I need a place that automatically handles all the International VAT issues and tax requirements for Germany.

The EU to EU VAT taxes for digital goods are quite a nightmare. The good news is that Shopify handles automatically them to consumers already in the basic plan.
For B2B VAT reverse charge the EU company has to login for the validation. I''ll write a post about the handling of VAT taxes on my blog.

If prices on most agencies keep dropping then having our own stores, or at least one store about a specialized subject we love, is a good add on.

This is my idea, I make a bet on 

I am still trying to understand what is the advantage over using Photoshelter or Photodeck?

Or Smugmug?

I think personally I would prefer a place that is officially an agency, lets me set my own prices and upload whatever I want, but does all the billing under their own system with the customer, so I just get my monthly summed royalty.

I was thinking of maybe using my pond5 exclusive account for a specialized theme for photos and videos. But I just learned that only video is treated exclusively.

Most important I need a defined subject with at least 1000 files.

And if they are good enough, they should probably go to higher end agencies, like stocksy.

But I will follow your project with interest.

The advantage of a shop would be if it can be integrated into my own website, so that longterm people bookmark my site without being dependent on an agency.

I can only say that years ago I discarded these websites, because there were not enough automatism to upload quickly many images at once and populate the pages accordingly. You have a lot of hard boring work  to do without the time to concentrate on what you want to do. The difference using Pixify is striking.

I am still trying to understand what is the advantage over using Photoshelter or Photodeck?

Or Smugmug?

I think personally I would prefer a place that is officially an agency, lets me set my own prices and upload whatever I want, but does all the billing under their own system with the customer, so I just get my monthly summed royalty.

I was thinking of maybe using my pond5 exclusive account for a specialized theme for photos and videos. But I just learned that only video is treated exclusively.

Most important I need a defined subject with at least 1000 files.

And if they are good enough, they should probably go to higher end agencies, like stocksy.

But I will follow your project with interest.

The advantage of a shop would be if it can be integrated into my own website, so that longterm people bookmark my site without being dependent on an agency.

Shopify seems to have an SEO advantage with Google so I'm giving it a try to see what happens. Like with any personal website, success lies in getting your own traffic and having something unique buyers want.

Photoshelter - I just dropped them after having a website for over ten years. I no longer have any confidence in their longevity. Long time ago they tried to launch an agency and abandoned it. Then they did a much advertised platform update (named Beam?) which seemed half baked. Then they shifted their business away from photographers/artists to chasing corporate clients with digital asset management. Then they went back to chasing photographers/artists so I'm not sure if DAM is still a core part of their business. Then a few years ago they made a highly promoted announcement of massive platform updates. During this time my sales went from okay to nothing. Their platform isn't overly customizable and the user interface is a cobbled together bandaged mishmash of UI designs from different time periods. Now they seem to only spend time on writing posts on their blog which I really dont care at all about. They just seem to be struggling to find their way as a business but that's only my perception.

Photodeck - My main website is with them and overall I'm happy. It's a small UK based company so there's always a concern with them deciding to exit the business. However, they post somewhat regular updates about new functionality they've added. Platform is highly customizable, SEO capabilities are reasonably good and I get decent traffic and regular sales. Performance is very fast and the user interface is well organized and intuitive but probably leaning a little more toward techie than the bubbly friendly UI of Shopify. The licensing options include prints, RF and RM. I totally customized the RM configuration to meet my needs. I get a mix of higher dollar RM licensing sales and print sales. They also have a handful of print integration partners for automated fulfillment. Overall a very nice website platform for artists who are a bit more into customizing.

Shopify - Just setting up my site now. I want a platform I dont need to worry about spending a ton of time on and then them going out of business. And I want more traffic and sales. My Photodeck site gets decent traffic but I seemed to have hit an SEO wall where I'm not able to increase traffic any further. As a test I did a bunch of Google searches to see which art websites showed up toward the front. After getting past the big sites, usually next up were independent artists with Shopify websites. The Shopify user interface is very slick and intuitive with a ton of apps you can add for SEO, customer live chat, stock licensing, and even fully automated POD fulfillment such as through Printful. With Printful, Printify and other POD apps, customers can place orders and you dont need to do anything. The Shopify order automatically goes to Printful and they print and ship.

