MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => StockFresh => Topic started by: helix7 on December 16, 2011, 13:04
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I was singing the praises of StockFresh from early on. We first heard about the new company from the former StockXpert folks in June 2010, and it was made clear that the launch was a "soft" launch and no marketing would be done just yet. The goal was to build the collection and hit the market with a sizable enough portfolio to really pose a challenge to the well-established agencies. They offered an impressive site design, simple yet fair pricing, 50% royalties, $0.35 subs on medium and smaller images, and a no-BS credit system where a credit does really equal $1 or less.
A year and a half later, SF has surpassed 1 million images, a collection size that I suspect would be worthy enough to hit the market with, and yet there is little activity on the site and virtually no buyer activity for most people. In all this time I've personally collected just $30 in my account, more than half of which is from referrals.
I still have high hopes for Peter and the team, and SF in general. All of the building blocks of a badass agency are there. I'm just starting to wonder if the opportunity to take a chunk of the market is passing everyone by.
A few months ago SF could have distinguished themselves as a real alternative to istock. And to some extent they still can. But the distinguishing factors are diminishing. I think the opportunity for all agencies to blast istock on their lack of EPS10 compatibility for vector files could have been a huge selling point. istock has since finally caught up with the rest of the industry and adopted the EPS10 standard. I view it as a missed opportunity for SF and others.
This year, some new and exciting companies have emerged as serious players in microstock. PhotoDune/GraphicRiver (Envato) being at the top of my list. Veer seems to be picking up steam. And from the old guard, SS is still killing it as always and for many people (myself included) are growing steadily. It's a popular theory around here that SS is picking up many former istock customers.
I think those customers could have become SF customers if SF were more known several months back. istock took on many former StockXpert customers in the Jupiter acquisition, some of whom I'm sure would have rather remained StockXpert customers, and who might be very receptive to knowing that a new site was around that feels very much like the old StockXpert. As more customers potentially look for alternatives to istock, SF remains largely unknown to the buying population.
As I already mentioned, I'm optimistic for SF. Almost hopelessly optimistic, because the more realistic side of my brain tells me that this company is letting opportunities slip by and they may never come to market with the aggressiveness that will be necessary to not only take a shot at the big guys, but to also stand a chance against some promising up-and-comers.
Peter, I hope that you can tell me I'm wrong. I really hope that you can give us an update soon on the aggressive marketing plan being formulated, the sales push your team will be doing, something like that. But right now I'm finding it hard to stay optimistic, and I'm not sure it's worth my time to even continue uploading.
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sight
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Agencies rise up from being low selling sites all the time. 123RF did it recently and Fotolia did it in the past. Maybe, it will happen with SF. Maybe, it won't. All you can do is support them if you like their site, and hope the rest happens.
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Yep, I agree. I remember them saying they wanted a million images before they started marketing properly, but that was achieved a while ago now and I haven't seen any sign that a big ad campaign is coming. With 123RF sticking it to us and cutting commissions lately I would love to see the likes of StockFresh and Veer doing well, but my sales and views don't give me much hope. I am sitting on $5 at StockFresh and it is starting to feel like one of those sites I won't ever be able to claim a payment from.
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I'm going to leave what I have there as I can't see it doing much harm, but I've been very discouraged with StockFresh performance. I've had a decent chunk of my portfolio (nearly 1,500 images) up there since June and the total thus far is $11.50. PhotoDune has surpassed that with 300 images in one month (less than a month and for most of that time less than 300 images). WarmPicture (the artist collective/agency/?) has surpassed that and they have done no advertising at all and don't have close to a million images. Veer only has 300 of my images online (glacial reviewing and upload limits) and I've recently passed my first payout.
Unless I see some sort of uptick in activity, if I were asked if it's worth uploading there, I think I'd say don't bother for now. It's a shame as I think they've got a lot going for them.
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Like many of us on MSG, I've now spent WAY too much time getting my portfolio uploaded and approved on cool-looking new sites that never sold anything. And - also like many others - I've stopped submitting to IS, but kept my account active.
Personally I like repairing the things I have, rather than buying new, whenever possible. So here is my wildest fantasy for the coming year: IS is sold or spun off, and the new management apologizes for past mistakes, dynamites the entire current pricing, commission, and search structures, and replaces them with simplicity and sense.
Then I'd have a "Big 3" again and could stop playing with these shiny, sparkly new sites, hoping for a miracle.
