorts of opinions on this, of course, but that's what works for me.
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@Stockastic - We do not have any plans to lower pricing. In fact, we have plans to give more freedom over the pricing of your images. There are a lot of things in the pipeline, and we will listen to all of our members for suggestions as to how to best serve them. The previous owners felt that what the current prices are set to was the sweet spot for both sellers and buyers alike. However, with any business, things change over time. We will evaluate the pricing, and will adjust accordingly as needed to ensure that buyers are happy with the pricing, but sellers are happy with their earnings. It's obviously paramount for us to find the sweet spot, and rest assured, we will be working on this.
That's good to hear. I wouldn't mind seeing the $20 price point come back at GL. With smaller sites, higher price points and lower volumes seem to be a better success strategy (at least, from a contributor perspective). It seems to make more sense from a long term sustainable strategy too. Cramming massive volume through a site and expecting every contributor to get a piece doesn't seem like it will work forever for some of these larger sites.
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We have a bowl full of suggestions, but please do not hesitate to make more. We are listening, and as long as the suggestions are possible, we will be working on them.
wow, when i saw the number of views, i thought this was an old post.
but not,..
anyway, welcome back.
we appreciate you taking the time to come in
i was one of your contributors from day 1 when i saw your link here on leaf's page.
i liked the idea of prices that is not microstock subs and not giving away images to increase traffic of non-buyers (abusers, iow, fb users,etc).
i don't even know if my port is still there LOL; after i joined ss, i forgot about most of my 22 othera agencies i joined from msg ..because to me, reaching payout is the criterion to whether
i upload to a site or not....
you welcome suggestion???
really, there is only one... which you can capitalize at this moment when many experienced contributors are not happy with ss, is...
-show us you can make money for us, and we will upload to your site
-show us you won't be in the future to compete with ss, is, fotolia,etc... to decrease earnings.
-show us we get regular payouts as we do with ss
that's all really, make money for us, and we will be there.
percentage? well, it counts, but 90% of zero =zero.
but even if you are 40% commission, and you still sell better , or as good as ss,
we will go there...
or least, i will.
oh, i forgot, don't ask us to apply to get paid, like dreamstime,etc..
just auto-pay us (like ss) as soon as we reach the payout limit...
and don't set it so high that we have to grow old (like dt) before getting our first payout ..
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I've said it before, please put more effort in bettering your search engine. As a buyer, it sucks to sift through garbage on the first couple of pages...
You have plenty of excellent files that never get seen and buried beneath rubbish.
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Another addition to the suggestion box: Add editorial.
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I'm not on GL (worst name ever), so here's what I hear: "Lower prices, more giveaways of your work, and if you want to join now you'll get 25% less in royalties than other people."
So exciting!
Best of luck to all you grandfathers. ;)
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Thanks for coming here to answer questions - it's appreciated. I did get the e-mail and obviously will be very happy to see things pick up.
I had suspended uploading when things appeared to stall, but obviously have a lot of other stuff to upload if that makes sense (I'm on vacation at the moment, but once home again).
Good luck with relaunching the agency
You guys should hire this woman as a strategic consultant. Trust me on this.
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You really should. I would say she is the closest thing to an expert on the micro market there is.
If you want to make the site a success pay very close attention to jo ann and sean when they offer advice.
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I like DT's system of individual images gaining in value over time. In other words, tier advancement per image rather than per contributor. It takes forever to move up a contributor tier, but if it's per image, you can get the motivation of seeing a couple of successes. Eventually a good selling image starts to make a few bucks per sale, and you don't feel like a total sap for participating.
You'll get all sorts of opinions on this, of course, but that's what works for me.
As I said in another thread:
I think the reverse version of that would be interesting. Start with higher prices, so every download makes "a few bucks per sale" (think attracting niche content), then if an image sells good, over time decrease the price.
If an image sells enough, I'm willing to give it away cheaper (when it already has made its money). Volume discount on an per image basis.
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50% royalty commissions is fair
We have to invest our time and money, you have to invest in storage and a sales team
I think tiers are a stupid idea
If you have images that sell well, they should rank higher in the search - thats your reward for producing the content
Any agency that cant turn a profit with 50% take is either greedy or mismanaged or both
Partners should split 50 50 esp a start up. you havent proved anything yet.
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You really should. I would say she is the closest thing to an expert on the micro market there is.
If you want to make the site a success pay very close attention to jo ann and sean when they offer advice.
sean is already taken (stocksy)
...but
if you catch jo ann after her vacation, she could be a good catch , for sure!!!
but there is also pauliewalnuts
and jonathan ross.
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I like DT's system of individual images gaining in value over time. In other words, tier advancement per image rather than per contributor. It takes forever to move up a contributor tier, but if it's per image, you can get the motivation of seeing a couple of successes. Eventually a good selling image starts to make a few bucks per sale, and you don't feel like a total sap for participating.
You'll get all sorts of opinions on this, of course, but that's what works for me.
As I said in another thread:
I think the reverse version of that would be interesting. Start with higher prices, so every download makes "a few bucks per sale" (think attracting niche content), then if an image sells good, over time decrease the price.
If an image sells enough, I'm willing to give it away cheaper (when it already has made its money). Volume discount on an per image basis.
That's a self fulfilling scheme. Once an image gets lowered in price, there's no reason to download a higher prices on, assuming all equal. There would be no need to upload after an initial period.
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...Lower prices...
I'm still not seeing this alleged lowering of prices part of the announcement. Can anyone point me to it? Or did it just get made up in this thread?
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...Lower prices...
I'm still not seeing this alleged lowering of prices part of the announcement. Can anyone point me to it? Or did it just get made up in this thread?
Well it seems one of the comments was edited by gl. Apparently it made reference to freebies. I don't know if people are referring to that or if the same comment also made reference to more competitive pricing? I missed it but there's refence to it somewhere in this thread.
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I like DT's system of individual images gaining in value over time. In other words, tier advancement per image rather than per contributor. It takes forever to move up a contributor tier, but if it's per image, you can get the motivation of seeing a couple of successes. Eventually a good selling image starts to make a few bucks per sale, and you don't feel like a total sap for participating.
You'll get all sorts of opinions on this, of course, but that's what works for me.
As I said in another thread:
I think the reverse version of that would be interesting. Start with higher prices, so every download makes "a few bucks per sale" (think attracting niche content), then if an image sells good, over time decrease the price.
If an image sells enough, I'm willing to give it away cheaper (when it already has made its money). Volume discount on an per image basis.
That's a self fulfilling scheme. Once an image gets lowered in price, there's no reason to download a higher prices on, assuming all equal. There would be no need to upload after an initial period.
Why should uploading an image that is so similar to existing ones that it can only compete on price be rewarded/encouraged?
Isn't that one of the problems of the existing micros, unlimited repetition of the same "best selling" images?
But if you upload something new, even in low demand/niche subjects, it might be worth it if the first downloads can command a higher price (instead of higher prices after 10, 20, 50 downloads, that a niche image may never make).
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I like DT's system of individual images gaining in value over time. In other words, tier advancement per image rather than per contributor. It takes forever to move up a contributor tier, but if it's per image, you can get the motivation of seeing a couple of successes. Eventually a good selling image starts to make a few bucks per sale, and you don't feel like a total sap for participating.