Smgmug - Tried it for a while and didn't like the platform and had zero sales.

Quote from: cobalt on July 07, 2022, 09:29

I am still trying to understand what is the advantage over using Photoshelter or Photodeck?

Or Smugmug?

I think personally I would prefer a place that is officially an agency, lets me set my own prices and upload whatever I want, but does all the billing under their own system with the customer, so I just get my monthly summed royalty.

I was thinking of maybe using my pond5 exclusive account for a specialized theme for photos and videos. But I just learned that only video is treated exclusively.

Most important I need a defined subject with at least 1000 files.

And if they are good enough, they should probably go to higher end agencies, like stocksy.

But I will follow your project with interest.

The advantage of a shop would be if it can be integrated into my own website, so that longterm people bookmark my site without being dependent on an agency.

Shopify seems to have an SEO advantage with Google so I'm giving it a try to see what happens. Like with any personal website, success lies in getting your own traffic and having something unique buyers want.

Photoshelter - I just dropped them after having a website for over ten years. I no longer have any confidence in their longevity. Long time ago they tried to launch an agency and abandoned it. Then they did a much advertised platform update (named Beam?) which seemed half baked. Then they shifted their business away from photographers/artists to chasing corporate clients with digital asset management. Then they went back to chasing photographers/artists so I'm not sure if DAM is still a core part of their business. Then a few years ago they made a highly promoted announcement of massive platform updates. During this time my sales went from okay to nothing. Their platform isn't overly customizable and the user interface is a cobbled together bandaged mishmash of UI designs from different time periods. Now they seem to only spend time on writing posts on their blog which I really dont care at all about. They just seem to be struggling to find their way as a business but that's only my perception.

Photodeck - My main website is with them and overall I'm happy. It's a small UK based company so there's always a concern with them deciding to exit the business. However, they post somewhat regular updates about new functionality they've added. Platform is highly customizable, SEO capabilities are reasonably good and I get decent traffic and regular sales. Performance is very fast and the user interface is well organized and intuitive but probably leaning a little more toward techie than the bubbly friendly UI of Shopify. The licensing options include prints, RF and RM. I totally customized the RM configuration to meet my needs. I get a mix of higher dollar RM licensing sales and print sales. They also have a handful of print integration partners for automated fulfillment. Overall a very nice website platform for artists who are a bit more into customizing.

Shopify - Just setting up my site now. I want a platform I dont need to worry about spending a ton of time on and then them going out of business. And I want more traffic and sales. My Photodeck site gets decent traffic but I seemed to have hit an SEO wall where I'm not able to increase traffic any further. As a test I did a bunch of Google searches to see which art websites showed up toward the front. After getting past the big sites, usually next up were independent artists with Shopify websites. The Shopify user interface is very slick and intuitive with a ton of apps you can add for SEO, customer live chat, stock licensing, and even fully automated POD fulfillment such as through Printful. With Printful, Printify and other POD apps, customers can place orders and you dont need to do anything. The Shopify order automatically goes to Printful and they print and ship.

Smgmug - Tried it for a while and didn't like the platform and had zero sales.

Thank you very much for sharing your quite valuable experience!
I was impressed by the Shopify fast loading pages and a fast website is now absolutely important for traffic and sales.

Any chances of getting regular stock sales on these sites (Photodeck, Shopify, Smugmug, etc.) by organic traffic only, without doing any promotion (ads, social networks, blogs, etc.)?

Quote from: somewhere on August 21, 2022, 12:07

Any chances of getting regular stock sales on these sites (Photodeck, Shopify, Smugmug, etc.) by organic traffic only, without doing any promotion (ads, social networks, blogs, etc.)?

My husband's shopify account gets very good 'organic' sales - but he is not a photographer. He sells collectible highly sought-after physical items - so he gets sales via search engines.