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PhotoDune has surpassed that with 300 images in one month (less than a month and for most of that time less than 300 images). WarmPicture (the artist collective/agency/?) has surpassed that and they have done no advertising at all and don't have close to a million images.
I am surprised and pleased to hear our Warmpicture project has performed as well as Stockfresh, which I have a lot of hope for too. One thing I will add is that until someone sits on the other side of the table and tries to build a website capable of amassing hundreds or thousands of sales per day, they really have no idea how difficult it is.
We have only been at it since April/May, and I can tell you it has been one of the most frustratingly difficult endeavors I have ever undertaken. There are so many agencies out there, and so many people selling on their own. Trying to get the attention of the search engines has proven massively difficult. I've put nearly $10K into the project, and seen very little tangible return. But I'm still at it, and I still hope I can make our project something we are all proud of.
Regarding the success of Photodune, which is truly unusual and remarkable. They are part of the Envato network of graphic design sites. Utterly brilliant. They have essentially started from Day 1 with an established base of potential buyers. I am amazed that nobody has thought of this yet. The next big stock agency is not likely to come from someone like Google or Amazon, or another Getty spinoff. It is more likely to be born from an established graphic design or blogging network. Can you imagine if Problogger started selling blog size stock photos to compete in the subscription field? That would be huge.
Photodune is a success so far, and a big one for such a young startup. The question is, can they expand their customer base beyond their Envato network to something much larger?
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I can definitely appreciate the difficulties. Speaking just for myself, all I really need to see from a new site is a little growth in sales over time. Not much growth, and not many sales, but at least a sense that it's going somewhere. That's all I'd need in order to feel motivated.
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I am surprised and pleased to hear our Warmpicture project has performed as well as Stockfresh...
Much as I'm glad to see that Warmpicture is doing well, it's troubling that a project like that can out-perform StockFresh on an individual basis. My personal website is doing similarly better than SF for me.
It's concerning that not even passive web traffic has brought in enough buyers to make SF more profitable for contributors yet. With 1 million images, surely Google image searches or just general web searches should land some buyers on the site. And to their credit, they are advertising a bit, through banner ads on the BuySellAds network. Not sure how many placements they've purchased but they currently have one on Vecteezy that's supposed to get around 5 million impressions per month. And yet even with some marketing going on, the place feels like a ghost town. I'm not expecting to pay my bills from SF earnings, but at this point with a good size collection and some online advertising going on, things should be starting to pick up even a little bit.
...Photodune is a success so far, and a big one for such a young startup. The question is, can they expand their customer base beyond their Envato network to something much larger?
I've been with GraphicRiver (the vector and graphics part of Envato) since February 2009, and I've seen good growth throughout that time. The last 2 months have been phenomenal. I'm confident that they can continue to grow the entire network, and PhotoDune will be included in that growth.
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From an SEO perspective, PhotoDune came online immediately being backed by (and linked from) high Google Page Rank pages within the Envato network. That is an advantage which Stockfresh or any new endeavor could not hope to have. Sure they could pay for it (advertising), but it is pretty well known within the SEO community that ad links aren't weighed nearly as heavily as regular links. It just can't be replicated without a tremendous amount of link building.
BTW we could use a couple more high level photographers at Warmpicture (hint, hint) :)
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I was on the old StockXpert and knocked down $125 a month there on a regular basis. Yet when it came to the new SF site, they let me hang for several months awaiting their lofty stamp of approval. I just said screw it when the acceptance finally came and didn't even bother to submit. I had applied as soon as the opening was announced.
No worries. I do less and less micro stuff these days and have found much greener pastures.
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FWIW I never pursued it either. I put in my application the first month they asked for submissions, and never heard anything back. Several months ago I considered writing to SF support, but then I figured why bother? I could upload there, or I could put that time into uploading at Alamy. Alamy is now my #4 seller behind the Big 3, so it was clearly the right decision. Actually they are number #3 this month ahead of iStock, but there is a long way to go.
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I uploaded to them because of their previous connection to Stockxpert, and I was taken in by the waffle about waiting to get files online before they started their marketing campaign, truth is I get more sales on my own site for which I do no marketing whatsoever and apparently I'm in Stockfresh's top ten contributors!!
Has the opportunity passed? - Absolutely, I'll leave my port there purely because I don't want to waste the time deleting the files but I don't upload anymore, unless they launch a significant marketing campaign, and I mean actually do some real marketing not give us their usual BS about waiting for this or that to happen then the site is going to be another Luckyoliver.
