Doesn't seem like a huge deal to me, correct me if I'm wrong.

As someone pointed out in the thread, if business were good, they wouldn't be having a sale.

As long as it's brief and this doesn't become a way of life (training buyers to shop only during sales if you have them many times during the year), it's possible it might generate more volume. I do sell a fair number of XL and up sales and I'm not thrilled about them being reduced in price (and the RCs reduced) unless overall volume goes up.

I think there are many other ways of offering sales that do get you more volume (where you have to buy more than one item to get a sale price, or you get a better deal the more you buy).

Here's a thread on 2008 sales (consensus seems to be it didn't do much) This was the promo for that sale.

I did a bit of searching, and I don't think we had another spring sale. There was last winter's Vetta sale (which was perhaps trying to roll back the huge price increase while helping some meet their RC targets by giving them double (I think)). There's been the dollar bin and subscriptions as ways of spending less, but not a sale per se.

There have been a few deals in the past where credit bundles were discounted and that's great if you think people won't mind buying new bundles. Having the credits be reduced affects contributors now in a way it didn't back in 2008 - we get fewer RCs as well as a reduced royalty. I wonder if all future sales will be of this type?

Sale???  oh dear me, why not an auction?  pic goes to the highest bidders,  if they can find them that is.

Is it true that we don't have to pay for this sale with lower royalties?  I find it hard to believe for some reason.  Sales everywhere else seem to be quite good now, I can understand doing this in the middle of summer when sales slow down but it seems a strange time of the year to do it.

I worked in a wholesale for years. Each sale means that an item does not sell enough, or a company needs a little extra money for something. There are also promotional sales which are usually organized in the beginning of a business, to attract more customers for a better take-off.

On a very rare occasions a company would organize a sale that doesn't make profit, when it needs to get rid of some products that are close to their expiry date (which can't really be the case with pictures).

I'm sure Istock needs more money, probably because they didn't make enough to meet the financial plan. I trust them when they say the credit price will remain the same, but as I understood we will get the same percent of the new price that is 20% lower. Which means, we will get 20% less per sale that usual.

Quote from: sharpshot on May 24, 2011, 03:04

Is it true that we don't have to pay for this sale with lower royalties?  I find it hard to believe for some reason.  Sales everywhere else seem to be quite good now, I can understand doing this in the middle of summer when sales slow down but it seems a strange time of the year to do it.

Of course we are, the number of credits the buyers have to pay will be reduced (not the credit price itself). So for instance an XXXL will cost 20 instead of 25 credits.

Here's the announcement:

Starting next week we�re going to run a short sale on our largest images. We�re sending an email out to our clients letting them know that XL, XXL and XXXL files in all collections are 20% off from May 24 to June 6. So we should see people downloading those big files in higher volumes during that period.

As far as details go, it�s the cost in credits that�s being reduced by 20%, not the cost per credit. Contributors will still get the same royalty per value of credit used like always � again, people will be using fewer credits but downloading more so it should be a net boost for everybody.

You're right, it is costing the contributors.    I'm surprised. (not) I misspoke in my earlier post, sorry about that. I only half read it.

I worked in a wholesale for years. Each sale means that an item does not sell enough, or a company needs a little extra money for something. There are also promotional sales which are usually organized in the beginning of a business, to attract more customers for a better take-off.

On a very rare occasions a company would organize a sale that doesn't make profit, when it needs to get rid of some products that are close to their expiry date (which can't really be the case with pictures).

I'm sure Istock needs more money, probably because they didn't make enough to meet the financial plan. I trust them when they say the credit price will remain the same, but as I understood we will get the same percent of the new price that is 20% lower. Which means, we will get 20% less per sale that usual.

There is also the theory that getting feet in the door will result in the purchase of non-sale items too, or bring in shoppers that might have otherwise shopped the competition. 

Quote from: Dreamframer on May 24, 2011, 04:01

I worked in a wholesale for years. Each sale means that an item does not sell enough, or a company needs a little extra money for something. There are also promotional sales which are usually organized in the beginning of a business, to attract more customers for a better take-off.

On a very rare occasions a company would organize a sale that doesn't make profit, when it needs to get rid of some products that are close to their expiry date (which can't really be the case with pictures).

I'm sure Istock needs more money, probably because they didn't make enough to meet the financial plan. I trust them when they say the credit price will remain the same, but as I understood we will get the same percent of the new price that is 20% lower. Which means, we will get 20% less per sale that usual.

There is also the theory that getting feet in the door will result in the purchase of non-sale items too, or bring in shoppers that might have otherwise shopped the competition. 

I'm afraid that non-sale items always remain non-sale items, regardless of 20% discount. Non-sale items are usually given away for free in the end because no one wants them. Also, discounts usually attract those customers who want cheap stuff, not the ones who are willing to pay more, and those customers usually disappear after the discount waiting for another one.

This is all from my experience. I would like to be wrong tho.

In comparison with Shutterstock:

@dreamframer - I was refering to the items that were not on sale, as opposed to those that are bottom of the barrel and never sell anyway.  Supermarkets constantly have something on sale - it brings feet in the door to pick up the sale item, but while they are there customers pick up items at full price too.   If IS can get more feet in the door then they may get sales on the "sale" items, but may also get those same buyers picking up additional items that are not on sale - video, audio, smaller files, etc.  Bring them in the door with the sale then load up the cart with everything.  We can only hope....

Oh I understand now. And yes, we can only hope.

Here's a thought.  Why don't they have a sale on Vetta and Agency files.  Those are the prices the customers are complaining about.  Not the piddly prices we get for regular collection.

Should have known the income boost from P+ was too good to last. 

Sales and discounts are happening all the time at any given agency. And I'm sure that Shutterstock even offers steep discounts for huge clients as well. We just don't hear about it.

But (if they do) they still pay us the same full amount - so (if they do) they are entitled to offer all discounts they feel like.