I think its like everything else, it all depends on what you're selling, how sought after it is, and how much competition you have for your product.

However, on my old website (powered by Simple Site) I was getting a lot of traffic by posting to social media, writing blogs, etc. When I stopped that, the traffic died down to about half. I was still getting some traffic by not doing anything, but not as much, obviously. It was not an online shop though, and only had links to where my photography and video were sold.

When I was on Smugmug a few years ago, I never promoted the site, and never made any sales.

one of the reasons i went with pixify/shopify is that S has a good reputation for SEO - i'm getting ready to open my store soon, So we'll see. pixify has been incredibly easy to use and is optimized for photography.  bought a new domain & getting google analytics going

i'm also pairing it with a WP blog at http://cascoly-images.com, while building a base in twitter - adding about 800 followers this month  using links to my FAA site

My favorite part: "Your Pattern-only listings don�t need to follow our handmade, vintage, or craft supply policies."

Neither do Etsy listings.

Quote from: Uncle Pete on August 22, 2022, 15:59

My favorite part: "Your Pattern-only listings don�t need to follow our handmade, vintage, or craft supply policies." Neither do Etsy listings.

Let me help for anyone who doesn't know. You can buy these for $1 at the bank. 

Unless 2000 is now "vintage"? As in 2000 was a good year for coins, it's a vintage crop?

Pete, that's about the 3rd or 4th time you've dragged out those g-dam coins every time someone mentions Etsy.    (Apologies to the OP for getting off-track on an otherwise very good and helpful thread).

Because Etsy doesn't abide by their own rules and if I'm working someplace with cons, fakes and lies, I'm not happy to be associated with that group of sellers. 

I realize that you have some special and individual content and Etsy words for templates, design bundles and quality specifics. General images, like I make, are not going to do it on Etsy. Maybe on Shopify?

I'm looking at Shopify as possibly a best answer to self hosted at a reasonable cost. When I looked at software, from a place that did digital download sites, it was out of this world, I mean $5,000 a month and they wanted to do the hosting because of speed. For a shop?

I hope that Pattern works out for everyone that finds it useful and a place to sell their honest and creative products.

Quote from: somewhere on August 21, 2022, 12:07

Any chances of getting regular stock sales on these sites (Photodeck, Shopify, Smugmug, etc.) by organic traffic only, without doing any promotion (ads, social networks, blogs, etc.)?

Photodeck has good SEO in my experience. If you know SEO, how to structure SEO content, and have something unique buyers need, you'll get organic traffic. For me it's mostly Google with a distant second being organic social media sharing.

If you just take your ports from the micros and dump them in something like Photodeck or Shopify, I doubt many, or any, sales would come from this. I separated my ports. The stuff I have in micro is totally different from what I have on my personal website. The prices on my personal site are macro-level starting at $100 and going into the thousands. I make fewer sales but one sale can equal months of micro sales.

major reasons i decided to try pixify:

"Shopify online stores have SEO built in and features to help you optimize your content. Some SEO is taken care of automatically: auto-generated canonical tags are added to pages to prevent duplicate content from appearing in search results, your website�s sitemap.xml and robots.txt files are automatically generated, and themes automatically generate title tags that include your store name. Also, themes are required to have social media linking and sharing options to make it easier for you to market your store".

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/promoting-marketing/seo/seo-overview

unlike etsy, ebay,etc there is no central shopify host, your viewers can't wander  to another store - instead you have a site such as cascoly.myshopify.com and can shift to your own domain eg cascoly.photography (these are pwd protected while i test

finally, shopify has an extensive test mopde for complete checkout thru actual downloads, and also can test for particular errors

�   Use credit card number 4000000000000002 to generate a card declined message.
�   Use credit card number 4242424242424241 to generate an incorrect number message.
�   Use credit card number 4000000000000259 to simulate a disputed transaction.
�   Use an invalid expiry month, for example 13, to generate an invalid expiry month message.
�   Use an expiry year in the past to generate an invalid expiry year message.
�   Use a two-digit security code number to generate an invalid security code message.
 

