If the buyers can't sort between the regular collection and the exclusive collection, then they are going to be seeing a mix of prices on the images, which I would think they would find very annoying, and if they can sort some way or even tell which is which without zooming, then it could greatly pump up independent sales. Maybe some of them will realize that the cheaper images are available even cheaper elsewhere... Somehow I doubt most IS buyers are that price concious though.

Not cost conscious?
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=150701&page=1 "This thread has been locked."
Lower prices on non-exclusive images could backfire on IS and the exclusives and have the opposite effect than that intended: increased sales for non-exclusives. Then IS will have to re-stack the deck yet again to give more advantatges to its pets.

To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.

The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"

And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.

I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.

Just think, if they were willing to push Exclusive content hard before this change, when they were making MORE money on independent content, just imagine what they will do after this change when every single sale with the excpetion of xx-large (from diamond exclusives),  xxx-large (from diamond excluisves), and xxx-large (from gold exclusives) will net IStock MORE than their independent couterparts.

And this doesn't even take into consideration Vetta, and Premium Plus, if customers don't filter that out, which will net IStock A LOT more that independent files.

If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.

Quote from: helix7 on December 10, 2009, 23:47

To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.

The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"

And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.

I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.

Just think, if they were willing to push Exclusive content hard before this change, when they were making MORE money on independent content, just imagine what they will do after this change when every single sale with the excpetion of xx-large (from diamond exclusives),  xxx-large (from diamond excluisves), and xxx-large (from gold exclusives) will net IStock MORE than their independent couterparts.

And this doesn't even take into consideration Vetta, and Premium Plus, if customers don't filter that out, which will net IStock A LOT more that independent files.

If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.

But if they hit independents too hard, they will stop using istock and a lot of the buyers will find istock's prices too high and will go to the other sites.  We would lose sales with istock but make more on the other sites.  They must know that, so I don't think they can afford to be too aggressive.

If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.

Absolutely.  We are really getting boned on this.  To be honest, from a purely financial viewpoint, IS will have finally closed the earning gap between being independent vs. exclusive. 

Currently (accounting for the exclusive bonus) I make 20% more by being independent.  With the changes at IS, if I were to go exclusive I would almost certainly make up that 20% and quite possibly make even more. 

OTOH if I continue to be independent and my sales at IS tank I am looking at a fairly large net loss. With a daughter headed to (an expensive private) college I don't know how much of a hit I can afford.

I am still very distrustful of putting all my eggs in one basket - particularly the Getty family basket.  But with the monetary incentive to be independent gone it may be harder to hold out.  After 5 years building a 5k plus portfolio, I am definitely NOT in this to lose money.

I expect I will not be the only diamond level non-exclusive who is watching to see if the other sites are willing to do something to make it financially viable to stay independent.

Quote from: nruboc on December 11, 2009, 01:51

Quote from: helix7 on December 10, 2009, 23:47

To me this seems more and more like a big push in a campaign that istock has quietly pursued for years. They've always said that they want more exclusive content. They dropped the minimum threshold for exclusivity to get more people on board early on. They push exclusive images in the search results (and will even more now under this new plan). They shook up the best match last year to even more heavily favor exclusive images and the non-exclusive sales tanked. In a perfect istock world, they would only have exclusive artists.

The message to independents seems to be "Go exclusive or we'll keep murdering your sales." The problem is that the more they slam my sales, the less I'm inclined to even look at exclusivity. A couple of years ago, I gave it serious thought. Before the best match shake, I gave it some moderate consideration. After the shake, I dropped the idea. Now I can only think, "Are they insane? They must think I hate money. Why would I ever choose exclusivity now?"

And I'm sure I'm not alone in that thought. What the istock brass fail to realize is that despite this effort to entice independent artists to finally become exclusive to istock, this move only further pushes independents away.