You'll get all sorts of opinions on this, of course, but that's what works for me.
As I said in another thread:
I think the reverse version of that would be interesting. Start with higher prices, so every download makes "a few bucks per sale" (think attracting niche content), then if an image sells good, over time decrease the price.
If an image sells enough, I'm willing to give it away cheaper (when it already has made its money). Volume discount on an per image basis.
my head is spinning with both ideas..
but see if i understand either of you...
and my response correctly if so..
-stockastic, the problem with dt tier is that once your image goes to the upper tier,
it becomes costly to the client, who says, "why should i pay this much more than before???"
i know because my upper tier images die as soon as it get up tier-ed.
-dirkr, your idea, start high and offer discount for bulk , if that's what i understand,
makes sense (to me). as with dt tier problem, you sensitize the client into thinking
low prices, as with all subs and micro ads, it is all towards, "get free.. pay less..bla bla bla".
as in clothing business ... you don't reduce prices,
because one you do, you'll never get it back up.
so yes, i agree with the higher prices first, and never dropping it...ever.
unless it is a discount. but then again, that sounds like subs which is all you can download for
a small fee.
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Why should uploading an image that is so similar to existing ones that it can only compete on price be rewarded/encouraged?
Isn't that one of the problems of the existing micros, unlimited repetition of the same "best selling" images?
are you refering to cannibalizing ??? if so, yes, that is the problem with micro..
giving the same images to 20 agencies, thinking that the cumulative total adds up .
but i feel it does not, as other sites may earn you even less than say, having it all
with ss, or is.
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whatever it is,
i think it is going to take a very brave agency to take on getty / ss...
and raise prices instead of undercutting them.
but it will be the best for contributors to see this giant of dwarfs
appearing at this crucial moment when a good number of contributors are looking
to leave is, ss, getty,..
the impetus will be who is it that can bring in the sales like ss,getty, and the old is.???
before that happens, talking about lower / higher commissions etc is all moot
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I'd be more interested in finding out who the "mysterious" new owners are.
As to rate cuts for new contributors they also paired that up with increasing the payout amount from $50 to $100.
The rate of sales at GL will probably mean that very few contributors will reach payout for years.
Oh. OUCH! I missed that part. $100 payout is totally unrealistic for a site like GL, whether now or in the future. Even at established sires like DT it has become a high bar to reach.
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Can I suggest you start of with a different payment structure that is actually sustainable in the long term for both contributors and the site?
It could seem harsh to start off with but we have seen the alternative which is sites constantly cutting commissions to try and increase profits.
What about a tiered payment structure? Ones based on an absolute number of downloads inevitably end up with promises of volume that are never met, as the agency plays it safe with unrealistic predictions. How about one based on contributors' performance compared to other contributors. So those earning in the top 10% of contributors get 75% commission, the next 10% get 60% and so on down to say 25%. It will keep people motivated. Plus people can't really complain because if they are on a low tier they know it is directly based on their sale-ability compared to other contributors and how much they are contributing to the site's success, not because they have failed to meet an arbitrary level set by the site.
People will like the 40% commission and grandfathering for now, they wont like when the "exciting" announcement is made that everyone has to be moved to standard commission, or when it is 30% then 25% in a few years when more money is need for marketing the site.
Please, no. I've had enough of creatively constructed level/RC-like commission systems, and they all sucked because the levels were almost always unattainable. Leave it the way it is, 52% for existing contributors and 40% for newcomers.
Don't complicate things just for the sake of it.
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...Lower prices...
I'm still not seeing this alleged lowering of prices part of the announcement. Can anyone point me to it? Or did it just get made up in this thread?
Well it seems one of the comments was edited by gl. Apparently it made reference to freebies. I don't know if people are referring to that or if the same comment also made reference to more competitive pricing? I missed it but there's refence to it somewhere in this thread.
You mean this post from GL?
http://www.microstockgroup.com/graphic-leftovers/gl-news/msg461050/#msg461050 (http://www.microstockgroup.com/graphic-leftovers/gl-news/msg461050/#msg461050)
- Why would buyers use us? We will have images they want at lower prices. We will be pushing out free images on a weekly basis...
There's nothing about lowering prices, we're still able to set our own pricing as far as I know.
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The $100 payout threahold is a non starter, esp with a non performer
Changing that?
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I like the 52% commission and all, but sales have been dead for a while now and I doubt you guys can reanimate this dead horse. Wish you all the best though.
I was going to say something similar. Agencies always use the "cut commissions" to excuse to claim they are investing in marketing. But of all the MS companies I can recall who have made this claim of cutting commissions to grow the business, none have flourished even an inch. Alamy for example, who claimed they needed the revenue to open an office in the USA so they can grow sales has resulted in a net loss for me. Sales just died there month over month. I made $33 before my cut in July. I used to make $800 average there. Peter gave it a shot, Duncan gave it a shot, Bigstock is now next to nothing, MostPhotos and the list goes on. It would take a MAJOR strategic shift with a PILE of money to even make a dent in increasing sales.
I wish GL well, though. They've always been pretty fair to contributors. I closed my account there a few months ago. Made about $4 a month there with about 3500 images.
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You know what? I'm not expecting a miracle. I'd just like to see some of the arrows moving in a different direction - up, not down. So many of us got disgusted and gave up. We felt like we'd been taken advantage of, and that the future was only going to be worse.
Imagine, 10 or more years ago, if you were told that someone wanted to use your photo in a magazine - a really good photo that took you an afternoon to produce. And that asking $5 for that use would get you laughed out of the room.
lol, 10 years? make it 2016-1988= 28 years ago, i was just a greenhorn ,
straight out of photography college, gofer for a top photographer setting up lights,
doing photo retouching, darkroom,etc..
still, got paid 200 dollars as a stringer for the local papers.. a 5 image - photo essay .
2016-2010= 6 years ago, i was told by an editor of an expensive mag , also a film director,
...we get tons of students from the local university begging to get working every year with us for free.
and to add injury to insult, a local newspaper, "we don't pay anything, we get all wire photos for free... but if you like, you get photo credits!!!"
i told the last dude, "whoopie dink, i already have photos published worldwide
for 28 cents!!!"
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I like the 52% commission and all, but sales have been dead for a while now and I doubt you guys can reanimate this dead horse. Wish you all the best though.
I wish GL well, though. They've always been pretty fair to contributors. I closed my account there a few months ago. Made about $4 a month there with about 3500 images.
What, not willing to wait 2 years for payout?
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Alamy for example, who claimed they needed the revenue to open an office in the USA so they can grow sales has resulted in a net loss for me. Sales just died there month over month. I made $33 before my cut in July. I used to make $800 average there. Peter gave it a shot, Duncan gave it a shot, Bigstock is now next to nothing, MostPhotos and the list goes on. It would take a MAJOR strategic shift with a PILE of money to even make a dent in increasing sales.
I wish GL well, though. They've always been pretty fair to contributors. I closed my account there a few months ago. Made about $4 a month there with about 3500 images.
agree.
anything or any agency who tries to challenge the "we are the lowest in the world" mind-set
will always find support from me.
but once again, i need to see a successful marketing project
that they can sell and earn regularly money for me as with ss.
