This one too, from the same thread. Ouch.

For my one-off project, Vetta were the only photos that met my criteria. However, I did not buy because of the pricing. 30 credits would be just fine, but I can buy only 26 ($39.50) or 38 (26 + 12 for $58) or 50 ($75).

Every Vetta photo seemed to start at 30 credits, so why isn't there a 30-credit option?

I got the feeling that I was being manipulated into buying more credits than I needed and more than I would likely use, which pissed me off. So I didn't buy anything.

iStock try to manipulate buyers? Noooo. 

What continues to be disturbing is the silence from Istock....almost admitting they could care less about bailing buyers. Very strange.

^^Very well looks like that doesn't it?

We all know a simple filter to allow buyers to exclude the expensive collections would solve most of the problem and retain smaller buyers.  The only possible reason I can imagine for not providing this service is greed.  Force buyers into buying the most expensive offerings when a cheaper one will do the trick.  So shortsighted!

Well I'm no rocket scientist but isn't the strategy for car manufacturers to attract the broadest buyer base possible by targeting their range of cars to varying demographics?  They don't crap on the "small buyers" and just target the heavy spend ones...mostly anyhow.  But even Mercedes and BMW have price points that span the breadth of consumer spending behavior.  I can't imagine that IS would isolate themselves like this unless they choose to squeeze the juice of life out of their business and close the doors.  Just sayin.

Quote from: Mantis on June 18, 2011, 19:31

Well I'm no rocket scientist but isn't the strategy for car manufacturers to attract the broadest buyer base possible by targeting their range of cars to varying demographics?  They don't crap on the "small buyers" and just target the heavy spend ones...mostly anyhow.  But even Mercedes and BMW have price points that span the breadth of consumer spending behavior.  I can't imagine that IS would isolate themselves like this unless they choose to squeeze the juice of life out of their business and close the doors.  Just sayin.

They want the plebs to go to Thinkstock, but of course the subscription model doesn't suit everyone.
Plus many pictures in the DollarBin are actually excellent quality, just fell foul of the best match at some point. But it's not easy to find the Dollar Bin if you're a newbie.
But 'spreading your offerings to different market sectors isn't used in all industries. Some target high spend users only, some budget buyers only.
My issue is that by not telling us, the contributors, what the Plan is (probably for business reasons, as was suggested the last time I mentioned this) it's not allowing us to make medium-term plans accordingly. E.g if the Plan is to dump all lower sellers, or all work from lower selling contributors onto Thinkstock, which I suspect, I'd be shooting/submitting more for Alamy.

Yes, indeed there are products/services targeted to specific demographics and price points.  I guess I am confused a tad because isn't Getty supposed to be the "premium" high price point collection and Istock the Fords and Yugo's of the world?  I too wish I knew more about their medium term intent (even as a non) but their forum silence tells me we'll never know.  I feel for the exclusives though and Joan is a perfect example of the expected behaviors that are forthcoming (I believe, anyway).   

High-priced prize collections, hey??  well maybe back in the dark ages. Today, browsing the GI site, well its almost impossible to find one single image, RM or RF, that the big four Micros can not match.

Well, I wasn't speaking about quality, just the perception of quality based on the brand.  But I agree with you on that one for sure.

Had a chuckle at the title.So contributors are having less sales and assume that's because the buyers are leaving..What bollocks !
More contributors ,more choice of content =Less sales.Simple.

Had a chuckle at the title.So contributors are having less sales and assume that's because the buyers are leaving..What bollocks !
More contributors ,more choice of content =Less sales.Simple.

Hi Shanks!  blimey,  fancy bumping into you here,  where have you been all these years?

Quote from: shank_ali_reborn on June 19, 2011, 12:35

Had a chuckle at the title.So contributors are having less sales and assume that's because the buyers are leaving..What bollocks !
More contributors ,more choice of content =Less sales.Simple.

Hi Shanks!  blimey,  fancy bumping into you here,  where have you been all these years?

He was last here when he was banned on the iStock forums for a while - has that happened again?

Had a chuckle at the title.So contributors are having less sales and assume that's because the buyers are leaving..What bollocks !
More contributors ,more choice of content =Less sales.Simple.

You can think whatever you like.
Take a look at Alexa to see that visitors are falling.
Of course, Alexa only maps a certain group of visitors, but still, for years that graph was always on a generally upward slant, with the obvious summer and holidays slumps.
Someone else here posted a graph from another tracking source a couple of months ago, and it also showed a downward trend, while the other micros were showing an upward trend.
Have to say that the immediate past two weeks have been quite good 'for me' on iStock, relative to the past nine months. I guess it's the storm before the lull.

"More contributors ,more choice of content =Less sales.Simple."

The answer to that is: more growth. More customers.

My sales on the partner program keep growing...why not on istock??

(Sean, I hear you... - but I believe it is the advertising of the partner sites that is creating the growth, not my content)

istock is selling digital content around the globe, the world is their oyster and Getty has offices all over. But they have to advertise istock to bring in new customers.

I used to see a lot more istock ads while crawling the net. Now I just see fotolia, the green apples of Veer and especially in Germany Corbis. They have a very active campaign with a cute robot. I have seen thinkstock, but I don�t even know what the current istock campaign looks like. As an istock exclusive shouldn�t this be something I can still remember in my dreams?

And of course I also wonder how many customers we are losing because they cannot filter by price like on Veer. When the price range was similar it wasn�t necessary, but with the huge differences between agency and the normal collection it is. I know they said they are working on it and I believe them.

I just hope the filter is ready soon and that there will be a massive istock advertising campaign in Autumn.

Would be nice to see Alexa stats were istock is leading again.