Quote from: SSArtist on January 04, 2015, 13:54

Quote from: shudderstok on January 04, 2015, 12:48

Quote from: Holmes on January 04, 2015, 12:34

bravo? for ensuring the success of absurd  commissions in micro stock markets for eternity?

exactly!!! and also for bringing the valuation of RF imagery to an all time low. it's rather sickening when one really thinks about it.

Well at least these guys selling our stuff and not just collect our media files to show off to their investors how big data base they have.
No point media files sitting on their servers even with 80% commission offered if there is nobody to buy it!

Companies that don't invest in sales operations and marketing seriously will never sell our stuff because buyers just don't care about 30% or 60% artist commission.

They want quality and professionalism. So for that reason SS IS THE WINNER here.

And... it's totally not realistic to expect high commission while running a serious company, with all expenses and pro employees involved.

and the contributors and the industry ARE THE LOSER! 

If you have better ideas how to solve this, why not start a company?

All I am saying, we do earn nice $ with SS and must be some good reason why they sit on top of this Big 4 list.
Contributors are the winners too, otherwise not so many would submit their files to SS. :-)

Stick with professionals and avoid experimental companies who just like to store our media files for their PR stunts, all in attempt to get funding and not do anything for us  afterwards! seriously... it's like a scam of some sort...

SS yeah!

Quote from: SSArtist on January 02, 2015, 04:40

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on January 01, 2015, 21:49

gathering the figures for December since this is the new year, to me, this is the SS I knew and loved so well from the old school, before all the approval inconsistency, flipping switches,etc started. nov dec reported like finally the big wigs of ss or mr. oringer took back the stern and cleaned house.
needless to say, my sales was a whopper for the past 3 months.

sorry 2 hear from those who had bad or bad-der than worse shrinkage of their earnings,
but looking at the spread of downloaded images, i find that there is a great improvement
from the first time rinderart posted his thread on dissatisfaction with ss.

i like ss now, as i said, back to normal of what makes them #1.
has this anything to do with scott leaving, and having a structural re-organization ?
we won't know, but i like what is going on today.

let's hope this keep going good for us. good show ss.

As I pointed out before, stay with professionals and avoid experimental companies who just like to store our media files for their PR stunts, all in attempt to get funding and not do anything afterwards! seriously... it's like a scam of some sort...

SS is the best!
 

Hmmmm. Never looked at it like that....You may be right. I think 2015 is going to be a very telling Year for Microstock.

Thanks for giving a thoughts to it, Rinderart!

The thing is, when they ask us to submit our hard work to their web sites, we give them a favor/chance to show off, to gather some investment, to improve ... but ask yourself what they actually gave us in return?
Don't forget guys, without our media files loads of agencies simply wouldn't exist.
Sometimes I do wonder when I read all the problems with uploads, what kind of hell buyers must be going through with search, downloads and bad quality files.

:-)

This garbage is getting way out of control. Really frustrated with these partner programs and API distributions recently.

I'd say this is the single most damaging practice going on in stock today. It's also the biggest motivating factor in my goal for the year of starting to expand my work outside of microstock. Forget the pricing "race to the bottom", 15-20% royalties, even the getty embeded viewer, I think this right here is where it's at when we're talking about industry killers. These programs have already proven to be capable of reducing our royalty percentages to single-digit figures. Not to mention what other nefarious things could be going on, like sales going completely unreported (which I suspect is highly likely).

Oh yeah...sales going completely unreported!
Time for BOYCOTT?

I would go for Shutterstock (naturally) as they invest in sales and not just PR stunt like P5 to have the biggest library (with no quality).

No point storing our files without any effort to sell them!
I do know that Shutterstock has a massive sales operations and for that reason I would trust they will sell my files the best, as they do!

Explore Getty too, why not...they are the first stop for Ad Agencies purchases, so if you have high-end stuff, totally consider that.