The $100 payout threahold is a non starter, esp with a non performer
Changing that?
that would be the first thing i see. i don't want to die and still haven't reach 1st payout
for my grandchildren 's children, LOL
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It's good news that new owners are now trying to reanimate GL, especially if they continue being always fair to contributors as the old owners have been. Good luck!
For me this is good enough to start uploading again. My suggestion for a smoother upload workflow would be replacing the daily upload limit by a weekly or monthly limit as I tend to work with bigger batches of 100 to 200 images.
IMHO pricing tiers like dt or reverse dt don't make any sense at all if sales are not frequently enough. For my port on GL sales would have to increase at least 20-fold before I could even start telling good selling images from non-sellers. A long way to go...
Nevertheless, attracting high quality niche images could prove being a good strategy helping turn around GL. At least the more seasoned stockers know exactly which of their images fall into that high quality niche category. Just being able as a contributor to select a higher price point for a certain percentage of my images would be a good start in a good direction. If the higher priced images on GL would be additionally curated by GL staff it could be ensured that image buyers as well understand why certain images cost more than others.
Again, good luck to the new owners of GL. I cross my fingers for all of us.
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-attracting high quality niche images could prove being a good strategy
-seasoned stockers know exactly which of their images fall into that high quality niche
-being able as a contributor to select a higher price point for a certain percentage of my images
-curated by GL staff it could be ensured that image buyers understand why certain images cost more
even i ...like your idea... 8)
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GraphicLeftovers, I do own a better sounding domain name parked away if you're interested. I think a good name needs a lot of money to market it, which I don't have. When I started my own site I had coined the name UsefulImage.com but decided to change it for my name denispepin.com thereafter for a more personal touch.
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Change GraphicLeftovers in GraphicL(eft)overs
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Non-US based contributors to all the US based agencies have an issue with the US tax authorities, who automatically retain tax on sales made to US customers. Most agencies counter this for overseas contributors based in countries with tax treaties with the US, by obtaining tax ID information from those contributors and then paying the gross sale amount directly to them. I can't see any reference to this issue on the GL website and it may be significant for overseas contributors in deciding whether to sign up with GL. Can you enlighten us?
I'd also add my voice to those who would like to see video sales here, especially if unreleased editorial use was also possible.
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50% for everyone and a $50 payout threshold would be simple and I don't think it would put anyone off using GL. Being grandfathered in at 52% is nice but if 40% and a $100 payout threshold puts new contributors off, GL wont be as competitive as other sites and wont attract as many buyers.
Pond5 have done very well paying 50% to everyone, so have Alamy. Mostphotos pay 50% and have a 10 Euro payout, if they can do it, there's no excuse for a $100 payout level. Some people will say Mostphotos aren't a success but I have no problem reaching their payout level every month and I think that's what sites should try to do. There's nothing worse than only being able to get a payout once a year, its very demotivating. If GL can get much higher sales volume, then the $100 payout level wont be such a problem but that's going to be very hard to achieve.
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btw, is their site working at all. i got a warning that this site is not kosher to enter
or something like that, their verification licence or whatever is not what they say they are.
you know the jargon ... me oldschool catch no balls at all :)
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50% for everyone and a $50 payout threshold would be simple and I don't think it would put anyone off using GL. Being grandfathered in at 52% is nice but if 40% and a $100 payout threshold puts new contributors off, GL wont be as competitive as other sites and wont attract as many buyers.
Great wisdom, Sharpshot. I just wish the agencies would pay attention to the veterans! >:(
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Hey All,
Just want to let you know, we are hard at work, so will not be able to post incredibly frequently. However, we are reading through suggestions and will be working on many of them. Please keep in mind, some things will take longer than others due to the intense amounts of development work and planning that will go into them.
To start:
1) We will ensure that deposits NEVER expire. This one is very important, and frankly is something that we were not fond of either. The old ownership had this in place, and we will be removing it as soon as possible. We will make an announcement when it is officially removed.
2) We will lower the payout threshold to $50 for new sellers (in addition to the grandfathered sellers) based on the feedback here. Your concerns are valid. I think we were a bit excited for our plans of growth that we figured more sellers would be able to cross the $100 threshold faster, but until we get to that point with the business, we want to be fair to our sellers.
3) Videos WILL happen, though it is going to take us a bit of time. In the 8+ years that GL has been in operation, this had been on the back burner for a very long time. When making this significant addition, we want to ensure we do so the right way.
We will continue to release updates and inform everybody of any changes along the way. We have received immense amounts of wonderful feedback, and really good suggestions from many of our members and potential members. We really appreciate this and we are listening so that we can offer the best experience possible.
-- Regarding issues with accessing site, prior to transitioning the site to new ownership, we wanted to ensure that every page on GL was secured. We did this, but there was a minor error which we fixed today. Please PM me directly if you are still having that same issue, but you no longer should experience that. Only a small percentage of individuals experienced this.
Thank you,
Phil
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Phil, thanks for listening to your contributors and keeping the payout threshold at $50.
Glad to hear you're enthusiastic! If you and your team can keep that level of enthusiasm and receptivity to buyers and sellers, you may be able to hit the sweet spot the other sites have missed.
Personally, I would love to have a site to be excited about uploading to and where I see my efforts rewarded!
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Good decision about the lower payout. I hope GL gets big enough to start ignoring us, like the other big sites do :)
Starting with video could be very difficult. I get the feeling that contributors are more reluctant to upload to new video sites, as it can take a lot of time and they wont have buyers. It seems even harder to get buyers to use sites that are just starting with video. The good news is that Pond5 have been doing some strange things lately and people are looking for somewhere else to upload new video clips. They were very successful letting us set prices, most of us thought their minimum price was too low but being able to price clips higher than the other microstock sites has worked very well for some people. There are buyers that like higher priced content as well. So perhaps this could be a good time for GL, as long as you can be more like Pond5 than some of the microstock sites that have just gone for low prices and have failed dismally.
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Phil, thanks for listening to your contributors and keeping the payout threshold at $50.
Glad to hear you're enthusiastic! If you and your team can keep that level of enthusiasm and receptivity to buyers and sellers, you may be able to hit the sweet spot the other sites have missed.
Personally, I would love to have a site to be excited about uploading to and where I see my efforts rewarded!
yes, keep an open line to contributors feelings these days , watch the forums on ss , is, and msg
... you might find a golden opportunity to fill a niche
and attract a good number of experienced contributors to move their new images
to GL.
just so long as sharpshot jokingly said, so long as you don't grow too fast and starting
betraying the contributors,
you should be fine on a long term growth and mutual capital appreciation if you consider
contributors loyalty the criterion, along with transparency in your intentions.
of course, up next criterion being price lowering is definitely not in our interest
and yours either, as no one wants to make it a living going to the lower bidder anymore.
the contributors know enough not to cannibalize their low earning images for GL
if and when you stand up and be counted as a new site that is unafraid to attract
clientele who is also aware that premium prices mean premium quality.
ss contributors are used to the high bar in curatorship for many years already.
only they have not seen a tangent reciprocal earnings and search priority to these
high standard quality images with ss,etc.
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I get sporadic sales here, but I like it (as an illustrator). Thank you for reaching out to us here. Good luck. Best success for all of us!
