MicrostockGroup
Microstock Photography Forum - General => Selling Stock Direct => Topic started by: HugoLu88 on July 06, 2021, 07:34
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Hi everyone,
Some friends of mine work in marketing and have a few pain points when using sites like Getty. They find themselves struggling to search, spending lots of time finding the suitable image (or set of images) for commercial and marketing campaigns.
I was wondering if as contributors, you would all use a service that acts like a marketplace, where designers and marketers post jobs (including things like type of photo, photo criteria, budget per photo) and contributors submit photo ideas. If the buyer likes them, they purchase them in the same way as on stock photo sites such as Getty.
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A number of very helpful responses have highlighted the issues with platforms like Snappr that aim to provide photography services on demand. This is different to the proposed idea. In the proposed idea, contributors do not shoot on demand but rather select photos from an existing portfolio (or from others' portfolios too) and submit groups of photos to the buyer, the buyer chooses which ones they like best (mixing and matching) and then photos are purchased a la microstock websites.
***EDIT***
Other feedback on the idea generally is more than welcome!!! Thanks guys.
Hugo
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"contributors submit photo ideas. If the buyer likes them, they purchase them"
Shooting on spec is never a good idea.
But essentially, that's what Snapwire and others do: https://snapwire.co/
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I was wondering if as contributors, you would all use a service that acts like a marketplace, where designers and marketers post jobs (including things like type of photo, photo criteria, budget per photo) and contributors submit photo ideas. If the buyer likes them, they purchase them in the same way as on stock photo sites such as Getty.
Other feedback on the idea generally is more than welcome!!! Thanks guys.
Hugo
Do you mean we'd submit like a generic plan or non-branded example? AndbBased on that they'd choose who gets hired for the paid gig?
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This idea - or things very like it - has been tried multiple times before, both by stock sites (iStock's Buy Request years back; Getty and Shutterstock briefs) and "platforms" for hiring photographers. As Sean mentioned, in the last couple of years a bunch of platforms to bring the gig economy to a custom photo shoot have popped up.
Without going into all the details about what went wrong, it's a hard thing to do well so that both buyers and photographers/illustrators can benefit. I can't see how anyone would be able to do this now (when agencies are falling all over themselves to give work away).
Take a look at this rundown of problems with a gig platform Snappr which gives you a flavor of things
https://www.insideimaging.com.au/2019/snappr-experience-low-pay-and-unrealistic-expectations/ (https://www.insideimaging.com.au/2019/snappr-experience-low-pay-and-unrealistic-expectations/)
IMO there was one thing that worked well when iStock was a young company, but I don't think it would translate into the current marketplace (it was the Request Forum for those who remember back that far).
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as Jo Ann says, it's been tried many times - it's a waste of time for artists to search thru 1000s of images that might fit needs then compete with hundreds of others
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"contributors submit photo ideas. If the buyer likes them, they purchase them"
Shooting on spec is never a good idea.
But essentially, that's what Snapwire and others do: https://snapwire.co/
Thanks Sean. That's a really helpful pointer - I think the idea they had was less geared towards a shoot on spec but more focussed on a job with a specific need for a type of stock photo already existing.
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Do you mean we'd submit like a generic plan or non-branded example? AndbBased on that they'd choose who gets hired for the paid gig?
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Hey farbled. The example my friends used was a company is trying to do an internal marketing campaign (e.g. corporate brochure) and they list the image needs as [10x photos for a corporate brochure, of size x, resolution y etc].
Contributors may already have particular photos in mind, so can easily and quickly submit 10x suitable photos to the job. It's less of a gig, literally just allows contributors to incur the search cost instead of buyers.
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NO
And we've also seen in the past that "buyers" are just using submissions for research and ideas, then hire someone else to make the shot. One place that had a repeating request, I went and shot a very specific photo that met what they asked for. Never a peep or interest.
Some have suggested, a way to market already existing shots. I suppose a clearing house. Hey, can't buyers learn to use a search that's already out there? Why would they pay more or use some marketplace? What would a job marketplace give us and even more important, why would buyers want to pay for that, when there are already hundreds of agencies?
NO
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Some have suggested, a way to market already existing shots. I suppose a clearing house. Hey, can't buyers learn to use a search that's already out there? Why would they pay more or use some marketplace? What would a job marketplace give us and even more important, why would buyers want to pay for that, when there are already hundreds of agencies?
