Author Topic: Fotolia changes to Exclusivity and other News (Read 50374 times)

madelaide · « **Reply #100 on:** February 19, 2009, 17:31 »

Quote from: Fred on February 19, 2009, 01:47

Frankly I don't have much of a problem with the changes. However, I don't see anyone doing the math right on the price and commissions changes.

As I have stated, my calculations presumed the same sales and I questioned if it would be real.

However, it is possible that it will give us a better result. At least this is what seems to have happened in price changes in other sites such as IS and DT. Are buyers really so tight in their budges that they can't pay US$6 instead of US$5 for an L image? Or even US$60 instead of US$50 for 10 L images?

Regards,
Adelaide

gostwyck · « **Reply #101 on:** February 19, 2009, 17:40 »

Quote from: madelaide on February 19, 2009, 17:25

IS commissions are indeed lower, but they have been the same since I signed up with them, so I was aware of this. All IS changes in pricing were positive, they never paid us less. They let us opt out any subs in any image, and subs packages are not absurdly low cost as in FT (which is, if I am not wrong, the cheapest).

FT however is constantly making changes that are negative to us - subscriptions, no opt-out option, new rank limits, and now lower commissions. They abuse of the right of changing the contract with us, IMHO.

Indeed, XS in IS may pay us only 19c vs at least 30c in FT, but I don't get in FT the higher commissions I get in IS (US$2.76 in one this month, and even in the new price plan FT won't pay us that for a XL image).

I used to like FT a lot, but their latest moves were very disappointing. It is still an excellent earner for me (and it's ahead of IS so far this month), still I don't like the way it is managed.

Regards,
Adelaide

Good points but of course IS's greatest strength are their exclusive contributors. They more or less have to treat them with kid-gloves in case they induce a mass exodus and a gift to the competition.

As long as FT continues to grow my portfolio's income by 90%+ per year, as they have done for the last couple of years, then they have my confidence.

I think it's fairly obvious that up to now FT have run a pretty lean and mean ship. For instance there's not much evidence of income being wasted wholesale on millions of trivial 'innovations' that add nothing of value to the site __ like some places I could think of.

lisafx · « **Reply #102 on:** February 19, 2009, 18:46 »

Quote from: gostwyck on February 19, 2009, 17:40

I think it's fairly obvious that up to now FT have run a pretty lean and mean ship. For instance there's not much evidence of income being wasted wholesale on millions of trivial 'innovations' that add nothing of value to the site __ like some places I could think of.

This is an excellent point. The growth in Fotolia over the past couple of years has been exponential, at least from what I can see. And the site has run smoothly with no noteable issues since V2, which was quite awhile ago.

The past year or so there have been a number of changes at FOT and many of them appear to negatively impact the contributors. That is cause for concern.

But like Gostwyck, I have seen my income from them rise. If they can offset the lower % with better marketing then there should be a net gain.

At least there was ample communication on this one. Guess I will be in wait-and-see mode....

RT · « **Reply #103 on:** February 19, 2009, 19:46 »

Quote from: gostwyck on February 19, 2009, 17:40

Good points but of course IS's greatest strength are their exclusive contributors. They more or less have to treat them with kid-gloves in case they induce a mass exodus and a gift to the competition.

IS's greatest strength is their marketing, they could treat their exclusives how they want and the majority would still woohoo their little hearts out in the forums.

Yuri_Arcurs · « **Reply #104 on:** February 20, 2009, 04:36 »

For Saphire contributors on FT I Just went down 5% in commission. From 45 to 40. That will hurt my income for sure. No doubt. I am thinking about this today and I will comment it more in details when I have receive reply from Oleg.

Freezingpictures · « **Reply #105 on:** February 20, 2009, 04:57 »

Yes Fotolia had an amazing growth rate and this month for the first time there is a race between iStockphoto and Fotolia for the 1st place. If they continue to grow at that speed and put the extra money into marketing I am ok with that.

sam100 · « **Reply #106 on:** February 20, 2009, 05:15 »

I didn’t want to comment until I checked my numbers and math.