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I will continue uploading there, but increasingly only as a matter of principle because of their stance on contributor commissions.
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It's not surprising that they haven't attracted a lot of buyers. Why would buyers use a site that has a much smaller collection of images than their rivals? I recently passed the $50 payout level. Sales are slow but I get some each month and the upload is so easy, I will keep using them. FeaturePics have stuck to a similar slow build up strategy. Sales are slow there too but the site has remained open when lots of others that spent too much have failed. I get a cash out every now and then for very little work. Lucky Oliver was fun while it lasted but FeaturePics are still making me some money.
It doesn't look like StockFresh is going to get many of the former Stockxpert buyers, that's a shame because it should be a good site for them. I hope as the collection grows, they become more attractive to buyers and I will keep uploading new images. How big does a collection have to be to make it worthwhile spending lots on marketing? I think they're wise to spend as little as they can but they're relying on the patience of contributors and that's also very risky.
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All this talk about SF, I just logged in to have a look and I have a sale, $2.50. I only have 34 images there, I was kind of put off by the low acceptance rate that I was getting. Might send them some more to see if it's still the same.
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I am sure a huge part of PhotoDune success can be attributed to extremely low competition among phogographers - all the thousands of contributors existing at iStock or shutterstock aren't on photodune yet. It can easily change as soon as more people will learn about them...
And, pre-existing market of their Envato marketplace is indeed another contributing factor. That part SF is missing.
I do hope SF will grow but I simply don't see how Peter can achieve that. Unless they invent something really interesting to distinguish from the competitors.
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...I do hope SF will grow but I simply don't see how Peter can achieve that. Unless they invent something really interesting to distinguish from the competitors.
They do have a distinguishing factor. They're just not using it to their advantage.
I think SF is the only remaining microstock site that keeps things as simple as they used to be at a lot of other sites. And I think buyers would respond well to that. It's a return to simpler times, no credit shenanigans, no wildly different prices from one image to the next. Credits are $1. Images cost $1-$20 depending on size. You buy what you need, no obligations. Simple.
The closest site to SF in terms of pricing simplicity I think is BigStock, but even they got it wrong. Why they felt the need to do the $X.99 pricing I'll never understand. Simple pricing would be $3, $5, $9, $13. Not $2.99, $4.99...
The other thing BigStock is doing well that SF should do similarly is going straight after istock in their advertising. If you're tired of the crazy pricing at istock and other sites, SF is the answer with the simple pricing, simple credit packages, and competitive prices.
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I am sure a huge part of PhotoDune success can be attributed to extremely low competition among phogographers - all the thousands of contributors existing at iStock or shutterstock aren't on photodune yet. It can easily change as soon as more people will learn about them...
That's what happened to me at GL. A nice bunch of sales in the first couple of months, then... flatline. They're not doing anything wrong, of course, and I hope they succeed. But small fish like myself are probably wasting our time chasing new sites that don't have enough of a buyer base to feed all the contributors they manage to recruit.
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...would be great to have some statement from Peter. I am still very hopefull for SF ;-)
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The closest site to SF in terms of pricing simplicity I think is BigStock, but even they got it wrong. Why they felt the need to do the $X.99 pricing I'll never understand. Simple pricing would be $3, $5, $9, $13. Not $2.99, $4.99...
Wow, you are way off on that. You might want to do some research into pricing and then decide for yourself. There are multiple studies, including several from Ivy League business programs, which prove x.99 pricing increases sales by 25 to 35 percent.
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The StockFresh site is well designed and contributor friendly. The images they use as examples are selected by someone with good taste. I've been getting regular monthly sales but nothing to write home about. More buyers is all they're missing.
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I've continued to slowly upload my portfolio there. Its easy to upload and I'm willing to support photodune as the royalities are reasonable.
They've sold more there for me lately than on Veer, the great microstock hope back from snapvillage days.
The silliest thing I could think of would to delete images you've already got up there unless you were going exclusive or something like that.
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Wow, you are way off on that. You might want to do some research into pricing and then decide for yourself. There are multiple studies, including several from Ivy League business programs, which prove x.99 pricing increases sales by 25 to 35 percent.
I never said it doesn't help sales. It's just not simple. If they really wanted to position themselves as the agency with the simplest pricing, I think it appears much more simple to the customer to say that images start at $3 than to say $2.99. It even makes the price graphics on the homepage unnecessarily larger.
I don't doubt that the psychology of that price format works. I just don't think it's truly as simple as it could be. At least not in appearance.