I can only imagine the competing agencies breathing a collective sigh of relief and saying, "Oh thank you, istock, for guaranteeing that our top sellers stay independent." This new istock plan keeps the competitors in business for years to come. Heck, maybe I should be thanking istock. My sales there will surely suffer next year, but maybe this opens the door for new growth among the competition.

Just think, if they were willing to push Exclusive content hard before this change, when they were making MORE money on independent content, just imagine what they will do after this change when every single sale with the excpetion of xx-large (from diamond exclusives),  xxx-large (from diamond excluisves), and xxx-large (from gold exclusives) will net IStock MORE than their independent couterparts.

And this doesn't even take into consideration Vetta, and Premium Plus, if customers don't filter that out, which will net IStock A LOT more that independent files.

If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.

But if they hit independents too hard, they will stop using istock and a lot of the buyers will find istock's prices too high and will go to the other sites.  We would lose sales with istock but make more on the other sites.  They must know that, so I don't think they can afford to be too aggressive.

I don't think the buyers are really sweating the prices, I know I don't.  Fact most of the designers I know Istock is the 2nd stop when looking for images 1st stop being Getty.  Why?  higher cost higher markup more profit for them.  1$ 2$ 3$ more it's still dirt cheap to buy images from istock.  I know each time the prices go up some buyers freak out, but in the end each year you make more money.  If I was an independent I'd be getting very worried about now, time we tell.

Quote from: nruboc on December 11, 2009, 01:51

If they are willing to DECREASE commissions via harder to reach canister levels, for their dedicated exclusive contributors, what will they be willing to do to independents, especially after, when they are bringing in less money. Time will tell, but IMHO, this is going to hit independents very hard.

Absolutely.  We are really getting boned on this.  To be honest, from a purely financial viewpoint, IS will have finally closed the earning gap between being independent vs. exclusive. 

Currently (accounting for the exclusive bonus) I make 20% more by being independent.  With the changes at IS, if I were to go exclusive I would almost certainly make up that 20% and quite possibly make even more. 

OTOH if I continue to be independent and my sales at IS tank I am looking at a fairly large net loss. With a daughter headed to (an expensive private) college I don't know how much of a hit I can afford.

I am still very distrustful of putting all my eggs in one basket - particularly the Getty family basket.  But with the monetary incentive to be independent gone it may be harder to hold out.  After 5 years building a 5k plus portfolio, I am definitely NOT in this to lose money.

I expect I will not be the only diamond level non-exclusive who is watching to see if the other sites are willing to do something to make it financially viable to stay independent.

Great perpective. You are absolutely right, unfortunately, the more negatively this affects independents, it may also benefit IStock not only financially now, but also in encouraging higher level independents to go exclulsive. Maybe that is what IStock meant when they wrote this:
"We're also hoping to encourage the strongest talents in stock today to consider bringing their best work to iStock exclusively."

...I would be willing to bet, even if independents profits were cut in half at IStock, most independents would remain.

Absolutely. No one is going anywhere. There's no reason to abandon istock. If I'm making $10 a month at istock, I'd still stick around. That's my coffee budget for 2 weeks.

I think where this differs from previous price increases is that this complicates things greatly for buyers and their clients. There are just too many variables in pricing now, and I don't think clients are going to respond well to paying more for images just because they are exclusive. Buyers (designers) will now have to go to their clients with all of these different prices and try to convince them that paying more for exclusive images somehow benefits them. What I predict a lot of clients will say is that they don't get why some images cost more than others, and they will want their designers to start sourcing images elsewhere. And I think designers may be the ones to suggest looking elsewhere for images. I might do it myself. My clients are used to istock, but this may piss them off when I'm constantly giving them prices all over the map. To make my life easier and make my clients happier, I'd probably be better off just suggesting that we get images somewhere else with lower prices and consistent pricing schedules.

Quote from: nruboc on December 11, 2009, 12:14

...I would be willing to bet, even if independents profits were cut in half at IStock, most independents would remain.

