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Author Topic: When do subs start  (Read 22887 times)

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Batman

« on: March 26, 2014, 08:36 »
+1
Got an email yesterday telling me move files into the main collection or be missed by subs? I want to be missed by subs.


ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #1 on: March 26, 2014, 08:40 »
0
Subs start in early April, and it wouldn't surprise me if they manage to run this out in their stated timescale.
Unfortunately, none of us can avoid being included in subs, unless all our images are Vetta - all other files are included.
However, there is to be a two-tier sub system, whereby a buyer can have access to Main files only or Main, S and S+ (not Vetta).
So if you have old non-sellers, you might like to suggest them for Main, or not.
Whatever. They can move them to Main at their whim anyway.
They've already been moving files from S+ to S, and in my experience and that of others, it's not only files that didn't sell at S+ which have been switched.
(See the collection changes thread on the exclusive forum)
« Last Edit: March 26, 2014, 08:42 by ShadySue »

« Reply #2 on: March 26, 2014, 09:11 »
+1
However, there is to be a two-tier sub system, whereby a buyer can have access to Main files only or Main, S and S+ (not Vetta).
So if you have old non-sellers, you might like to suggest them for Main, or not.
Whatever. They can move them to Main at their whim anyway.
They've already been moving files from S+ to S, and in my experience and that of others, it's not only files that didn't sell at S+ which have been switched.
(See the collection changes thread on the exclusive forum)

Good idea IMO them inviting us to submit a lightbox of content we would like moved to Main. My lightbox includes nearly all of my S content including old flames and a few S+ too. I cannot see a strong case for the S collection from a buyer perspective (which is what counts).

(Tip: you can add images to a lightbox in bulk one search page at a time and then weed out the exceptions. It took me a while to figure out how to get around having to add them one at a time. Maybe this helps someone else too.)

Personally I think that two price points would be simpler for customers. And a single subscription program including all content. But, not being party to the decision making process, I am perhaps not taking into account some important detail.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2014, 09:13 by bunhill »

Uncle Pete

« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2014, 21:45 »
+2
And this is simplification? Two sites with subs, single, EL, S, S+ Vetta, Main, Subs and who knows what else? I can understand buyers being confused and frustrated. (oh and XS is gone right?) Not that I cared about selling an XS, but how many different sizes and prices does someone need for a RF image?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2014, 18:01 »
+1
Good idea IMO them inviting us to submit a lightbox of content we would like moved to Main. My lightbox includes nearly all of my S content including old flames and a few S+ too. I cannot see a strong case for the S collection from a buyer perspective (which is what counts).
I totally agree that iS made a huge error of judgement in pricing S images so much higher than M.

« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2014, 18:15 »
+3
The deadline for sending the lightbox is the end of April. Considering that, and istock's history of delays, I guess that subs won't begin until early May. For me, the latter, the better.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2014, 18:19 by loop »

« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2014, 18:18 »
0
repeated

stock-will-eat-itself

« Reply #7 on: March 30, 2014, 18:42 »
+13
I can't help thinking it's going to be a blood bath for exclusives in the short term, RPD is going to crash. They'll be no backing down once its implemented either, customers will acclimatise to paying much lower rates pretty quickly.

« Reply #8 on: March 31, 2014, 03:29 »
0
I totally agree that iS made a huge error of judgement in pricing S images so much higher than M.

You're agreeing with something I have not written or implied since I don't see things in these superlative terms.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #9 on: March 31, 2014, 16:26 »
+2
I can't help thinking it's going to be a blood bath for exclusives in the short term, RPD is going to crash. They'll be no backing down once its implemented either, customers will acclimatise to paying much lower rates pretty quickly.
Besides which, are they really going to promote newly demoted exclusive Main files on which they have to pay more, over indie/Main files?

« Reply #10 on: March 31, 2014, 16:51 »
+2
Let me ask a question here,
based in Fotolia's change to subscription experience, how, (exclusive member percentage of $$$), will these new IS move affect exclusives? Lets say you make $1000.00 a month from IS and $200 a month from GI?  (based in your own experiences with Fotolia) give me a approximate calculation. Thanks. in other words, how much blood will be lost with this new IS move.