 

I was talking about suppliers registered in Ireland/Swiss.
ALL Agencies will HAVE TO collect VAT from it's buyers in 28 EU States.


WHAT ARE THE CURRENT RULES?

Currently, a company located in one of the European Union countries (EU) providing telecommunication, broadcasting or electronic services to private customers (B2C) in one of the EU countries, must pay VAT in the EU country of its establishment. This means that if a company is located in Cyprus and supplies telecommunication, broadcasting or electronic services to private customers in the EU, it has to pay 19% Cyprus VAT for the revenue collected from these customers in the different EU countries.

WHAT IS GOING TO CHANGE AS FROM 1 JANUARY 2015?

Based on this new VAT rule, an EU Company must pay VAT in the EU country of establishment of its customers. In the above example, the Cyprus Company will have to pay different VAT rates applicable in each of the EU countries where its private customers are located. This means for example that the Cyprus company will need to pay 19% Cyprus VAT for the fees collected from its Cyprus private customers, 25% Swedish VAT from its Swedish private customers and 18% Maltese VAT from its Maltese customers, etc.

In principle this new rules mean that if you have private customers in each of the 28 EU countries, you will need to register for VAT in each of the 28 EU countries, file VAT returns in each of these 28 countries and charge local VAT with different rates in each of the 28 countries. Such a rule actually already applies towards non - EU service providers.


MINI ONE STOP SHOP (MOSS)

To reduce the VAT administrative burden for the EU service provider as from 1 January 2015, the new VAT rules provide the possibility for the EU service provider to apply for the so-called Mini One Stop Shop (MOSS) scheme. Under this MOSS scheme, the EU service provider can under certain conditions opt to report its EU VAT liability in one of the EU country only. For Cyprus service providers, this means that under certain strict conditions they can opt to file the VAT returns for their supplies to private customers in the 28 EU countries with the Cyprus tax authorities only. It should however be noted that the Cyprus service provider must take into account the applicable VAT rates in the countries of the buyers for reporting and payment of the VAT due.

As mentioned above, MOSS is an optional scheme for businesses and a business may choose to register in each EU Member State if it wishes. However, if MOSS is used then it must be applied in all applicable Member States (it is not optional on an individual Member State by Member State basis). The only exception to this is when a business also has an establishment in another EU Member State. In that instance, those supplies should be declared on a domestic VAT return in that country, not via MOSS.

But mainly low prices unfortunately - that's why Walmart has been so successful.  I'm not convinced they care about quality if something almost as good is cheaper - that's what allowed microstock to flourish in the first place.

Hmm... prime buyers do care about quality and liability too.
Glad to see SS is opening premier deals - http://www.shutterstock.com/video/business-solutions/

My real dream would be for buyers to recognize just how low the percentage to the artists is and move towards the sites that pay more fairly.

Sadly, buyers don't care about it and never will. All they want is quality, trust and low pricing.

Quote from: bunhill on December 22, 2014, 11:17

even the wildest opinion or conspiracy.

this new VAT law has been discussed since forever, it's not something that the eurocrats suddenly pulled out of their as-s, it's just the consequence of a cost/benefit analysis since the biggest e-commerce companies like Amazon are not based in EU and the EU is getting nothing back as they use every possible legal loophole to avoid paying taxation like any other EU based entity.

in short, they're doing unfair competition and of course this is damaging EU's local e-commerce companies.
if the EU doesn't move a finger in their defence, who will ?

And not just Amazon... In Microstock, Pond5 is the one who is registered in Swiss so therefore no VAT paid towards EU. Who else?

Guys...time will tell us who raped who in this mad world of ours.

In a meanwhile, let's inform ourselves what to do with this EUVAT rule and find the best way to continue e-commerce with our mother Europe. 

Topic: EU VAT Changes from January 2015! ALERT

"Why would you even mention the US in a thread about European VAT anyway?"
Because the VAT changes will affect US based companies who are selling to EU buyers.