Absolutely. No one is going anywhere. There's no reason to abandon istock. If I'm making $10 a month at istock, I'd still stick around. That's my coffee budget for 2 weeks.

I think where this differs from previous price increases is that this complicates things greatly for buyers and their clients. There are just too many variables in pricing now, and I don't think clients are going to respond well to paying more for images just because they are exclusive. Buyers (designers) will now have to go to their clients with all of these different prices and try to convince them that paying more for exclusive images somehow benefits them. What I predict a lot of clients will say is that they don't get why some images cost more than others, and they will want their designers to start sourcing images elsewhere. And I think designers may be the ones to suggest looking elsewhere for images. I might do it myself. My clients are used to istock, but this may piss them off when I'm constantly giving them prices all over the map. To make my life easier and make my clients happier, I'd probably be better off just suggesting that we get images somewhere else with lower prices and consistent pricing schedules.

No need to convince the clients of anything, I just need to know the client's budget for job.  My job is to find images that fit within the budget, add my markup move on to next job.  I've yet to find a clients that couldn't afford something on istock.

Quote from: helix7 on December 11, 2009, 12:42

I'd probably be better off just suggesting that we get images somewhere else with lower prices and consistent pricing schedules.

Like where? Dreamstime? Fotolia? Don't they all have tiered pricing. Vector pricing at iStock is all over the map and people buy those everyday. I don't really see that much has changed.

yeah, I forgot.  Fotolia does too - with there emerald and above members being able to double prices

My question in stock has always been how can I make more. iStock seems to be coming up with an answer directed right at that question. I don't know how it will play out, but I'm paying attention.

Danger with Getty is that they have a habit of eating the competition, then paying photographers less. Which often forces other companies to do the same. Which is not to say that they are not also great and interesting. Ever since they started. They totally get pictures.

Seems a pity if ISP ends up being squeezed for money to pay off debts incurred on other bits of their empire. I'd rather see them shut down the flagship bits that are loosing them money. Especially as they continually refer to ISP as their amateurs business. On the other hand they've obviously put a lot of money into ISP.

I'm pro Getty because they are interesting but I hope there is some serious money making competition. And sooner or later I hope a different sort of market place emerges. There has to be a way for photographers and buyers to interact directly. After it happens it will seem obvious.

Quote from: helix7 on December 11, 2009, 12:42

Quote from: nruboc on December 11, 2009, 12:14

...I would be willing to bet, even if independents profits were cut in half at IStock, most independents would remain.

Absolutely. No one is going anywhere. There's no reason to abandon istock. If I'm making $10 a month at istock, I'd still stick around. That's my coffee budget for 2 weeks.

Dreamstime's pricing is just as variable with their various levels.  is it really a big deal when the difference is a few dollars?

But DT's prices vary according to the image's popularity. That more popular images cost more should make at least some sense to a buyer. But what sense does it make to a buyer that he has to pay more because the creator of the image is exclusive at IS?

Quote from: whatalife on December 10, 2009, 20:40

Yeah, the thread is well over 70 pages long now. I'd say you should read a little more before declaring it a woo yay thread. It's far from that.

Sorry for not wasting my time in IS forum.  I really tried from the start, but could not stand it.

I would imagine so, if you thought they were all cheering for this crap deal being handed down. Trust me, it's not a happy place. 

Yeah, my daughter used to use the same negitiating tactic on me.
"Dad I need a dress for the prom. I found the perfect one and its only $1500 US"

Me: "What?!! No way, you better look for something more reasonable"

A few days later... "Dad, I found a really cute dress and it's only $300 US and since I am saving you all that money on the dress; I need the matching shoes, earrings and a clutch bag that go with it. The whole ensemble comes to only $675 US. Good deal huh Dad?"

Daughter says the above with huge smile and a hopeful gleam in her eye.
I've been had again 

@Jonathan, be happy you only have sons