KB

« Reply #11 on: March 31, 2014, 17:19 »
0
Let me ask a question here,
based in Fotolia's change to subscription experience, how, (exclusive member percentage of $$$), will these new IS move affect exclusives? Lets say you make $1000.00 a month from IS and $200 a month from GI?  (based in your own experiences with Fotolia) give me a approximate calculation. Thanks. in other words, how much blood will be lost with this new IS move.
We can speculate, but no one can yet know the correct answer to that.

Getty claims that it's a different class of buyers who buy subscriptions, so we won't be losing sales, we'll be getting extra sales that would've gone to SS or other sub sites.

I claim that there'll be little or no incentive for SS buyers to switch to IS, nor for new buyers to come to IS in place of SS. So most sub buyers will be converted IS credit buyers -- and most likely those will be the buyers who were the biggest buyers of credits.

I don't see an impact on GI sales (not from subs -- the free editorial and personal use images are an entirely different matter). But my own guess is that the theoretical $1000 per month person is likely to see a 50% haircut in sales by the time subs are fully rolled out, if not more. It will be brutal.

« Reply #12 on: March 31, 2014, 17:33 »
+2
Let me ask a question here,
based in Fotolia's change to subscription experience, how, (exclusive member percentage of $$$), will these new IS move affect exclusives? Lets say you make $1000.00 a month from IS and $200 a month from GI?  (based in your own experiences with Fotolia) give me a approximate calculation. Thanks. in other words, how much blood will be lost with this new IS move.
We can speculate, but no one can yet know the correct answer to that.

Getty claims that it's a different class of buyers who buy subscriptions, so we won't be losing sales, we'll be getting extra sales that would've gone to SS or other sub sites.

I claim that there'll be little or no incentive for SS buyers to switch to IS, nor for new buyers to come to IS in place of SS. So most sub buyers will be converted IS credit buyers -- and most likely those will be the buyers who were the biggest buyers of credits.

I don't see an impact on GI sales (not from subs -- the free editorial and personal use images are an entirely different matter). But my own guess is that the theoretical $1000 per month person is likely to see a 50% haircut in sales by the time subs are fully rolled out, if not more. It will be brutal.
thank you for your answer, I know it is an speculation.
What you calculated is more or less what i think it will be. IS will be receiving the same money from the client (if he was spending $1000 in credits, they will spend $1000 in subscription) but the exclusive contributors will be hit deep in their pockets. Maybe a couple of big clients will be brought back, but not lot of them. This is an IS one more move to get more money from contributors.
I think is about time to start thinking and to be ready to leave exclusivity.

« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2014, 18:05 »
0
I claim that there'll be little or no incentive for SS buyers to switch to IS

Straight question: If they come in with a competitive package and word gets around then why wouldn't buyers switch ?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2014, 18:16 »
+3
I claim that there'll be little or no incentive for SS buyers to switch to IS

Straight question: If they come in with a competitive package and word gets around then why wouldn't buyers switch ?
SS have maintained their acceptance standards.

KB

« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2014, 19:37 »
+1
I claim that there'll be little or no incentive for SS buyers to switch to IS

Straight question: If they come in with a competitive package and word gets around then why wouldn't buyers switch ?
What is your definition of 'competitive'?

It would have to be nicely discounted from SS's prices, not simply matching. Otherwise what does IS have to attract buyers? It isn't the lack of technical standards or poor keyword relevance of new files (which are overwhelming the number of older, better keyworded files). Not to mention the added complexity of a two-tiered subscription plan.

My guess is that their lower tiered offering will indeed be 'competitive' with SS's, but the higher tiered offering will not. So a further hit to exclusives, as even if sub sales take off, most exclusive files won't be the ones being downloaded. (Probably true within the lower tier, too, as someone else pointed out: Won't Getty be likely to skew the results to independent files, since their costs will be significantly lower?)

« Reply #16 on: March 31, 2014, 19:55 »
+1
I claim that there'll be little or no incentive for SS buyers to switch to IS

Straight question: If they come in with a competitive package and word gets around then why wouldn't buyers switch ?
What is your definition of 'competitive'?

It would have to be nicely discounted from SS's prices, not simply matching. Otherwise what does IS have to attract buyers? It isn't the lack of technical standards or poor keyword relevance of new files (which are overwhelming the number of older, better keyworded files). Not to mention the added complexity of a two-tiered subscription plan.

My guess is that their lower tiered offering will indeed be 'competitive' with SS's, but the higher tiered offering will not. So a further hit to exclusives, as even if sub sales take off, most exclusive files won't be the ones being downloaded. (Probably true within the lower tier, too, as someone else pointed out: Won't Getty be likely to skew the results to independent files, since their costs will be significantly lower?)

