Looks like iStock has reduced prices for L, XL and XXL images.  New prices are already on the site but no announcement yet.

Presumably the recession in the States has get something to do with this.

Where do you see this? I just checked the homepage and prices are still the same.

Yep the price is reduced. It costs 9 $ for L and 13$  for XL now

I have seen a big jump with FT and BigStock since the istock price rise, so it could be that this was too much for buyers and they have gone to cheaper priced sites.

What!

They can't raise prices one month then take it away the next!

iStock is becoming a joke.

i am still seeing the old prices ...

If someone finds an official announcement somewhere from Istock, can you please post it here.  My sales are improving at Istock, but a price reduction would undo all that.

I do think they need to change strategy.  A lot of the top contributors have much bigger portfolios on other sites at cheaper prices.  They should at least scrap the upload limits for diamond members to get all their images on istock.

Very disappointing !

It was an error

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=65367&page=4

I have never known a site that has so many technical problems.   

so remind me why people put all their eggs in this basket?

Because sometimes there's one basket where there are more people buying way more eggs than from any of the other baskets.

But when the server monsters jump and down on your basket...

You have no eggs.

So they are having a sale in one of the most busy months?  That doesn't make much sense.  I could understand if they did this in the summer and winter, when downloads are lower.

Quote from: sharpshot on February 22, 2008, 15:22
So they are having a sale in one of the most busy months?  That doesn't make much sense.  I could understand if they did this in the summer and winter, when downloads are lower.

Yeah, I just say that.

I'm not being funny, I don't want my images selling at discounted rates, when our work is already being valued at such low prices...

Especially not the new XL files from my 5D - I worked bloody hard to afford that camera, and now they're selling the files cheaper!

I wouldn't mind if they still gave us the full cut, or allowed us to opt out!

Sigh.  What a stupid stunt.  Maybe this marketing strategy works in grocery and department stores, but microstock is absolutely not the place for it.  Next thing you know they'll  be offering all our images as free downloads every Tuesday.   More power to 'em, I guess.  (And less commission to us....   ) 

Lovely.  I guess I needed this little reminder for why I'm not exclusive.  If they want to have their little sale, fine.  But give contributors their normal commission rate, not a discounted one.

Well in my opinion this is just a way of reversing some of the large price increase implemented in January.  They appear to have realised that for the L, XL and XXL sizes the increase was a bridge too far, so now they've invented a way to reverse some of that rise.

As sharpshot says - you don't have a January sale in December.

I suspect that at the end of March there will be another announcement along the lines of 'our Spring sale was so successful we've decided to make it permanent'.

It's just a reversal of some of the increase disguised with some spin.

So, maybe a 2-steps-forward, 1-step-back, 2-steps-forward trick?  To make buyers think they're truly concerned about lowering prices but slowly creeping them up anyway?  Oops, maybe I let too much cat out of the bag....

Quote from: Nazdravie on February 22, 2008, 13:41
It was an error

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=65367&page=4

I don't know if you all missed this post or not but the whole thing was an error on the part of IS.  The buyers got the images cheaper but the photographers get the commission at the higher price so everyone should be happy .

Quote from: fotografer on February 22, 2008, 17:02

I don't know if you all missed this post or not but the whole thing was an error on the part of IS.  The buyers got the images cheaper but the photographers get the commission at the higher price so everyone should be happy .

I don't know if you missed this, but iStock just announced they are having a sale.

Quote from: fotografer on February 22, 2008, 17:02

Quote from: Nazdravie on February 22, 2008, 13:41
It was an error

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=65367&page=4

I don't know if you all missed this post or not but the whole thing was an error on the part of IS.  The buyers got the images cheaper but the photographers get the commission at the higher price so everyone should be happy .

fotographer, I thought the same thing until I read a bit further into that post on IS.  As Seren mentioned, they are having a month-long sale.  See here: 

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=65367&messageid=975618

The only goof apparently was that they let the cat out of the bag early.

Quote from: Seren on February 22, 2008, 15:05
But when the server monsters jump and down on your basket...

You have no eggs.

I would only have a few less eggs. Out of 11 sites, so far this month IS is over 70% of my earnings.

From what I saw you're just coming off of IS exclusivity so it may take you a while to see where the sites fall in your earnings ranking.

I was with the other big sites before I went exclusive, so I have a good idea where they will fall in my earnings.

And I'm really glad I'm not exclusive with them now they're messing with prices again in the form of a sale.  I didn't agree to have my images sell for less...

I also have jewellery selling in a few galleries in the UK, and if one of them did a sale without telling me, and then just sent me less than I was supposed to earn, I'd go mental.  I'd send them an invoice for the difference!