Under the current prices my income based on the latest 100 downloads is as follow :

-   15 xl = 29.25
-   15 l = 24.40
-   21 m = 24.57
-   6 s = 4.68
-   19 xs = 7.92
-   24 subs = 7.82

Giving a total of 98.23 dollar.

Under the newly announced prices it would be as follow :

-   15 xl = 32.40
-   15 l = 27
-   21 m = 30.24
-   6 s = 4.32
-   19 xs = 6.84
-   24 subs = 7.92

Giving a total of 108.92 dollar. Increase 11 %.

But here comes the big but… let’s take into consideration that the free section will have a negative impact on regular sales, I know for a fact the huge free section on 123 did and still does.

Let’s take into consideration that there will be buyers switching to sub sales knowing that the L size is sufficient for their needs.

Let’s take into consideration that there will be buyers that instead of a xl size will go for the l size , buyers from L size will go for M size, buyers from M size will go for S size, buyers from S size go for XS size………….. to break even with their budget and the amount of pictures they need on a monthly basis.

Going exclusive with Fotolia is not an option for me, that would result in a decrease of income by almost 60 % (higher commissions are included in this math) due to the lost income from other stock sites.

Conclusion… I might consider myself lucky if my Fotolia income remains the same, however, I fear it will drop.

Just my two cents.

Patrick H.

gostwyck · « **Reply #107 on:** February 20, 2009, 05:29 »

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on February 20, 2009, 04:36

For Saphire contributors on FT I Just went down 5% in commission. From 45 to 40. That will hurt my income for sure. No doubt. I am thinking about this today and I will comment it more in details when I have receive reply from Oleg.

Your ranking is Ruby not Saphire surely?

I understand your concern but, even at 40%, FT are still paying double the % you receive from IS. Is it still the case that FT are your highest earning site?

Perrush · « **Reply #108 on:** February 20, 2009, 06:08 »

Quote from: gostwyck on February 20, 2009, 05:29

I understand your concern but, even at 40%, FT are still paying double the % you receive from IS. Is it still the case that FT are your highest earning site?

gostwyck,

it doesn't matter if they make us more money or not. It's the way they treat us.

Have you heard anything about the $£€-issue ? Are you aware that many of us are being paid 40% !! less than those in Europe ?

Do you really believe the EL license change was a mistake ? Or did they suddenly feel the heat of everyone who said they would opt out? (thank God there is an opt out button) We'll never know.

why must they lover our commissions ? Why not just increase the credits (maybe a bit less) and leave the commission.

Why do sub sales don't count for your ranking ? I had 40% subs last month !!

Why did they changed contributor levels so much ?

why ...

it's endless. And all these changes are for the worse for use or does benefit FT much more. why don't we see this at Dreamstime ?

gostwyck · « **Reply #109 on:** February 20, 2009, 06:27 »

Quote from: Perrush on February 20, 2009, 06:08

why don't we see this at Dreamstime ?

Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that sales at DT are actually increasing __ but at a snail's pace compared to FT?

I'm not doing microstock to be fawned over, 'valued' and 'appreciated'. I'm doing it for the money. Forget all the niceties __ just stick it in my hand guv'nor.

fotografer · « **Reply #110 on:** February 20, 2009, 08:55 »

Cheers to that.

Quote from: gostwyck on February 20, 2009, 06:27

I'm not doing microstock to be fawned over, 'valued' and 'appreciated'. I'm doing it for the money. Forget all the niceties __ just stick it in my hand guv'nor.

Pixart · « **Reply #111 on:** February 20, 2009, 11:09 »

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on February 20, 2009, 04:36

For Saphire contributors on FT I Just went down 5% in commission. From 45 to 40. That will hurt my income for sure. No doubt. I am thinking about this today and I will comment it more in details when I have receive reply from Oleg.

