Thinking back, I stepped into this game knowing it was like any other retail business, that it was going to get tougher, more market saturated, more competitive and potentially less economical to pursue as time went on - what surprises me (genuinely) is that so many others seem to have thought otherwise.

Difference is, in a retail business you set your own prices and margins.

Quote from: snipershot on June 29, 2013, 02:49

Hi all...

I am both, buyer and contributor, trying to look at new iStock policies in realistic way from both angles. I'm writing this post because this thread looks is a bit away from reality and sounds like bitter chanting of angry ex-iStockers. My apologies.

Anyways, to me it looks like things are moving in good direction there for a simple reason. Client needs ONE LOCATION to find good content. He hates to waste time visiting 10 websites and buying credits heaps here and there. IStock now offers globally present content at really low prices but also great exclusive content at higher prices. That is a great value for clients and hardly any other site has something similar to offer.

But as a buyer, don't you also notice that it offers great independent content at low prices and a good supply of poor exclusive content at high prices? You've got no exclusive rights from going to the higher price point, so why not just stay cheap?  Or does the "exclusive" tag create a subconscious impression that your client won't find the same image being used by a rival?

I do appreciate your explanation of how buyers might view the change. It's also interesting that several people have hinted that the perception of getting something better if you pay more will support the higher levels. Perhaps that's why Getty keeps polluting them with some absolute rubbish from its archives.

You are right that there is great independent content now at lowest prices, but if I understood Lobo well, they are still moving it to higher priced collections. Plan is to complete in it few weeks. If it goes well, independent artists will have their good selling files priced higher, but not as high as exclusive files. Seems fair to me. It is also true that poor new exclusive content is there in S collection, but if it performs bad, after few months it will be sinking to low value collection.
 
This new system sounds right. Maybe contributor commissions are low, but most importantly system is now client oriented and that should generate more sales.

It may be positive step for buyers but I don't think it's acceptable for contributors unless our commissions won't change significantly.
Unfortunately brain tends to displace bad things so even I was that stupid that I uploaded to iS more - fortunately old -  images just few days before this announcement. Getty / Google deal is almost forgotten and "dust is settled" as Lobo predicted.
I doubt that new buyers can compensate drop in income for iS, I don't think it can bring anything positive to exclusives. Seems to be lose-lose decision to me. On the other hand it's positive to see that even at iS they are able to plan few steps ahead - 999 upload limit with nearly 100% acceptance - prices reduced by 50% few weeks later. Hopefully transfer to Goggle docs or other exciting deal is not next step.
Everyone has to make his decision but personally I'm not going to upload images anymore to iS to get 80 cents from XL sale.

Thinking back, I stepped into this game knowing it was like any other retail business, that it was going to get tougher, more market saturated, more competitive and potentially less economical to pursue as time went on - what surprises me (genuinely) is that so many others seem to have thought otherwise.

I think it was obviousright  from the beginning that the supply of images was going to be virtually unlimited while the ability to grow the market had very definite limits. It's actually much worse than real-world retailing because once an item is consumed it remains on sale, so stock never needs to be replaced but more and more stock keeps arriving.

I certainly hope that they move indie files soon to a higher price band, but in general the very low royalty means my best work will have to go elsewhere.

However,  since I do have an established portfolio on istock, I want to keep feeding it and hope I can supply something useful for my repeat customers.

I am not sure if I have the right strategy how to make that work, but I am thinking of a combination of very simple files, objects on white, that I could also survive if they end up on google drive or other "deals", and maybe some of my more specialized images at medium size. Maybe a few L sized images. The royalties and prices are so low, I really don�t benefit much from having a sale in XL or higher. The full size files will go to the agencies that offer better royalties, so they get the advantage there.

I don�t understand why they offer less than 20%. Even for videos they only pay 15%, so I am not surprised that the best work is going to pond5 that offers 50% and control over prices. Even pros with large portfolios will have a hard time moving up the royalty ladder. And now that Pond5 also takes photos, I am sure they will be successful in that field as well.

Only the many files I have from the Lypses will go up in full size. But I will wait until they offer S levels for indies and when they have sorted out their changes.

The low prices for main and the extremly low royalties for indies, means the next 12 months have a terrible price war coming up. I am sure the other agencies will be lowering prices and royalties as well.