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Wow, you are way off on that. You might want to do some research into pricing and then decide for yourself. There are multiple studies, including several from Ivy League business programs, which prove x.99 pricing increases sales by 25 to 35 percent.
I never said it doesn't help sales. It's just not simple. If they really wanted to position themselves as the agency with the simplest pricing, I think it appears much more simple to the customer to say that images start at $3 than to say $2.99. It even makes the price graphics on the homepage unnecessarily larger.
I don't doubt that the psychology of that price format works. I just don't think it's truly as simple as it could be. At least not in appearance.
.99 pricing only annoys me whenever I encounter it and I have to be skeptical about studies showing that it increases sales. Microstocks seem unable to resist the temptation to make their pricing ever more complicated, with more tiers, levels, plans, discounts, etc. and I suspect a lot of buyers just end up at whatever agency makes it simplest.
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Hi Everyone,
I know you all have very high expectations of Stockfresh, and we're trying to live up to that. However, please don't forget that we're a small team with limited funding as opposed to other newer agencies who have either had huge investments (Depositphotos) or have a massive community to build on (Photodune). Without those it's simply not realistic to expect stellar growth so soon. Stockxpert started off quick because we had 500,000 potential customers on SXC already, but keep in mind that it took 4 years for SXC to grow that big. It's very easy to build on a huge community, but when you start literally from zero, it takes time to build a customer base, get your name out, establish yourself, saturate the search engines etc. It's a lot of work and whoever thinks it's possible to become successful within just 1-2 years has no idea what it takes to establish a business like this. Anyway, we're working on it, I believe we're on the right track because traffic is growing nicely and even though sales might be disappointing at the moment, I hope one day you'll all be satisfied! :)
Happy holidays!
Peter
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Thanks for the update Peter! I am definitly continuing to upload and know perfectly what you talk about when you say it takes time to establish a new business.
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Yes true, it does take a while for an agency to establish itself. I would say that we should keep supporting sf and stay patient. If it does take off eventually then at least sf aren't the kind of agency who would do a money grab like ft and IS, or so I would hope.
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Thanks for the reply, Peter.
I do understand that it takes time to build up the company, especially from scratch and without the boost from a very popular free image site like SXC. But no one is expecting stellar growth, either. Just some sign of life. A lot of people here make more money with their own personal websites than they do with StockFresh, and that just doesn't make any sense when SF does have a lot going for it. It's not just another 1 million+ collection. I don't know about everyone else, but I didn't upload all of my old junk from years ago. What you've got on SF is the better and most recent 50-60% of my portfolio. I'd assume that most people focus on their more recent work when uploading, so your collection is a bit more refined than most. It's 1 million strong images, not many millions of images propped up by old stuff.
I'm still pulling for you, Peter, I really am. It's just not so easy to stay positive with almost zero earnings.
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I'm staying in as well. Uploading takes no time (I upload to all sites at once) so there's nothing to lose. But I think more marketing couldn't hurt.
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I'm staying in as well. Uploading takes no time (I upload to all sites at once) so there's nothing to lose. But I think more marketing couldn't hurt.
my exact thoughts, I would say until then lower the min payout to 30$
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I'm staying in as well. Uploading takes no time (I upload to all sites at once) so there's nothing to lose. But I think more marketing couldn't hurt.
my exact thoughts, I would say until then lower the min payout to 30$
I am staying in as well, but I don't think they'll be around for another year.
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Thanks for the update Peter. I will stick with SF for a few more years. Had my first payment, sales are slow but at least there are some. FeaturePics has been around for years with low sales and I make more there now than I used to. It looks like slow growth is possible, it's very hard with us impatient contributors though.
I'm not surprised some people do better with their own site, they have no competition on their site. Are they including all the software and hosting expenses though? SF doesn't cost me anything other than the very little time it takes to process my new uploads.
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Application review took over a week so I cancelled out.
Maybe I'll give them another try someday.
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Are they including all the software and hosting expenses though? SF doesn't cost me anything other than the very little time it takes to process my new uploads.
Those costs really aren't that much and they are business expenses. Anyway...
It will be interesting to see how SF develops over the next few years. I like that they've been pretty open with communication and listening to their contributors.
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It's a lot of work and whoever thinks it's possible to become successful within just 1-2 years has no idea what it takes to establish a business like this.