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Well, I just got my first sale after 6 months, so there's an improvement ;) 8 cents short of a payout, so hopefully the next one will be soon.
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Thanks everybody for the wonderful feedback. We are diligently working on improvements, here is an update.
First and foremost, after listening to the advice of the members of this forum, we have rolled back the contributor payment threshold to $50. Again, I think we were a bit too excited about our growth plans for the long term that we were not quite thinking about the short term, and so we appreciate your feedback there.
Here is what will be coming by early next week:
1) We are giving our sellers MUCH more control over the pricing of their images. Instead of having the option to sell your images for $6, $10, or $15, we are now adding the following options:
$1, $3, $5, $7, $10, $15, $20, $25, $30.
Instead of a maximum price of $15 per image, you have the option to increase this significantly, as well as having the ability to test different price points with GL.
2) No longer will the size selected by the buyers affect how much you earn for your images. We will be rolling out ONE price for all sizes of images, while still allowing the buyer their choice in image size. The GL system is currently set up to automatically resize images and charge based on size, with the largest image size being the price you selected, and the smaller image sizes being priced proportionately lower.
For example:
With the current configuration, if a seller selects to sell their image for $10.00, the full sized image is set to $10. However, the medium size costs $5.00, and the small size costs $2.00.
With our next release, if you select $10 for your image, regardless of size, the buyer will pay $10.00.
We understand and appreciate the hard work our top quality contributors put into creating beautiful stock photography and vectors. We will continue working to make positive changes to protect the sellers’ best interests, while working to drive more and more buyers to our site. We believe that this change will be a great step in the right direction.
We have so many items in the pipeline that we are excited to announce, but these are closest to completion. We will give you all a heads up as soon as we have rolled out these new changes and will update you soon with other items that we are working on and close to completion on! Thank you :).
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Well, I'm torn. I used to occasionally buy the smallest image for $1 to use in my blog. If I can't, as a buyer, change the price by deciding what size I want, I probably won't buy unless the price is a buck. Maybe $3.
Of course, I'll probably up my images to $30, since I'm not really selling enough that losing a few sales will make a difference. Guess we'll see.
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Please change the uploading progress. Have thousands of files. After uploading i have to click each file and need another click to submit. Please change it and i will go on. Good luck.
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I think having different prices for different sizes is a good option for buyers and the last thing GL should be doing is putting buyers off. GL already has very low sales volume and if buyers are lost because of this change, that could be a catastrophe. Lots of sites have had to switch from same price for all sizes to having different prices because buyers went to their competition.
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With our next release, if you select $10 for your image, regardless of size, the buyer will pay $10.00.
let me play devil's advocate to say, maybe, this could be a good move too.
since the contributor has the option to select from a wider range of prices 9 from 3.
it may sound a bit torn as sjlocke says, but then again, if the contributor has an item
meant for full size, it could well be a good idea to go out on the limb to price it to the highest
.. otoh, if the item is more usable to small sizes as for blogs, home page,
the contributor could choose to price it in line with micro prices.
now we only have to give GL a chance by uploading to your site in support
and then see if you can market the sales to compete with getty and ss...
and the other mid stock alternatives ;)
anything is a breath of fresh air, in this current situation with ss becoming more and more
less and less contributor friendly
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We appreciate the input, and both perspectives are valid. Our goal is to ensure we are putting out the best product for our users and to appeal to the widest range of buyers possible, while continuing to maintain a very high level of quality in our marketplace. This change that we are making will enable our sellers to price their images in a way that will appeal to the small, medium, or large budget buyers that they are targeting in the creation of their images.
For those of you who are skeptical that adjusting your prices will result in less sales, you are not required to make any changes.
The idea behind these changes is to transpose GL from where it was to where it has the potential to be. We do not want to be another company that dictates the value of our sellers' images. Instead, we want to give our hard working sellers more control over their image pricing. By enabling our sellers to control the pricing for their high quality images, not only will this help their profitability, it will also attract a wider range of buyers with various budgets shopping on our site.
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" it will also attract a wider range of buyers with various budgets shopping on our site."
You'd better be ready to add some filters for pricing. Buyers tend to get annoyed when they have to waste time looking at things they can't afford.
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" it will also attract a wider range of buyers with various budgets shopping on our site."
You'd better be ready to add some filters for pricing. Buyers tend to get annoyed when they have to waste time looking at things they can't afford.
Indeed we are including that in the upcoming release. Please keep in mind, we understand there are features 'missing' from the technology. We have developers working on this so that given some time, our users will see a multitude of improvements. We are excited about new features that we are working on, both for the front end user, as well as the admin panel which will give us the ability to do much more with the site, and much more for our users.
Thank you!
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" it will also attract a wider range of buyers with various budgets shopping on our site."
You'd better be ready to add some filters for pricing. Buyers tend to get annoyed when they have to waste time looking at things they can't afford.
Indeed we are including that in the upcoming release. Please keep in mind, we understand there are features 'missing' from the technology. We have developers working on this so that given some time, our users will see a multitude of improvements. We are excited about new features that we are working on, both for the front end user, as well as the admin panel which will give us the ability to do much more with the site, and much more for our users.
Thank you!
the choice of Our goal is...
enable our sellers to price their images in a way that will appeal to the small, medium, or large budget buyers that they are targeting in the creation of their images.
We do not want to be another company that dictates the value of our sellers' images. Instead, we want to give our hard working sellers more control over their image pricing. By enabling our sellers to control the pricing for their high quality images, not only will this help their profitability, it will also attract a wider range of buyers with various budgets shopping on our site.
i am a tiny speck in the ocean
but i can tell you that what you came in to say
...redded...
is a welcoming breath of fresh air...
contributors... sellers... thier profitability... improvement...
it's been such a long time since we heard this from the mouth of agency's representatives.
I am cheering your / our successful whole-heartedly
and wish your marketing dept all the best to give GL a piece of the action
to show ss , is,etc... that listening to the contributors
can make a big change ...
especially at this moment when ill-will among experienced contributors
have been falling on deaf ears.
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I never really understood the whole 'one size fits all' thing. iStock implemented it, and it pissed off small-size buyers who left in flocks.
As a buyer myself, I like to have the option to get a smaller size for a lower price. Otherwise, I could just get the maximum size since it makes no difference in terms of price, making the smaller sizes redundant.
So in order to keep small-size buyers attached, please leave the choice for smaller sizes with proportional prices.
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I love it. I made so much more at GL when it was a higher price site for a one size vector image. If you are not going to sell tons of images per month, chasing small royalties doesn't seem to add up to much.
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chasing away buyers adds up to nothing
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Would it be possible to make a license model that require buyers to link to the photo on graphicleftovers.com when it is used on the web? For instance, all photos on blogs and articles (text-rich pages) must have credits below and the photographer's name must be a link to the photo. The sell page on GL should offer similar photos from the photographer.
This will have the following benefits:
- The photographer will have more traffic (and hopefully more sale) for the photo and his/hers related portfolio.
- graphicleftovers.com will have higher page rank on google as many pages will be linking to it.
Some buyers may of course not like this and they should be offered the photo at a higher price (or those linking should have a small discount).
