Will you take video?

Thank you for coming in here to talk to us. It would be great to see your business grow.

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. 

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quote from: stockastic on August 05, 2016, 11:47

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.

Quote from: Shelma1 on August 05, 2016, 12:35

...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.

Quote from: stockastic on August 05, 2016, 11:47

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.

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

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.