Probably they will redirect credit base buyers to GI (maybe they are already doing it) since sales decreased dramatically during the last couple of months (even though we are in march, the month supposed to be the best of the year together with october, regarding sales)

« Reply #17 on: April 01, 2014, 03:12 »
+3
I claim that there'll be little or no incentive for SS buyers to switch to IS

Straight question: If they come in with a competitive package and word gets around then why wouldn't buyers switch ?

I suspect there is a lot of inertia in this market and that customers are likely to stay loyal to a brand unless it actively annoys them with stuff like constant price changes, the price of individual images moving up and down by huge amounts at random, site outages, poor customer service etc.   For large companies - which is what interests iStock - to change agencies may require a series of meetings and decisions being made and ratified, and is it going to be worth it? How reliable is the long-term pricing at iStock?

Suppose you opened an account last year because all the images you buy are XS and you wanted to take advantage of "everything at half price forever" guarantee.  Three months later you go to get your XS image and discover that all the prices have doubled .... forever, no doubt ... via the subterfuge of scrapping the XS file size so 2 credits becomes the minimum price. So now you have to have another set of meetings to go back to SS. No sooner have you done that than iS comes up with a very attractive offer that will save you maybe 10% on the SS price, do you organise a third set of management meetings in four months to decide to change your buying strategy again?




Batman

« Reply #18 on: April 03, 2014, 11:32 »
0
I claim that there'll be little or no incentive for SS buyers to switch to IS

Straight question: If they come in with a competitive package and word gets around then why wouldn't buyers switch ?

I suspect there is a lot of inertia in this market and that customers are likely to stay loyal to a brand unless it actively annoys them with stuff like constant price changes, the price of individual images moving up and down by huge amounts at random, site outages, poor customer service etc.   For large companies - which is what interests iStock - to change agencies may require a series of meetings and decisions being made and ratified, and is it going to be worth it? How reliable is the long-term pricing at iStock?

Suppose you opened an account last year because all the images you buy are XS and you wanted to take advantage of "everything at half price forever" guarantee.  Three months later you go to get your XS image and discover that all the prices have doubled .... forever, no doubt ... via the subterfuge of scrapping the XS file size so 2 credits becomes the minimum price. So now you have to have another set of meetings to go back to SS. No sooner have you done that than iS comes up with a very attractive offer that will save you maybe 10% on the SS price, do you organise a third set of management meetings in four months to decide to change your buying strategy again?

The over and over change at IS have got to make the customers unhappy and confused.

« Reply #19 on: April 03, 2014, 15:58 »
0
Now.

« Reply #20 on: April 03, 2014, 16:13 »
+2
Did you notice that it's a monthly download limit, not daily? Makes it much harder for the agency to make it work financially that way.

I guess we'll have to see how much buyers value the higher priced stuff - $499 a month is a pretty big premium on top of Shutterstock's $249...

I did a search for balloons and then looked at the signature vs. the peasantry. They need to clean up all the isolated plain vanilla stuff from the premium price section if they stand a chance of making this make sense to a buyer
« Last Edit: April 03, 2014, 16:16 by Jo Ann Snover »

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #21 on: April 03, 2014, 16:24 »
0
 :'(

« Reply #22 on: April 03, 2014, 16:28 »
+2
Maybe you shold review the market you are in, Sue.  Specialist stuff and subs probably ain't the way to go.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #23 on: April 03, 2014, 16:39 »
+4
Maybe you shold review the market you are in, Sue.  Specialist stuff and subs probably ain't the way to go.
I'm probably 'out'. I stuck with iS because the payment per dl was worth it (until they made the huge price differential between Main and S, undercutting exclusives) and I had no interest in subs. Now it's all just madness.
Anyway, it's Spring, bird survey season.  8) (weather permitting, which it isn't at present)

When they originally announced the subs and said it was going to be monthly, it was obvious that was the end. There is almost no reason why anyone would want to buy credits now, despite that admin saying that people would still be buying credits and the subs would be new buyers. I can see that credits are far more flexible than daily subs, but hardly at all compared to monthly subs.

RIP. Now iS is just another cheap subs company.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2014, 18:41 by ShadySue »

« Reply #24 on: April 03, 2014, 16:50 »
0
Good luck


 

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