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Would it be possible to make a license model that require buyers to link to the photo on graphicleftovers.com when it is used on the web? For instance, all photos on blogs and articles (text-rich pages) must have credits below and the photographer's name must be a link to the photo. The sell page on GL should offer similar photos from the photographer.
This will have the following benefits:
- The photographer will have more traffic (and hopefully more sale) for the photo and his/hers related portfolio.
- graphicleftovers.com will have higher page rank on google as many pages will be linking to it.
Some buyers may of course not like this and they should be offered the photo at a higher price (or those linking should have a small discount).
fotolia, i recall when i was with them from their inception, had something like what you wanted,
in that we were given the names of the buyers with each download.
unfortunately, some contributors went out of their effing heads to contact these buyers directly
and fotolia decided this was not a good idea...
so, once again, whenever we get a good thing with certain agencies going in the right direction,
some of us eff it up for the rest.
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The control of pricing for sellers and one-size-fits-all pricing go hand in hand. Sellers will have the ability to determine the price of their images based on the value of their images. What something is worth is up for debate in the open marketplace. If a buyer thinks an image is worth $25, they will pay $25. If they don't, they'll move on to other images, not necessarily another website.
Simply because there is one price per image does not withhold sellers from pricing their images at $1, $3, $5, or $7, which would be in the more affordable tier of pricing. Naturally, the smaller budget buyers would likely be searching primarily for photos in this price range, and we're confident that many sellers will see great value in uploading images set for the lower budget pricing. However, we also want to provide the flexibility to our sellers to value different images in their portfolio at different price points.
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Would it be possible to make a license model that require buyers to link to the photo on graphicleftovers.com when it is used on the web? For instance, all photos on blogs and articles (text-rich pages) must have credits below and the photographer's name must be a link to the photo. The sell page on GL should offer similar photos from the photographer.
This will have the following benefits:
- The photographer will have more traffic (and hopefully more sale) for the photo and his/hers related portfolio.
- graphicleftovers.com will have higher page rank on google as many pages will be linking to it.
Some buyers may of course not like this and they should be offered the photo at a higher price (or those linking should have a small discount).
fotolia, i recall when i was with them from their inception, had something like what you wanted,
in that we were given the names of the buyers with each download.
unfortunately, some contributors went out of their effing heads to contact these buyers directly
and fotolia decided this was not a good idea...
so, once again, whenever we get a good thing with certain agencies going in the right direction,
some of us eff it up for the rest.
Ahh, there should be ways around that problem, e.g., making it a reason for closing the contributor's account if the buyer complains or (less severe) subtract a penalty from the contributor's account (e.g 20% of the average monthly payment).
Nowadays you can find your buyers with google image search - I've done it a few times and it is quite interesting to see where your work is being used.
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The control of pricing for sellers and one-size-fits-all pricing go hand in hand. Sellers will have the ability to determine the price of their images based on the value of their images. What something is worth is up for debate in the open marketplace. If a buyer thinks an image is worth $25, they will pay $25. If they don't, they'll move on to other images, not necessarily another website.
Simply because there is one price per image does not withhold sellers from pricing their images at $1, $3, $5, or $7, which would be in the more affordable tier of pricing. Naturally, the smaller budget buyers would likely be searching primarily for photos in this price range, and we're confident that many sellers will see great value in uploading images set for the lower budget pricing. However, we also want to provide the flexibility to our sellers to value different images in their portfolio at different price points.
Part of the "value" of the image they license can be found in the size they are downloading. A small size affords much less "usefulness" than a larger size. A small image (pixel size) is good for blogs and such. An XL opens the world to double page spreads, cropping, etc. Removing that removes a lot of the flexibility buyers want to be able to license based on their needs and not overpay. At the least, there should be a small and large version.
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@Sean, We are not removing the option to select a size, just changing the pricing structure. We will continue providing small, medium, and large sizes for each image.
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I'm okay with the pricing plan. At least it's different than most other sites. Wondering... Will there be extended license options?
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@Sean, We are not removing the option to select a size, just changing the pricing structure. We will continue providing small, medium, and large sizes for each image.
That wasn't the point. Nobody really cares about choosing a size when they're all the same price - we all have mega-gazillion-gigabit connections. When I only need the flexibility that comes with a 800x800 pixel images, I'd be annoyed if I have to pay the same price as the guy who needs the 5500x3800 pixel image. I shopped GL for my blog images because I could get the smallest size at a price that afforded me limited flexibility.
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I´m ready to upload. Any changes planned for an easy upload?
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@Sean, We are not removing the option to select a size, just changing the pricing structure. We will continue providing small, medium, and large sizes for each image.
That wasn't the point. Nobody really cares about choosing a size when they're all the same price - we all have mega-gazillion-gigabit connections. When I only need the flexibility that comes with a 800x800 pixel images, I'd be annoyed if I have to pay the same price as the guy who needs the 5500x3800 pixel image. I shopped GL for my blog images because I could get the smallest size at a price that afforded me limited flexibility.
The problem with many sizes will also increase the database extremely which is not cost-effective.
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You will have to price based on complexity or cost of the shoot rather than image size which is independent of our costs. Worth a try.
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@Sean, We are not removing the option to select a size, just changing the pricing structure. We will continue providing small, medium, and large sizes for each image.
That wasn't the point. Nobody really cares about choosing a size when they're all the same price - we all have mega-gazillion-gigabit connections. When I only need the flexibility that comes with a 800x800 pixel images, I'd be annoyed if I have to pay the same price as the guy who needs the 5500x3800 pixel image. I shopped GL for my blog images because I could get the smallest size at a price that afforded me limited flexibility.
Your point is understood, but you are also making the assumption that all sellers are going to raise their pricing significantly. Many sellers are going to see value in keeping their price points lower. A buyer is purchasing the rights to an image, the size in which you download the image doesn't change the license that you purchased.
To speak to the contrary of the point you are making: Many buyers will be happy to be able to get full sized images at cheaper prices. If sellers select $1 - $7 for their images, buyers who would normally be discouraged from buying the large sized images who have settled on buying small or medium sized images, will now be able to purchase larger images at a lower cost.
@trek, Yes we currently do have the option for extended licenses and will continue to do so.
@hellou, the resizing of images is done automatically when the images are purchased. There are costs associated with this process on our end of course, but there are various ways to maximize cost efficiency, many of which we have done already on our end. As for uploading, our interface is relatively easy to use, however FTP access is still inactive until further notice. This is something we are working towards, but we do not have an ETA yet. We will keep you updated.
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I think the idea that a small 'web' sized image should cost less is just another unfortunate buyer expectation created by existing microstocks. The photographer and the agency see the same costs. The large 'print' image might be seen by 1000 people, the small 'web' image by 10,000. So why the discount - are we selling content, or pixels?
When you buy music, you get the full fidelity tracks, maybe 192kbs or 256 kbs. You don't the option to pay a lower price for a scratchy 32kbs version just because you're only going to play it through cheap earbuds.
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To speak to the contrary of the point you are making: Many buyers will be happy to be able to get full sized images at cheaper prices. If sellers select $1 - $7 for their images, buyers who would normally be discouraged from buying the large sized images who have settled on buying small or medium sized images, will now be able to purchase larger images at a lower cost.