I've been with Photodune less than a month, only half of my portfolio is online and I've made more money with them that I have with Stockfresh since it started 18 months ago. Sorry Peter you're a nice guy and I wish you the best but I've had enough of the excuses and empty promises, I upload my photos to agencies so that they can market and actually sell my work, I've lost faith that's ever going to happen with Stockfresh.
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Stockfresh is one of the slowest performing agencies for me. I to though, like many others, are hoping to stick it out with them in hopes of better times ahead. But seriously, some advertising should be happening and driving the push for more buyers.
There will come a point where none of us will be too keen to keep hanging on if nothing improves in the near future.
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It's going a tad slow indeed, but i see less and less time between different downloads, so i'd think there is some growth. The site excells in its simplicity and user-friendliness and the quality of the collection looks excellent...you guys have a lot going for you, i'm in for the long haul too :) (unfortunately im a small fish)
I also like contributors now can convert their royalties into credits (at a nice rate!)!
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It's a lot of work and whoever thinks it's possible to become successful within just 1-2 years has no idea what it takes to establish a business like this.
I've been with Photodune less than a month, only half of my portfolio is online and I've made more money with them that I have with Stockfresh since it started 18 months ago. Sorry Peter you're a nice guy and I wish you the best but I've had enough of the excuses and empty promises, I upload my photos to agencies so that they can market and actually sell my work, I've lost faith that's ever going to happen with Stockfresh.
What excuses? :) I'm just telling you what's going on.
Photodune: started with around 1 million potential customers - Stockfresh: started with 0 potential customers.
How on earth would we be able to compete with that at this point?
I'm not going to be ashamed just because we are smaller, especially since traffic is going nicely.
I understand everyone's very impatient (including me), but you have to start somewhere! :)
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What excuses? :) I'm just telling you what's going on.
Umm here's another one.
Photodune: started with around 1 million potential customers - Stockfresh: started with 0 potential customers.
How on earth would we be able to compete with that at this point?
Call me old fashioned but why not try what every other single business on earth does when it starts up - marketing or advertising. Oh let me save you the time in replying with something like "we don't want to rush in and waste a load of money on marketing until we've ............blah blah blah
I'm not going to be ashamed just because we are smaller, especially since traffic is going nicely.
I understand everyone's very impatient (including me), but you have to start somewhere! :)
Who said you should be ashamed because you're smaller? and maybe people are inpatient because almost a year to the day you said on this forum (I've bolded a relevant excuse part):
I'll pop in from time to time, don't worry! :)
Well, as you probably already know we have around 560,000 images at the moment, so the collection is shaping up nicely. As for the marketing drive, it's coming but we are not quite there yet. There are a couple of very important things that we need to sort out first. We really don't want to rush it because you can burn money fast if you're not doing things right. We want to be extra careful.
A newsletter is in the works. I also post all the important news on the Stockfresh blog which I'll try to update a bit more often in the future:
[url]http://stockfresh.com/blog[/url] ([url]http://stockfresh.com/blog[/url])
We're also on Facebook and Twitter. If there's something important going on, we definitely post it on both sites.
[url]http://www.facebook.com/stockfresh[/url] ([url]http://www.facebook.com/stockfresh[/url])
[url]http://www.twitter.com/stockfresh[/url] ([url]http://www.twitter.com/stockfresh[/url])
As I said best of luck but I'm no longer going to upload to Stockfresh, I'm in this as a business not a charity.
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You guys should find some financial investors, because you can't wait 5+ years for a company to flourish, especially not in the stock industry. It takes aggressive marketing and advertising to get those customers in and make some sales. Exactly what are you waiting for? You now have the 1 million+ images, a decent website, quality images, now DO something with it.
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My fist Stockxpert image uploaded had file ID#150 (around that) so consider it the very beginning of Stockxpert.
After all Peter went through, I have full confidence that he knows what he is doing.
Kindly remember, that he had built a company from nothing that was attractive enough to be picked by bigger macro stock agencies, not everyone is getting such offers, I would think.
Anyway. Considering the stability of the site, review times (!!!) and communication I don't see how they are worse than any other agency in the business. We get a decent commission and Stockfresh is not anyone's sole income from stock anyway, so I don't see the issue here.
Whether it's worth your time performing those few clicks to submit your images after FTPing them or not, is up to you.
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I'm not an expert, just a tiny microstocker, but I read a lot of stuff here as time goes by. My take on it is that the future belongs to agencies that makie it faster and easier for buyers to find what they want; price is important too, but as long as it's withing budget, it's secondary. The worst thing you can do is what IS did - make it a big complicated mess where a buyer doesn't pretty quickly get a page of relevant imags, all at roughly the same well-known price point.
