Here are some statistics from our backend at PeopleImages.com from today :. Just wanted to celebrate a bit, since my sales are down on almost all other sites.
Peopleimages.com: 5 months in, $0 spent on marketing (to come later) and increases in sales by almost 100% per month. (Still low actual monthly sales, but with days like today, getting much closer to something that might actually go into profit one day)

Clients report two things they like:
The site is super fast and userfriendly. They are tired of waiting for pages to load on fotolia, dreamstime, istock, shutterstock, etc.
Customer support is extremely helpful and friendly.

Anyway. A little celebration. Y

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on October 18, 2012, 15:20
Here are some statistics from our backend at PeopleImages.com from today :. Just wanted to celebrate a bit, since my sales are down on almost all other sites.

Win-win.
Congratulations, but not much relevance to the rest of us.

I bet Sean will have something to say about this. 

be nice...

It's a Sean trap... Shhhyyy. Don't say anything. Let's see if he jumps in.

I'm happy to hear you have a good day to celebrate. In some way, shape or form, it'd be good to see the current behaviors of the existing micro agencies disrupted. Given your huge presence and name recognition, what works for you wouldn't work similarly for everyone, but it's a place to start.

Congratulations

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on October 18, 2012, 15:20
Customer support is extremely helpful and friendly.

And don't ever change that, costs nothing and yet lacking it is probably one of the biggest reasons for iStockphoto's downfall.

Quote from: RT on October 18, 2012, 16:13
And don't ever change that, costs nothing and ...

What? Customer service is free?

Hey Yuri send me some free customer service reps over to me and I retrain them to do something I have a use for...

That's a nice paycheck for "a day at work". Congrats.

I think you shushed away Sean - now he's never gonna post... or is he...?

Great news, certainly encouraging.

But the fact that you are a "brand" - thanks to your good job over the years, no doubt - plays probably a large part in your success.

For us "anonymous" self-selling is less relevant unfortunately. Although we should give it a try (and some are actually doing)

Good luck to you.

I hope one day i could eran that number in one...month,lololo

If peopleimages.com one day becomes enough of a success to open up for contributors it would be great. I just don't want to go that way with nothing to pay out to photographers. We will see. In the future it might a be posible.

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on October 18, 2012, 17:24
If peopleimages.com one day becomes enough of a success to open up for contributors it would be great. I just don't want to go that way with nothing to pay out to photographers. We will see. In the future it might a be posible.

i will join it first,if the site open to us,hehe...

you might put Getty out of business if you do that Yuri!   

Congratulations Yuri.  Nice to see you are succeeding. 

Doesn't affect the rest of us, as Liz pointed out, but perhaps it will eventually be a wakeup call to the big agencies. 

and thats 3 topics open regarding PI

can I think that you are pulling that numbers yourself?

Hi Yuri,

thanks for your insights!

I just spent a few days with several stock photographers and among other things we discussed if it is possible to use portfolios on several agencies as a way to create leads to your own website and portfolio.

But obviously most of us have neglected to build a brand name for our work, especially those of us who are exclusive to istock. Some artists don´t even have a website of their own, or a blog etc...

Many of us still hope that istock can go back to it´s glory days, but with the lack of communication and frustrating site instability, insecurity if we  are even being paid correctly over our sales, more and more exclusives are looking seriously into alternatives.

Since we are moving into a phase of multi polar agencies and no "amazon" or "ebay" in sight to dominate the market...if you open your doors to other contributors, you will be flooded with content for sure.

Quote from: lisafx on October 18, 2012, 17:58
Congratulations Yuri.  Nice to see you are succeeding. 

Doesn't affect the rest of us, as Liz pointed out, but perhaps it will eventually be a wakeup call to the big agencies.

There won't be a wake up call for the agencies unless someone makes a site where all artists can submit "their sites" and integrate it in the search so it functions as a huge stock photo search engine that when you click on a photo, you are redirected to that artist's website..

This site would have to be free to be any different from the agencies.. In fact this site must be built by us, contributors and when popular enough it will destroy the middle man..

Everybody will earn as much as their own potential and there will be no fees... artists will only pay an annual amount so the website can survive.. nothing more.. the more artists there are, the less fee to be paid.. probably only as much as pennies and cents

Instead of a contributors union like we discussed many times in the past, this is the only long term solution I can see..

Congratulations. You continue to inspire ... wish you great success! 

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on October 18, 2012, 15:20
Here are some statistics from our backend at PeopleImages.com from today :. Just wanted to celebrate a bit, since my sales are down on almost all other sites.
Peopleimages.com: 5 months in, $0 spent on marketing (to come later) and increases in sales by almost 100% per month. (Still low actual monthly sales, but with days like today, getting much closer to something that might actually go into profit one day)

Clients report two things they like:
The site is super fast and userfriendly. They are tired of waiting for pages to load on fotolia, dreamstime, istock, shutterstock, etc.
Customer support is extremely helpful and friendly.

Anyway. A little celebration. Y

I'd join if landscapes count as people!     After all, corporations already do....

Congratulations Yuri. Great job

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on October 18, 2012, 17:24
If peopleimages.com one day becomes enough of a success to open up for contributors it would be great. I just don't want to go that way with nothing to pay out to photographers. We will see. In the future it might a be posible.

congrats on the sales - exciting to build something and see customers come in the door.  Your site is very nice, I'm sure buyers love it.

Perhaps in the mean time you'd like to sell us peons a license to use your site code pretty please

Congrats Yuri! Now you may think about any further steps e.g. creating a own, contributor open Agency as soon as you are financially independent of the existing Micros

are you telling us that you are having more downloads in your website than in DT ??

I can only think you will have PI on the NYSE next

I think you've reached payout...