Sellers could already price their images at $3, right? Or was it $5? Either way, the only way to go "cheaper" is to sell a full res image for a buck. Do we really want to encourage market pricing to go lower?
Anyways, I'm just speaking as a small time buyer. I'm sure you did studies on what the effect of the changes were as far as contributor pricing and buyers licensing and it was beneficial.
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there is a problem to democracy in that free speech becomes redundant
when everyone expects their way to be the agency's way.
i think this is where caution should be practised between contributors and GL.
this is the first time we are having an official coming in to brainstorm with us contributors.
we must not hijack the thread and communication by expecting too much too soon.
look at it this way, ... what GL is giving us contributors is giving us a say...
finally, someone is listening
as opposed to ss, is,..etc... who really have not listen to anyone except their shareholders.
we have to ask ourselves,... compared to what???
we already are being given a priority here by GL
let's not walk away with nothing at all, which is what ss , is , ... have given contributors.
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GL is a very, very low earner. I will keep uploading my pictures there as long as the process is simple. Certainly, I cannot afford to spend my time to tune prices of individual images in the GL portfolio or upload selected images only. Simply, I am uploading all images with the same setup or nothing at all.
I agree with Sean about pricing and image size. Almost all of my current sales are at the lowest price and size.
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did you do any research about size offering? or are you just changing things and hope for the best?
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I think the idea that a small 'web' sized image should cost less is just another unfortunate buyer expectation created by existing microstocks. The photographer and the agency see the same costs. The large 'print' image might be seen by 1000 people, the small 'web' image by 10,000. So why the discount - are we selling content, or pixels?
When you buy music, you get the full fidelity tracks, maybe 192kbs or 256 kbs. You don't the option to pay a lower price for a scratchy 32kbs version just because you're only going to play it through cheap earbuds.
Doesn't really matter how it happened, the fact is many sites have tried one price for all sizes and have then changed to different prices for different sizes. They must of done that because buyers have demanded it and I really don't see how GL can go against that tide when they are selling the same images.
The comparison with music doesn't work because that's not being used for business purposes, like most of out images are. I doubt someone making a 5 second music clip for an advert would charge the same as a 1 minute clip.
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I am a new contributor to GL and would like to upload via FTP. I do not not see the FTP Login and password in the uploads section where the Help info says it will be. Any direction on this would be appreciated.
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Doesn't really matter how it happened, the fact is many sites have tried one price for all sizes and have then changed to different prices for different sizes. They must of done that because buyers have demanded it and I really don't see how GL can go against that tide when they are selling the same images.
The comparison with music doesn't work because that's not being used for business purposes, like most of out images are. I doubt someone making a 5 second music clip for an advert would charge the same as a 1 minute clip.
The sites that I can think of off the top of my head have gone on to do worse after they made the switch (GL, iStock and Veer). Also, sites that added it like Shutterstock have tended to improve. From my experience, buyers will buy things that they want and aren't hugely concerned about prices. I'm sure some are, but there seem to be enough out there that aren't to not have to chase the bargain hunters. Those people have a home at pretty much every other agency anyway.
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I think the idea that a small 'web' sized image should cost less is just another unfortunate buyer expectation created by existing microstocks. The photographer and the agency see the same costs. The large 'print' image might be seen by 1000 people, the small 'web' image by 10,000. So why the discount - are we selling content, or pixels?
When you buy music, you get the full fidelity tracks, maybe 192kbs or 256 kbs. You don't the option to pay a lower price for a scratchy 32kbs version just because you're only going to play it through cheap earbuds.
Doesn't really matter how it happened, the fact is many sites have tried one price for all sizes and have then changed to different prices for different sizes. They must of done that because buyers have demanded it and I really don't see how GL can go against that tide when they are selling the same images.
The comparison with music doesn't work because that's not being used for business purposes, like most of out images are. I doubt someone making a 5 second music clip for an advert would charge the same as a 1 minute clip.
Sellers don't have to cave in to every discount request from buyers. I'd like all the shirts at Macy's to be the same price, but it isn't going to happen. That's because producers of those shirts have some control over their pricing. As far as GL doing things differently, well, not every store has to be a Dollar Store, selling the same merchandise in the same way. There are many ways to differentiate yourself in the market. And maybe, eventually, they aren't selling "the same images". SS will never get another photo from me, but GL will.
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I am a new contributor to GL and would like to upload via FTP. I do not not see the FTP Login and password in the uploads section where the Help info says it will be. Any direction on this would be appreciated.
Hi Anthony, FTP access is currently unavailable. We are working to bring this back ASAP. We know this is something that many contributors want, so it is certainly a priority for us. Bear with us, but in the meantime, you can certainly upload via our dashboard. Thank you!
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I tried editing the price of an image but upon submitting/saving, it said:
"We're sorry, but something went wrong.
We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly."
Now the image in question seems to be unavailable, only the error message shows?
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I tried editing the price of an image but upon submitting/saving, it said:
"We're sorry, but something went wrong.
We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly."
Now the image in question seems to be unavailable, only the error message shows?
Hi Noedelhap,
Sorry for the inconvenience, this should be fixed. Can you please try again? If it isn't working, please PM me your account and we'll take a deeper look and get it sorted out right away.
Thanks!
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Doesn't really matter how it happened, the fact is many sites have tried one price for all sizes and have then changed to different prices for different sizes. They must of done that because buyers have demanded it and I really don't see how GL can go against that tide when they are selling the same images...
Who went to one-price-for-all and then went back to per-size pricing? istock still does one price regardless of size. Have other companies really backpedaled on that move? Which ones?
I think this is a good move by GL. Pricing based on size is an old notion, one that should definitely go away. Ultimately people are buying a license. The number of pixels they get with that license shouldn't matter.
I could also be slightly biased on this, being a vector guy who rarely ever had the luxury of selling by size (minus a few exceptions).
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" think this is a good move by GL. Pricing based on size is an old notion, one that should definitely go away. Ultimately people are buying a license. The number of pixels they get with that license shouldn't matter. "
Well, as I've already said, pixel size does matter a bit and it's a way of tailoring a product to what the buyer wants. For instance, I license/rent a movie from iTunes. I don't need the HD version, so I'm glad they offer a SD version at a lower price. It fits my needs.
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" think this is a good move by GL. Pricing based on size is an old notion, one that should definitely go away. Ultimately people are buying a license. The number of pixels they get with that license shouldn't matter. "
Well, as I've already said, pixel size does matter a bit and it's a way of tailoring a product to what the buyer wants. For instance, I license/rent a movie from iTunes. I don't need the HD version, so I'm glad they offer a SD version at a lower price. It fits my needs.
It probably comes down to at some point vectors and photos should split. Some of the differences will probably never be agreed upon.
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I tried editing the price of an image but upon submitting/saving, it said:
"We're sorry, but something went wrong.
We've been notified about this issue and we'll take a look at it shortly."
Now the image in question seems to be unavailable, only the error message shows?
Hi Noedelhap,
Sorry for the inconvenience, this should be fixed. Can you please try again? If it isn't working, please PM me your account and we'll take a deeper look and get it sorted out right away.
Thanks!
Yes, it works again. Thanks!