This means investing time and money in developing better search (and keywording) processes and methods.
Just my 2 cents worth.
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A year ago I applied for acceptance - and 2 months went by heard nothing, emailed them - nothing - I watched their site but all they obviously wanted was microstock portfolios of high sellers from other agencies... so to be honest I thought why bother and withdrew and closed account. They have alienated people by not fulfilling their promises so nope the graphics people and advertisers I work with I do not mention them in my reccomendations. Sad really big start and no follow through.
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A year ago I applied for acceptance - and 2 months went by heard nothing, emailed them - nothing - I watched their site but all they obviously wanted was microstock portfolios of high sellers from other agencies... so to be honest I thought why bother and withdrew and closed account. They have alienated people by not fulfilling their promises so nope the graphics people and advertisers I work with I do not mention them in my reccomendations. Sad really big start and no follow through.
That can't be true, as they accepted me and I only have 375 images up, and not exactly a high seller. In fact, as of today, a pretty low seller there.
But I do agree with your sentiments. There are a lot of people who didn't get accepted, a long time has gone by without much marketing. But since they are still around, I guess they are happy with what they are getting out of it. Maybe they are getting enough sales and contributors to "sustain". :D
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A year ago I applied for acceptance - and 2 months went by heard nothing, emailed them - nothing - I watched their site but all they obviously wanted was microstock portfolios of high sellers from other agencies... so to be honest I thought why bother and withdrew and closed account. They have alienated people by not fulfilling their promises so nope the graphics people and advertisers I work with I do not mention them in my reccomendations. Sad really big start and no follow through.
I applied recently, took weeks to get reviewed and I also canceled out.
Like RT, I'm also in the processing of holding my uploads from agencies that bring nothing in return.
I'm not looking for storage space, I have HDD's for that, I'm looking for sales!
Rejection goes both ways people!
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Peter: Obviously a lot of folks around here are still optimistic about SF. Is there anything we can do besides uploading and keeping our fingers crossed?
You've got a lot going for you being a "fair trade" company. Us artists have extra incentive to see you succeed, so it would be worth our while to help you do that. And everyone likes to see the good guys win. :) Maybe there are things you could suggest we do to help boost SF in ways that go beyond just boosting the collection size. Any thoughts?
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same thing happened to me, the application status was rejected long time ago, and I have emailed at least 2 times to check how I can re-apply it again, but nothing is heard.
A year ago I applied for acceptance - and 2 months went by heard nothing, emailed them - nothing - I watched their site but all they obviously wanted was microstock portfolios of high sellers from other agencies... so to be honest I thought why bother and withdrew and closed account. They have alienated people by not fulfilling their promises so nope the graphics people and advertisers I work with I do not mention them in my reccomendations. Sad really big start and no follow through.
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Great site, too few buyers. Perhaps someone (decent) who wants to get in to the stock business can partner with Peter and put some marketing money and muscle into Stockfresh. I'm leaving my uploads there, but at a grand total of $18 since last summer, it's just not worth uploading more.
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26 downloads in total and just $3.5 short of a payout - looking forward to being able to withdraw. Earningswise SF is on par with (or perhaps slightly better than) FeaturePics, Cutcaster and YayMicro for me - sites that I also upload to in the hope that I'll get paid once or twice a year - still worth it in my opinion. What's to be impatient about? Get your large payouts every month from Shutterstock and Fotolia while slowly building up extra income from the smaller sites. I understand that some are afraid the small agencies will shut down while keeping unpaid earnings, but has that even happened before ? When Snapvillage closed I received my balance of ~$7 via PayPal. I was paid my due earnings from StockXpert as well when closing my account (after the Getty mess). LuckyOliver perhaps? I never had an account there so can't tell what happened..
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Get your large payouts every month from Shutterstock and Fotolia while slowly building up extra income from the smaller sites.
That's a good attitude.
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I lost my hope in SF, at this moment I'm 20 in popularity artist list of the site.
What's make me scary?
My earning of this month are less than 9 dollars...
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I lost my hope in SF, at this moment I'm 20 in popularity artist list of the site.
What's make me scary?
My earning of this month are less than 9 dollars...
That's weird. I'm much lower on the list but am earning something like $30-$50 every month there. I actually have much more hope for them. They seem to be heading in the right direction, though slowly.
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I lost my hope in SF, at this moment I'm 20 in popularity artist list of the site.
What's make me scary?