Just opened my pixify/shopify store - comments/suggestions appreciated.

http://cascoly.photography 

Topics include:
   Elements of design
   Vintage art
      Maps
      Victorian fashion
      Military
   Nature
   Travel
   Videos

I did a quick look-around and here are a few things I noticed. Good luck with the site.

I can't see the image dimensions in pixels (or if it's there, I couldn't find it). To know if an image is large enough for certain projects, that information is important (and provided by all the agencies)

It's nice that you can zoom in to see details, but it's a rather hidden feature. I just clicked to see what would happen and then I did get a zoomed in view with a minus-magnifying-glass cursor showing I could zoom out. (Mac OS 12.5.1, Chrome). It would be nice to have a visual cue that zoom is possible.

The license is quite different from a typical agency license in a number of ways. The requirement for credit was noted above, but it also says you can't use more than 20 of your images in one project. Not sure how important that is, but the overall tone of the license is such that I'd be worried I'd inadvertently mess up and violate it. Most people will be honest, and those that aren't probably won't read the license or worry about violating the rules anyway. I'd simplify/streamline it.

Images aren't marked as editorial or commercial use - as a buyer, I'd like to know which is which.

The advertising in the license was very distracting. I assume it's because the license is in another part of your blog/history site which carries ads, but I think it'd be better for the license to be on the pixfy part of the site and ad-free. Shutterstock ads showed up multiple times, so clicking on that takes me away to license someone else's images.

I tried clicking on keywords underneath an image to see if they'd do a new search on that keyword - they don't, but that'd be a nice thing to have IMO.

If you have zoomed in on an image and then click on one of the drop-down menus at the top, the menu goes behind the zoomed-in image. You can select the half-seen menu item  (if it's on the side, and it works), but most menus are completely obscured.

Just opened my pixify/shopify store - comments/suggestions appreciated.

http://cascoly.photography 

Topics include:
   Elements of design
   Vintage art
      Maps
      Victorian fashion
      Military
   Nature
   Travel
   Videos

Well done on getting it all set up so quickly! Kudos.

Jo Ann has some great suggestions on the technical side of things.

My suggestion is, if you have the ability to include several photos, then I highly recommend that. I know that is moving away from what we are used to on microstock agencies, but compare it to say, FAA and such. For example, you may want to show your photo in a frame on a wall. (Mockups are available for that).

I learnt quite a lot of things from selling direct: how to grab the attention of customers who are just browsing, how to use each listing as marketing tools, for cross promotions, store promotions, and more recently for avoiding customer dissatisfaction. Its a lot more work - but its really boosted my direct sales, and reduced the number of buyer messages, questions, and irritable customers.

My sales just come through now, a lot of multiple sales from individual customers because its part of my promotions, with very little else for me to do. Not having to answer buyers questions or fixing their mistakes is a big deal. Trust me!

...
...
My suggestion is, if you have the ability to include several photos, then I highly recommend that. I know that is moving away from what we are used to on microstock agencies, but compare it to say, FAA and such. For example, you may want to show your photo in a frame on a wall. (Mockups are available for that).
...

thanks for the quick response! 

pixify doesnt have that option
currently pixify is digital only, so i link to FAA for prints, etc

I wanted to post my alternative to Shopify above in case it helped others find quick alternative websites. When I set up my husband's shopify account, I found it very time-consuming. All I want at the moment, is something that is quick and easy to set up, the licensing and payment provisions are all ready taken care of, and I just have a shop plus a place for my blogs.

Shopify is great! But to me its like buying a new whiz-bang smart TV with a huge amount of features, but when you get the new remote - there's about 200 buttons and you think, all I want are my old 6 buttons to navigate

that's why i hadn't previously considered etsy or shopify. (zazzle & FAA pose similar problems)

- the power of pixify is ability to upload batches of images and create product pages for the entire batch with 1 click.  pixify extracts the details for each image.