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To GL,
I closed my account with you folks several months ago and doubt I'll try again. But I wanted to say two things:
1. Glad you are making a renewed effort to build a better business. I wish you well on that.
2. Participating in the forums is very much appreciated by many of us contributors. I would only suggest that your team continue communicating with us through these forums in a meaningful, honest manner. The one thing that frustrates us the most is a company coming into MSG with all the right messaging then they go stealth and we never hear anything again. Like SS, for example.
Best of luck and I can't wait until you turn on video and see what that system offers.
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I really like the idea of setting my own prices, did I miss something? Pond 5 does it with video and I LOVE it!
If I could get $2 instead of .38 cents that would be very nice...
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Perhaps being able to set our own prices and choose if we want different prices for different sizes would keep us all happy?
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We appreciate all of the input regarding changes we've been making. We understand that it is impossible to make every individual happy when making changes, however, change was necessary with GL which many have expressed, and we are excited about the immediate results. Since opening up to contributors again, the amount of daily images being uploaded to GL has increased 5-fold within 2 weeks, and the pricing structure changes has been met with positivity for the most part.
@Mantis - Thank you for the kind words. We are here to be honest with the members here about our business and what we are doing with it. We are not trying to "say the right things", we are simply communicating, as we believe in communication. I understand the skepticism: when you see something happen over and over, its easy to say it will happen again. We prefer the open dialogue and coming from a different industry/background, you should expept a difference with us than you may be accustomed to with the larger agencies. While we wont be able to answer every single post in a public forum, we will do our best. We will always respond to any emails or direct messages, but we are also working countless hours a day to not only improve the business, but also to operate it, which takes a great deal of time and resources.
@Sharpshot - while we understand this is a big change, there would be too many moving parts and inconsistency if given the option to price different sizes differently. We ask that you bear with us and if you are a seller, give it a shot. Being a smaller agency, the results of changes will not necessarily be immediate. Things will take time for changes to show their results, however we are confident that sellers will earn more with our changes.
As we've stated, and I know many members agree, we are in the business of facilitating the sale of licenses to reuse images. So for the sake of the license, the size at which an image is downloaded should not affect the price of the license.
I think most people would agree that GL requires changes to improve and to help sellers earn more with GL. If we left things how they were and didn't make changes, the comments would be different. We have received many messages regarding the fact that many sellers have been earning less with GL, how sales have declined, etc., and that is the state in which we purchased GL. We are doing everything we can, as quickly as we can, to turn things around for our sellers, and inevitably for GL as a company.
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I started uploading my portfolio in batches of 20 per day. Today my third batch all ended up on the invalid page. Is it a bug? I didn't upload yesterday, so I shouldn't be over the 20/day limit.
It would be helpful if you could provide a reason for putting it on the invalid page. ;)
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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.
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@GraphicLeftovers I appreciate your openness and desire to communicate with us. Your one price for every size works great for me and I look forward to uploading to GL again. The only thing I would wish for are some even higher price brackets like $50 or $99. Is that a possibility?
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Since opening up to contributors again, the amount of daily images being uploaded to GL has increased 5-fold within 2 weeks, and the pricing structure changes has been met with positivity for the most part.
I think we're probably more interested about the buyers. GL never hurt for numbers of images.
The one price thing isn't a deal killer, but I want to make sure that the notion that there is value in pricing images at different sizes isn't lost. If there isn't value in the size of an image offered, you might as well have a max download size of 1000x1000.
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To GL,
Just a side issue question. In January of this year I sent an e-mail to GL requesting my account be closed and all images removed. I received no reply and a couple of months later I noticed everything seemed to still be up (looking from the contributor's side only). At that time I sent a second e-mail with the same request, noting that a sale had been made some time after the initial request to close my account had been sent. I still have received no response from GL and as far as I can tell everything is still active. I can't look from the buyer's side, so this may not be accurate; however, since I'm still receiving GL e-mail notices, such as this one, I must still be in the database somewhere. Could you please take a look and see what may be happening. GL account name is raptor.
Thanks,
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This is a known bug that is being fixed as we speak. Sorry for the inconvenience, we will update when this is corrected ASAP.
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Ok, so how do we bulk edit the pricing of our images? I can't seem to find anything to do that.
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GL you have to ask yourself who thinks one pricing for all images is positive? hobby shooters or seasoned pros? since you are new to the business you have no experience in what works best.
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We appreciate all of the input regarding changes we've been making. We understand that it is impossible to make every individual happy when making changes, however, change was necessary with GL which many have expressed, and we are excited about the immediate results. Since opening up to contributors again, the amount of daily images being uploaded to GL has increased 5-fold within 2 weeks, and the pricing structure changes has been met with positivity for the most part.
I think most people would agree that GL requires changes to improve and to help sellers earn more with GL. If we left things how they were and didn't make changes, the comments would be different. We have received many messages regarding the fact that many sellers have been earning less with GL, how sales have declined, etc., and that is the state in which we purchased GL. We are doing everything we can, as quickly as we can, to turn things around for our sellers, and inevitably for GL as a company.
i noticed GL is based in Singapore. if you are local , i would not be surprised if you have an upbirnging that small does not mean afraid to take on the giants.
your country was tiny and it stood up against giants in business with an impressive history.
that culture alone would not surprise me at all , if you succeed by open communication with your sellers, and the only thing left is to see the performance of your marketing dept...
to increase your contributors earnings , and yours, by bringing in a different tier of buyers
who are not just there for freebies and all you can download for the lowest prices in the world.
we have seen where that got ss, is, etc..
and i am sure experienced contributors are not looking for another ss, is...
as mantis admits so openly, we were all once with GL at the onset but we closed or stopped
uploading due to lack of sales. but your coming in here with good will to listen
will surely bring a good number of sellers back to GL.
just get those earnings rating up ... and i am sure there will be an exodus ,
to your benefit... or more so, to our mutual benefit.
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@Etudiante, we are based out of New York. Do you mind showing me where you saw we are based in Singapore?
Definitely appreciate the input, we are not coming in trying to be like the others. Everything takes time, but we certainly want to differentiate from the other companies out there.
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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.
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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.
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@GraphicLeftovers I appreciate your openness and desire to communicate with us. Your one price for every size works great for me and I look forward to uploading to GL again. The only thing I would wish for are some even higher price brackets like $50 or $99. Is that a possibility?
For now, we expanded our pricing from a $15 to $30 maximum. We will certainly be evaluating the results closely and other pricing options may be available down the road. So far in just one day of pricing changes, we are seeing very positive results.
To GL,
Just a side issue question. In January of this year I sent an e-mail to GL requesting my account be closed and all images removed. I received no reply and a couple of months later I noticed everything seemed to still be up (looking from the contributor's side only). At that time I sent a second e-mail with the same request, noting that a sale had been made some time after the initial request to close my account had been sent. I still have received no response from GL and as far as I can tell everything is still active. I can't look from the buyer's side, so this may not be accurate; however, since I'm still receiving GL e-mail notices, such as this one, I must still be in the database somewhere. Could you please take a look and see what may be happening. GL account name is raptor.
Thanks,
I will go ahead and remove your portfolio. We took over the business a couple of weeks ago, so I apologize if your message(s) were not addressed sooner. Please just confirm via PM that you would like your account removed and that you would like to be unsubscribed from our email list. Thank you!