My earning of this month are less than 9 dollars...
That's weird. I'm much lower on the list but am earning something like $30-$50 every month there. I actually have much more hope for them. They seem to be heading in the right direction, though slowly.
Same here.
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I am averaging 10-25 dollars a month with them. There does seem to be a bit of growth since about June/July but with so few downloads it's difficult to say.
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Still a very low earner, but things seem to improve!
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I lost my hope in SF, at this moment I'm 20 in popularity artist list of the site.
What's make me scary?
My earning of this month are less than 9 dollars...
That's weird. I'm much lower on the list but am earning something like $30-$50 every month there. I actually have much more hope for them. They seem to be heading in the right direction, though slowly.
I think maybe that the list is portfolio size? ETA ooops just noticed you can sort it by different things
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I continue to upload there but I don't count SF in my monthly budgeting and forecasting since I only make roughly $5 to $10 a month there. It's the only site I check once a month. All others I check daily. If IS buys them we might have a WHOREMORA collection going:)
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I lost my hope in SF, at this moment I'm 20 in popularity artist list of the site.
What's make me scary?
My earning of this month are less than 9 dollars...
That's weird. I'm much lower on the list but am earning something like $30-$50 every month there. I actually have much more hope for them. They seem to be heading in the right direction, though slowly.
I think maybe that the list is portfolio size? ETA ooops just noticed you can sort it by different things
Yes it's very weird...I'm around 45 position in portfolio size...
So what does it mean "popularity"?
Just view for file and not sell for file?
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I know I'm reviving an old thread, but I was thinking about this today. After reviewing my numbers over the last year, I'm wondering what SF really brings to the table. For me, It's just low sales volume and a really low RPD. It's kind of how I felt about Crestock when I left there. I just didn't see the point in staying.
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I know I'm reviving an old thread, but I was thinking about this today. After reviewing my numbers over the last year, I'm wondering what SF really brings to the table. For me, It's just low sales volume and a really low RPD. It's kind of how I felt about Crestock when I left there. I just didn't see the point in staying.
My sales volume is very low too, but shows some growth, also very slowly. I am a buyer at SF too.
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I see signs of life there. I've done $25 this month so far... beats a sharp stick in the eye. It's not in my regular upload rotation... I just do a mass upload once in a while and ask them to add to my port. Pretty painless.
I think part of my decision to stick with them is the warm place in my heart I still hold for StockXpert. I remember my early days in ms being very excited by the rise of that site and the reliable earnings I saw there before they were swallowed by the mother ship and digested. Peter managed to grow StockXpert into something special, and I'm hoping he can apply the same magic to StockFresh... but hold onto it this time!
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Still flatlining (just about) for me. Glad it is working for some, but I don't see any point in uploading anything else (I have about 1500 there, I think) if the ones already there don't sell.
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I'm looking forward for the public announcement where they'll thank everyone for the hard work, but sadly they must go... ;D
These guys don't stand a chance.
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I'm looking forward for the public announcement where they'll thank everyone for the hard work, but sadly they must go... ;D
These guys don't stand a chance.
This is what I was thinking but I sincerely hope it doesn't happen, but survival has to endure growth. I was also thinking a bit in another direction. Could Peter have started SF with the intention to make a quick buck hoping he can sell it off to another bigger micro, like IS perhaps, once it has gained some traction?
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Still flatlining (just about) for me. Glad it is working for some, but I don't see any point in uploading anything else (I have about 1500 there, I think) if the ones already there don't sell.
That's pretty much my story too. Also, I haven't seen much or any capacity for the site to get large or vector sales. I'm mostly seeing subs or small credit sales.
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I guess its time for SF to evolve. Or not...
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I hope the opportunity is not passing but Im afraid unless they do something about their present search-engine, it could be. Why cant these guys have the same alogarithm as they had at StockXpert? makes no sense.
At the moment it seems that its like first come first served in the search, thats crazy! they should flaunt the best they have, or else, whats the point.
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I hope the opportunity is not passing but Im afraid unless they do something about their present search-engine, it could be. Why cant these guys have the same alogarithm as they had at StockXpert? makes no sense.
At the moment it seems that its like first come first served in the search, thats crazy! they should flaunt the best they have, or else, whats the point.
I've made $3 there in April :P "Opportunity passing? Ain't no stinking opportunity passing!" Joking of course. It sure isn't turning out like StockXpert that's for sure. Reluctantly, I am still going to upload as one of my "bottom of checklist to do's". It's simply part of the risk of MS....the time you spend uploading and what happens to your images if/when they do shut down. Still, I am rooting for them, but at 170-0 in the fourth quarter with 5 seconds to go on the 50 yard line, winning seems very unlikely.
