This is just plain stupid. What's the strategy here? Buyers are leaving, so sales drop, so they raise prices to compensate, so more buyers leave, so sales continue to drop, so they raise prices again, so more buyers leave...

How do they not see this as a losing strategy long-term?

Quote from: helix7 on May 02, 2012, 08:47

How do they not see this as a losing strategy long-term?

Imminent sale, maximise price by short term decisions like this.

I shouldn't think so, H+F appear to have plunged the company so deeply in debt to repay themselves all that they paid when they bought it that it is probably unsellable. I guess  if it goes bust it's no big disaster because they've already recouped their cash  and presumably the profits all have to go to paying back the banks but if they can squeeze a bit more out of it and into their coffers, that's good.

It's okay, Getty will buy SS soon as it floats and have that as their micro site, IStock will be their midstock offering for exclusives only. Watch the skies.

When that happens any sensible person, that doesn't own a factory or does MS just to amuse himself, will pull out of the business

It's okay, Getty will buy SS soon as it floats and have that as their micro site, IStock will be their midstock offering for exclusives only. Watch the skies.

Unlikely. SS is getting ready for an IPO: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/01/us-shutterstock-ipo-idUSBRE8400PC20120501

Amazing.  This is the only industry I know where the suppliers bitch about raising prices so they can't make more money.

Let the buyers that are too cheap to spend money on quality images leave...it's not the first time, and won't be the last, that a company has fired it's own customers in order to become more profitable.

Amazing.  This is the only industry I know where the suppliers bitch about raising prices so they can't make more money.

Let the buyers that are too cheap to spend money on quality images leave...it's not the first time, and won't be the last, that a company has fired it's own customers in order to become more profitable.

Well, the buyers do leave.  In droves.  I think that's the problem.  

Not to mention 1) the price rises are often offset by cuts to commissions, so no net gain for contributors, and 2) when disgruntled customers buy less, volume goes down and also offsets the higher prices.  

Ultimately, these higher prices don't make most of us more money, they make us less.  Hence all the bitching.

... Let the buyers that are too cheap to spend money on quality images leave...

But that's the problem - huge swaths of the iStock collection aren't anything special and the price increase is across the board.

I think E+ is now as expensive as Vetta was when it started out. Vetta (before they forced the prices up) was an idea with some sane basis - a curated collection with some criteria for selection at a higher price. The way they introduced it, putting in existing images, thus jacking the price up overnight, wasn't handled well, so buyers got frustrated. The absence of a price slider (and the crappy implementation when they did do one) didn't help, but ignoring those hiccups, the idea of you pay more to get more/better/different was something that buyers could grasp.

With the Getty dreck that got dumped in at high prices (lots of the Agency stuff and EdStock, for example) and absolutely no criteria for E+ other than that the seller felt like it, the connection between price and quality was just so unclear as to be lost.

Buyers who are frustrated with frequent unexplained price increases can leave too - even with a higher budget, if you keep forgetting to respect the buyer's need to plan expenses, they'll get frustrated and go elsewhere. If they can't find quality stuff elsewhere, you may find them stick with you, but that's your gamble. Are you enough better than everyone else to behave horribly and still keep the customers coming?

My sales are so low just now that I can't help wondering if this price rise has sparked a major buyer revolt. Final straw, camel's back stuff. The exclusives seem to feel that we have grabbed all their sales, which I certainly haven't, so what has happened to all the buyers?

+1.  Same story here.

Congrats JoAnn.  Glad someone is seeing some sales at IS.

What I think is happening is that iStock is tweaking their mid-tier pricing model once again with the intent of determining the acceptance threshold of the buyers. In doing so they further optimize, define and mature their product offering. I would assume Getty has significant statical analysis in place to monitor sales and download trends that reflect these pricing model changes.

This time of year is their window for such research - pre summer and no major holidays.

Numbers don't lie and Getty knows this. If the results of this change reveals a drop in sales, one can assume Getty will respond accordingly.

I am NOT a fan of Getty for many reasons, but give them credit for being a shrewd business and a leader in the industry.

The concept that they are radically and carelessly squeezing profits which would jeopardize the health of the business, is not one I readily accept.

My sales are so low just now that I can't help wondering if this price rise has sparked a major buyer revolt. Final straw, camel's back stuff. The exclusives seem to feel that we have grabbed all their sales, which I certainly haven't, so what has happened to all the buyers?

I keep wanting to complain about low sales but then I add up the numbers and it doesn't look so bad.  For example last month my RPD was $7.20 while the April before it was $4.90.

So if the buyers leave iStock, where are they going to go?  DT where prices were just raised as well?  Shutterstock (didn't they raise prices a few months ago?).

This only has an effect on exclusives...and even they have images elsewhere (i.e. RM collections).

Let the buyers go the cheap route to someplace like Mostphotos. 

It looks more like they want the customers to go to Thinkstock.
Who knows what they think? and they're certainly not going to let the contributors or customers know.
Maybe they're back to 'what's your idea today?' that they seemed to do last year for a while, with a lot of random, unjoined-up changes for no obvious reason and with no over-riding plan/strategy.

Quote from: Ed on May 02, 2012, 13:00

So if the buyers leave iStock, where are they going to go?  DT where prices were just raised as well?  Shutterstock (didn't they raise prices a few months ago?).

This only has an effect on exclusives...and even they have images elsewhere (i.e. RM collections).

Let the buyers go the cheap route to someplace like Mostphotos. 

It looks more like they want the customers to go to Thinkstock.
Who knows what they think? and they're certainly not going to let the contributors or customers know.
Maybe they're back to 'what's your idea today?' that they seemed to do last year for a while, with a lot of random, unjoined-up changes for no obvious reason and with no over-riding plan/strategy.

That makes sense....Thinkstock as an alternative.