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The upload bug has been fixed, if any sellers are experiencing any issues, please feel free to PM me and we will check up on it ASAP. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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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.
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@Etudiante, we are based out of New York. Do you mind showing me where you saw we are based in Singapore?
Definitely appreciate the input, we are not coming in trying to be like the others. Everything takes time, but we certainly want to differentiate from the other companies out there.
hmm, my bad !!! i thought when i first saw GL ad here on leaf's page, the first thing i noticed
about it being different was it being an agency fromSE Asia.
anyway, the sentiments still apply regardless.
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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..
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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.
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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. ::)
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To GL,
Just a side issue question. In January of this year I sent an e-mail to GL requesting my account be closed and all images removed. I received no reply and a couple of months later I noticed everything seemed to still be up (looking from the contributor's side only). At that time I sent a second e-mail with the same request, noting that a sale had been made some time after the initial request to close my account had been sent. I still have received no response from GL and as far as I can tell everything is still active. I can't look from the buyer's side, so this may not be accurate; however, since I'm still receiving GL e-mail notices, such as this one, I must still be in the database somewhere. Could you please take a look and see what may be happening. GL account name is raptor.
Thanks,
I will go ahead and remove your portfolio. We took over the business a couple of weeks ago, so I apologize if your message(s) were not addressed sooner. Please just confirm via PM that you would like your account removed and that you would like to be unsubscribed from our email list. Thank you!
----
Thank you. What e-mail address should I use?
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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
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I uploaded 90 images today - no issues.
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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]
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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]
Good to know. Thanks again for your responsiveness in this thread.
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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
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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.
That doesn´t seem to be working though. I changed the "Portfolio Price" yesterday but the prices of my existing portfolio still has the old price.
(As far as I remember it never worked.)
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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.
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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
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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?
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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.
That doesn´t seem to be working though. I changed the "Portfolio Price" yesterday but the prices of my existing portfolio still has the old price.
(As far as I remember it never worked.)
Nope, it isn't working. I raised my price to one of the higher prices last night, and I just got a sale at the old high price - $15.
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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.
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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?
excellent point JAP,
in fact, i have been of this mentality from the beginning. what i expect the bloggers to use,
i submit to the smallest allowable 4MP,
and for the rest which cost time and money to produce, i submit to the best max res.
in this sense, i feel my latter images were underpriced when i receive pennies for the download.
at least here, i can up-price all to the highest value.
blogger needed the better images will not only have a much better quality image for their blog,
when it's time for time to go "big time" , they will appreciate the higher cost image.
i wish ss and is would be this open to win-win brainstorming as GL has done ;
but i won't hold my breath for that day to arrive.
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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?
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Please hit update and it should change your portfolio pricing. I just looked at your portfolio, and it seems images are still at $15.
Thank you.
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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.
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Justanotherphotographer, perception of value, its what the buyer thinks the image is worth, they dont care about your cost. photographers are not renowned for their business acumen.
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Justanotherphotographer, perception of value, its what the buyer thinks the image is worth, they dont care about your cost.
It's no different than with any other product. Producers find a market, set a price, buyers accept or decline. Adjustments are made over time. At least that's how it's supposed to work in a free, open market - not one totally controlled by a couple of middlemen adding little value but keeping the lions share of the money.
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Justanotherphotographer, perception of value, its what the buyer thinks the image is worth, they dont care about your cost.
It's no different than with any other product. Producers find a market, set a price, buyers accept or decline. Adjustments are made over time. At least that's how it's supposed to work in a free, open market - not one totally controlled by a couple of middlemen adding little value but keeping the lions share of the money.
photography, is no different from merchandising of fashion, or music.
90% are lemmings and support the monopoly because they feel it's the way they were weaned...
but that does not mean there are nobody who is confident enough with his/her clothes/music/photography/art,etc..
to set the price and then say...like Miles Davis.."shhhh, listen...
and if you don't like it, there's always the door ... go attend another concert".
miles, coltrane, bird, monk,etc... set the price..
and their audience follow suit.
same thing for the business, if there is some agency dare to be different,
they can seize a corner of the market..
because at this moment in time, a section of contributors are also getting tired of
dancing to the mass "how much lower can we go" when the buyers say "go lower"
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Don't most microstock sites have higher prices than they did 10 years ago? Never understood why so many people here insist that prices are going down when they have generally gone up, sometimes by a significant amount. I'm averaging almost $1.40 per image sold with SS this month, 10 years ago I averaged $0.76. Was it just $0.25 when they started?
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stocktastic, how do you price fair for all sizes using only one price? why even offer the option of a small size download if the price for the full res is the same?
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sharpshot., 20 cent
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Well, I just made $13 from a $25 download, so hooray for that. One of those a day will make me happy with GL.
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Well, I just made $13 from a $25 download, so hooray for that. One of those a day will make me happy with GL.
Glad to hear it. Have you seen any increase in sales volume since the pricing change?
I was feeling positive about new owners until they went for the one-price model. I thought I'd just see what happened with sales -haven't had any recently. If I see any sales at all, I might start uploading again (I haven't for a very long time at GL Stock), but otherwise, it seems there's no point.
My previous sales were more small and medium than large, and those just effectively went up in price (I've just left pricing alone, meaning any size is $10). Lowering prices to accommodate bloggers means giving away bus-wrap size for a pittance, which I don't want to do. I think (for photographers anyway) one price makes no sense for a general purpose site.
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Well, I just made $13 from a $25 download, so hooray for that. One of those a day will make me happy with GL.
Here is to 2 a day!!!
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Well, I just made $13 from a $25 download, so hooray for that. One of those a day will make me happy with GL.
Glad to hear it. Have you seen any increase in sales volume since the pricing change?
I was feeling positive about new owners until they went for the one-price model. I thought I'd just see what happened with sales -haven't had any recently. If I see any sales at all, I might start uploading again (I haven't for a very long time at GL Stock), but otherwise, it seems there's no point.
My previous sales were more small and medium than large, and those just effectively went up in price (I've just left pricing alone, meaning any size is $10). Lowering prices to accommodate bloggers means giving away bus-wrap size for a pittance, which I don't want to do. I think (for photographers anyway) one price makes no sense for a general purpose site.
This is the first sale at the new price for me.
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Nothing yet
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Justanotherphotographer, perception of value, its what the buyer thinks the image is worth, they dont care about your cost. photographers are not renowned for their business acumen.
Microstock is probably more about business acumen than being any more than a reasonably competent phtographer.
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sorry, no idea what that sentence is supposed to mean
if you are saying that micro stock is more about business than being a photographer, i respectfully disagree because you have no influence over the business whatsoever other than adding or deleting images from a portfolio entirely promoted (or not) and being sold by (or not) an agency. in micro stock you are the photographer, and other people do the rest
if you run your own photographic business and control 100% of how and where your images are sold, then yes, its is as much about business than it is about being a photographer
still photographers are not renowned for their business acumen bar a few exceptions such as Gurksy and Lik
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What you choose to upload where to and how you manage your time and costs is entirely within your control. Its certainly true that by using Microstock you are largely "outsourcing" the Marketing/selling aspects of your "business" which is why I do it because I'm crap at self promotion.