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I hope the opportunity is not passing but Im afraid unless they do something about their present search-engine, it could be. Why cant these guys have the same alogarithm as they had at StockXpert? makes no sense.
At the moment it seems that its like first come first served in the search, thats crazy! they should flaunt the best they have, or else, whats the point.
I've made $3 there in April :P "Opportunity passing? Ain't no stinking opportunity passing!" Joking of course. It sure isn't turning out like StockXpert that's for sure. Reluctantly, I am still going to upload as one of my "bottom of checklist to do's". It's simply part of the risk of MS....the time you spend uploading and what happens to your images if/when they do shut down. Still, I am rooting for them, but at 170-0 in the fourth quarter with 5 seconds to go on the 50 yard line, winning seems very unlikely.
I know! thats because their search-engine is useless. They kind of put a whole lot of irrelevant meterial on first three pages, only because they were the first uploaded, you know, like thanks for joining us, etc, etc.
Thats not the way to do business.
You wanna do business! show the best, flaunt the best, thats it.
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It's possible something will happen on Monday, but I have zero sales for April so far. Even (everybody else) is doing better than that :)
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Looks like my pathetic 15$ is actually quite a good month then !!!
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Looks like my pathetic 15$ is actually quite a good month then !!!
Compared to my 50 cents this month - you're doing great.
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Looks like my pathetic 15$ is actually quite a good month then !!!
Compared to my 50 cents this month - you're doing great.
I keep on wondering why they donīt decrease the min payout ::)
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Looks like my pathetic 15$ is actually quite a good month then !!!
Compared to my 50 cents this month - you're doing great.
I keep on wondering why they donīt decrease the min payout ::)
Because when they go out of business they get to keep your money. Remember Lucky Oliver?
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Looks like my pathetic 15$ is actually quite a good month then !!!
Compared to my 50 cents this month - you're doing great.
I keep on wondering why they donīt decrease the min payout ::)
Because when they go out of business they get to keep your money. Remember Lucky Oliver?
not my time :/
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Looks like my pathetic 15$ is actually quite a good month then !!!
Compared to my 50 cents this month - you're doing great.
I keep on wondering why they donīt decrease the min payout ::)
Because when they go out of business they get to keep your money. Remember Lucky Oliver?
LO paid out asfaik. The only agency I heard that didn't pay once they called it a day, was Albumo, but then they came back years later still with everyones images. I've read a few times in this forum how difficult it is to get paid by ft, if you decide to quit them. I've not heard it for a while, so maybe they've reformed, then again...
I don't think SF are about to go out of business. I think they have gone for a slow methodical approach to building a ms site. They did well in getting past 1 million images so quickly without a pay to upload scheme. I think it would take years for new ms sites, which SF still is to gain traction. I'm sure they'll get ther in the end. Did stockxpert cut commissions? I don't remember them doing so. So hopefully SF will follow in this way once they get big.
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Looks like my pathetic 15$ is actually quite a good month then !!!
Compared to my 50 cents this month - you're doing great.
I keep on wondering why they donīt decrease the min payout ::)
Because when they go out of business they get to keep your money. Remember Lucky Oliver?
LO paid out asfaik. The only agency I heard that didn't pay once they called it a day, was Albumo, but then they came back years later still with everyones images. I've read a few times in this forum how difficult it is to get paid by ft, if you decide to quit them. I've not heard it for a while, so maybe they've reformed, then again...
I don't think SF are about to go out of business. I think they have gone for a slow methodical approach to building a ms site. They did well in getting past 1 million images so quickly without a pay to upload scheme. I think it would take years for new ms sites, which SF still is to gain traction. I'm sure they'll get ther in the end. Did stockxpert cut commissions? I don't remember them doing so. So hopefully SF will follow in this way once they get big.
You have to remember, back in the days when Stockxpert came, it was much less competition and a hell of a lot easier building a site. Today it must be close to a nightmare.
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Perhaps as the sites that Stockxpert buyers now use carry on raising prices, more of them will go to Stockfresh? I have no problem at all with the slow growth plan they're pursuing. It looked like Lucky Oliver failed because they spent too much and their investors pulled the plug. They did pay me nearly all the money I had left in my account.
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I also wonder where is the money that IS/GI paid them..