I think the idea was for a buyer to post photo specs and contributors to search + submit, thus reducing the time for buyers finding the right photos. Buyers / sellers would use this service because the prices would be better for both. There are clearly challenges to this, but the search is clearly non trivial given agencies are taking 50% commissions, and the search is the agencies' main functions (excluding rights managed / clearance services for highly specific requests).
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...In the proposed idea, contributors do not shoot on demand but rather select photos from an existing portfolio (or from others' portfolios too) and submit groups of photos to the buyer, the buyer chooses which ones they like best (mixing and matching) and then photos are purchased a la microstock websites...
In that case I am not sure what the value is to the customer. By the time they have come up with a proposal etc. they could have just searched the stock sites, seems even more cumbersome.
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...In the proposed idea, contributors do not shoot on demand but rather select photos from an existing portfolio (or from others' portfolios too) and submit groups of photos to the buyer, the buyer chooses which ones they like best (mixing and matching) and then photos are purchased a la microstock websites...
In that case I am not sure what the value is to the customer. By the time they have come up with a proposal etc. they could have just searched the stock sites, seems even more cumbersome.
That's what I was trying to point out. And for the second part, "Buyers / sellers would use this service because the prices would be better for both." seems to be a contradiction. Better prices for them and better rewards for us? Where does that come from?
As for the poll, answers 2 and 3 are virtually the same. No or I'd rather sell through and agency. That's No and No? :)
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... but the search is clearly non trivial given agencies are taking 50% commissions,...
artists' work in finding & submitting images is also non-trivial!
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...In the proposed idea, contributors do not shoot on demand but rather select photos from an existing portfolio (or from others' portfolios too) and submit groups of photos to the buyer, the buyer chooses which ones they like best (mixing and matching) and then photos are purchased a la microstock websites...
In that case I am not sure what the value is to the customer. By the time they have come up with a proposal etc. they could have just searched the stock sites, seems even more cumbersome.
That's what I was trying to point out. And for the second part, "Buyers / sellers would use this service because the prices would be better for both." seems to be a contradiction. Better prices for them and better rewards for us? Where does that come from?
As for the poll, answers 2 and 3 are virtually the same. No or I'd rather sell through and agency. That's No and No? :)
Lower commissions! e.g. move from $20 to buyer $10 (50%) for you to $18 to buyer $12 (33%) ?
Point taken on the poll answers. Thanks!
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...In the proposed idea, contributors do not shoot on demand but rather select photos from an existing portfolio (or from others' portfolios too) and submit groups of photos to the buyer, the buyer chooses which ones they like best (mixing and matching) and then photos are purchased a la microstock websites...
In that case I am not sure what the value is to the customer. By the time they have come up with a proposal etc. they could have just searched the stock sites, seems even more cumbersome.
That's what I was trying to point out. And for the second part, "Buyers / sellers would use this service because the prices would be better for both." seems to be a contradiction. Better prices for them and better rewards for us? Where does that come from?
As for the poll, answers 2 and 3 are virtually the same. No or I'd rather sell through and agency. That's No and No? :)
Lower commissions! e.g. move from $20 to buyer $10 (50%) for you to $18 to buyer $12 (33%) ?
Point taken on the poll answers. Thanks!
You're welcome. Good luck with your ideas and project.
I don't mean to be a total wet blanket, but I think you need to work on your business plan, figure costs, expenses, and how you will be able to run a business and make enough profit to pay the artists better at the same time. Of course, just about everyone would like to make more and if you can do that, you'll attract all kinds of material and artists. :)
Lowering the price does not always increase sales and, in fact, a discounted price can make your product look cheaper and less valuable, which will create a negative view. New businesses in this market don't set anything, the big ones have established that by now. Cheap competition led the race to the bottom, which unfortunately the bigger agencies feared, when they shouldn't have. (maybe?)
I see the value in Microstock as "good enough" for a value price. Far too many junk images, fill the agency sites. Quality sells and buyers will pay, if they need something better. Part of our competition is free image sites and those downloads are usually by people who would not pay for an image or are not big volume users. Even with that, there are many more considerations and types of markets and buyers to consider.
So you can take the simple view, which isn't totally wrong, that Microstock is a volume market, based on price and quality is secondary. Where will you find the buyers? This isn't a market/business with demand that needs to be filled or where competition is lacking. Or you could target quality and not depend on price as much. Or... you could do what none have seemed to capture yet. Reasonable price point and only high quality! In other words, not Microstock.
Here's the current situation. Sellers: "We offer more images at a lower price." Buyers: "We want better and quality images, at a fair price" And they will pay for what they want and need, if they can find things, without going through 90% rubbish, scraps, similar and filler.
Pick your target!