Apparently not considering that we now can't have any file moved to Getty unless there are accepted as Vetta

Quote from: lisafx on June 28, 2013, 18:24

Quote from: jjneff on June 28, 2013, 18:11

You can shoot me for this but I think this is a good move! They are looking out for their exclusives first and giving the customer what they need! I hope buyers come running back to iStock, heck it stills pays more then SS most of the time! This is a customer centric change so lets see what happens! You can always become exclusive if buyers come running back!

I honestly can't see how on Earth this is beneficial to exclusives.  They have seen huge drops in downloads, and more recently earnings.  How is giving away indie content for practically nothing going to reverse that trend??

Maybe they want to force exclusives to migrate their portfolios to Getty images...

Apparently not considering that we now can't have any file moved to Getty unless there are accepted as Vetta

FWIW:
"What will get mirrored to Getty under the new collections scheme?
The Vetta and Signature Plus collections will be mirrored on Getty."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354345&messageid=6899067

Quote from: ShadySue on June 29, 2013, 14:39

Quote from: JFP on June 29, 2013, 05:32

Apparently not considering that we now can't have any file moved to Getty unless there are accepted as Vetta

FWIW:
"What will get mirrored to Getty under the new collections scheme?
The Vetta and Signature Plus collections will be mirrored on Getty."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=354345&messageid=6899067

Signature plus is in game ha?
So it begins! As I told you...

No different from E+, which was mirrored to Getty; in theory; and in practice when their connector worked.

I thought Getty was 20% regardless of exclusivity... Getty sells the content at higher rates...I earn more when stuff sells on Getty

Gotcha, my Getty experience comes from video.

Quote from: Xanox on June 29, 2013, 01:11

it's finally becoming a rat race to the bottom.

on the other side i've met a guy working for NGOs who made around 20K with his latest exhibitions, prints in A3 format of street photography stuff of asian cities, and this on top of his well paid full time job at NGOs, he's also planning about doing expensive workshops to teach newbies.

another guy works for a local newspaper, they're so cheap they dont even provide him the gear, he's using his own 5DmkII with a few lenses, if he get robbed he 's F-ed.

We'll have to see if istock is successful with lowering some of their prices.  They've not got a good track record over the past 5 years, every change seems to of sent buyers away.  Buyers might not be bothered with lower prices, there's already sites out there that have failed by thinking cheap prices are all the buyers want.  Buyers might not like having such a big range of prices, they might prefer all images at the same price.  Hopefully they will be aware that a lot of us have removed all our best images from istock and no longer supply them with new images.  Low prices and 15-20% commission is unsustainable for most of us and will kill off microstock, do buyers really want that?

many buyers are simply discovering that SS and other agencies are as good or better than IS, simple as that.

however, i dont think they give any sh-it about our fees, in their eyes photographers are all rich just for clicking a button on a camera !

IS lowering prices could seriously shooting itself in the foot, in practical terms they're undervalueing their one brand and their products, it's the final acknowledgment that what they sell is no more in any way superior to the competition and hence no more worthy of a premium price.

Until these recent changes my RPD at Istock was about $2. With the loss of P+ and now also the reduction in prices for 'Main collection' my RPD over the last couple of days appears to have slumped to below $1.

Based on that it looks like my earnings at IS (not including the mythical PP earnings, should they ever materialise) will be down 50%+ from here on in. Sales would need to more than double for earnings to remain at their current level. It means that on Istock my earnings are likely to be on about the same level as DT, FT and even the PP itself, all of which tend to fight among themselves for 3rd, 4th and 5th place.

Of course it also means that Istock's revenue will be slashed to the same degree ... and they know it too. For Istock to make such a bold move is evidence that the steady slump in sales, that most of us have been reporting, was every bit as bad as we have projected here in various threads over the last couple of years. Istock management have clearly had no choice but to actually listen to their customers (for once in their life) and take drastic action in an attempt to save the business. I reckon this is about as serious as it gets for Istock.

The whole collections reshuiffle combined with the lowering of main prices is actually not fully in the customers' favour, although clearly they will like that former 'A' files are now cheaper.

Promoting or demoting files based on sales does not make it clear to customers why one file costs X, another costs Xx5 and another costs Xx10. Also, they're not showing price differences on search, so not helping customers make file vs price choices. That is definitely not customer-centric.

Lowering prices of the Main collection makes it less likely that exclusives will shoot low-supply, low-demand images, of the type that get few downloads, but not in the Vetta mould, so lowering choice for certain buyers, who don't want the usual 'stocky' shots.

Promoting/demoting images based on sales discourages contributors to upload 'similars/sisters', giving less choice to customers and again discouraging contributors from setting up special shoots from which they will only upload a few images.