Yuri, did they take away your Rubis status? I noticed they made changes to ranking almost immediately after you reached Rubis.

fotografer · « **Reply #112 on:** February 20, 2009, 11:48 »

He's still down as rubis on the fotolia ranking list and as far as I know we were all able to keep our current ranks.

Quote from: Pixart on February 20, 2009, 11:09

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on February 20, 2009, 04:36
For Saphire contributors on FT I Just went down 5% in commission. From 45 to 40. That will hurt my income for sure. No doubt. I am thinking about this today and I will comment it more in details when I have receive reply from Oleg.

Yuri, did they take away your Rubis status? I noticed they made changes to ranking almost immediately after you reached Rubis.

Pheby · « **Reply #113 on:** February 20, 2009, 12:50 »

Yuri must have become rubis in September, the changes to the ranking were made in the middle of december.
And yes, we did all keep our ranks.

In the German Fotolia-forum it was announced by a moderator today that a new, corrected version of the newsletter will go out "soon". It was admitted that the original newsletter had "mistakes" in it, i. e. the price for ELs.
Is it too naive to assume that the price for ELs can't have been a mistake because the newsletter went out in many different translations, each containing the same mistake?

I've been with Fotolia for only 9 months now, and this is the third time I've been surprised by an out-of-the-blue change for the worse. Both times before they have changed their mind (correcting the ranking change and the commision for subs) about it without informing me.

Everything happening there has not encouraged me to go exclusive with them (although they are by far my best earner), but to put more emphasis on building a reasonable port on istock, so that I can afford to delete my port on fotolia in the end.

In being innovative, which they are so proud of, they are always one step behind istock. And because of that, they keep copying istock's moves. But if competition got really tight, and only one single site of the big 6 survived, I am very sure that it wouldn't be fotolia!

peep · « **Reply #114 on:** February 20, 2009, 13:06 »

This is really wonderful :-( All I have been selling recently are either XSs or SUBs (which are laughing matter anyway). So it means I will probably sell more images but I will certainly earn less. Yeah, great. The better DT becomes, the worse FT...

Konstantin Sutyagin · « **Reply #115 on:** February 21, 2009, 07:59 »

Quote from: lisafx on February 19, 2009, 18:46

The past year or so there have been a number of changes at FOT and many of them appear to negatively impact the contributors. That is cause for concern.

But like Gostwyck, I have seen my income from them rise. If they can offset the lower % with better marketing then there should be a net gain.

It depends. For example if they manage to steal all the customers from Dreamstime and Stockxpert our RPI will drop due to worst commission at FT.

Karimala · « **Reply #116 on:** February 23, 2009, 08:26 »

Anyone who has followed my posts about Fotolia for the past two years knows I have serious issues with the company and how it's run.

That said, I think this is the first time in two years I'm not freaking out or threatening to bailout. The decrease in commissions doesn't make me happy, especially since they just raised them not long ago, but my numbers show a would-be 9% increase in earnings on my last 100 sales. I can live with that.

kgtoh · « **Reply #117 on:** March 05, 2009, 09:15 »

"
For the sake of argument I looked at the commission for a silver ranked photographer either totally non-exclusive or totally exclusive and in both cases, the photographer is making more money.
What I found doing some basic math if you are a non-exclusive, silver ranked photographer...

... So guys... You're gonna get rich on this, not poor
"

Looks like I missed the beginning of this thread.
I'd just like to say

No, no, no, no

This analysis is simplistic and false.

It ignores a basic economic principle called price elasticity of demand and ignores potential drops in sales due to reduced demand from increased prices.

Taking an extreme example:
If we are selling photos at $1 each, for 50 percent commission, that's 50 cents per sale.
If the agency increasing sales prices to $5, and reduces commision to 25 percent, then we're making $1.25 per sale.
By halving commissions, they are more than than doubling our earnings. Woo yay! Thank you!
Of course, it doesn't work that way, because any price increase will cause customers to buy less or buy from alternative sources.

Basically what Fotolia has done is
- increase prices
- to offset anticipated drops in sales from this price increase, they
- decrease costs (what they pay us)
- to shift the burden to the suppliers (us)
Basically they are maximizing profits at the expense of contributors.

It's their right to do so, but please don't insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise.

Peter · « **Reply #118 on:** March 07, 2009, 03:23 »

Quote from: Yuri_Arcurs on February 20, 2009, 04:36

For Saphire contributors on FT I Just went down 5% in commission. From 45 to 40. That will hurt my income for sure. No doubt. I am thinking about this today and I will comment it more in details when I have receive reply from Oleg.

and? Do you have any comment now?

madelaide · « **Reply #119 on:** March 07, 2009, 19:26 »

So far I am making 10% more, so FT is making 15% more (10% for the new prices and 5% for eating my already small share).

Of course, it is impossible to say if images would have been purchased at larger sizes in the old prices, what would have changed the figures above.

Regards,
Adelaide

Fred · « **Reply #120 on:** March 08, 2009, 02:22 »

Quote from: madelaide on March 07, 2009, 19:26

So far I am making 10% more, so FT is making 15% more (10% for the new prices and 5% for eating my already small share).

Of course, it is impossible to say if images would have been purchased at larger sizes in the old prices, what would have changed the figures above.

Regards,
Adelaide

What you can depend on is that in this economy most design shops will not increase their budgets for images to allow for FT's price increase. That means they must purchase fewer or cheaper images. The % decline will equal the % increase so if you want to figure out how you might do under the new prices don't look at your last 100 sales at the new rate, look at your last 100 - % price increase. (e.g. 100 - 10 for a 10% price increase). This will not be exact - too many other factors in play - but should give you a better idea of what to expect. fred

madelaide · « **Reply #121 on:** March 08, 2009, 15:56 »

Quote from: Fred on March 08, 2009, 02:22

What you can depend on is that in this economy most design shops will not increase their budgets for images to allow for FT's price increase. That means they must purchase fewer or cheaper images.

I don't know how much sales are actually affected, as we are still talking about very low prices. An image that costed US$4 now costs US$5. Is that a big deal, big enough to influence a designer's bid for a client? His man-hour is probably much more impacting. I believe he may on occasions be more selective, but I don't think this could be a major change.

It seems more reasonable that buyers look for cheaper sites, trading IS for FT, for instance.

Regards,
Adelaide

loop · « **Reply #122 on:** March 08, 2009, 17:29 »

Quote from: RT on February 19, 2009, 19:46

Quote from: gostwyck on February 19, 2009, 17:40
Good points but of course IS's greatest strength are their exclusive contributors. They more or less have to treat them with kid-gloves in case they induce a mass exodus and a gift to the competition.

IS's greatest strength is their marketing, they could treat their exclusives how they want and the majority would still woohoo their little hearts out in the forums.

Of course, that's just your uninformed opinion.

null · « **Reply #123 on:** March 08, 2009, 17:39 »

Quote from: loop on March 08, 2009, 17:29

Quote from: RT on February 19, 2009, 19:46
IS's greatest strength is their marketing, they could treat their exclusives how they want and the majority would still woohoo their little hearts out in the forums.
Of course, that's just your uninformed opinion.

No it's not, mr. Anonymous. It's a fact. Stay happy and avoid the IS forums. Just log in to ask payment now and then.

loop · « **Reply #124 on:** March 08, 2009, 18:38 »

Its a fact in your mind and in your wishes and fantasies, I concede that.

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Author Topic: Fotolia changes to Exclusivity and other News (Read 50374 times)

madelaide

gostwyck

lisafx

RT

Yuri_Arcurs

Freezingpictures

sam100

gostwyck

Perrush

gostwyck

fotografer

Pixart

fotografer

Pheby

peep

Konstantin Sutyagin

Karimala

kgtoh

Peter

madelaide

Fred

madelaide

loop

null

loop

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