Author Topic: What about the Panther ? (Read 9934 times)

takestock · « **on:** March 28, 2008, 17:57 »

How is it going for you on Panthermedia?
I see it as a very slow animal!
Long review times and very few " clicks" on images in Stock Agency.

Snufkin · « **Reply #1 on:** March 28, 2008, 19:05 »

Yeah, it is kind of slow as far as reviewing is concerned.
I joined this month, have now 8 images there, 4 got reviewer's recommendation, but no sales yet. I had a better start with another midstock German site, Shotshop - with only two files - first sale after a week.

But from what I read in a German stock forum, this site does work quite nicely, and some people report regular earnings - so I will definitely keep on uploading there.

I noticed that their search engine gives different results depending on the language of the interface. I had one picture of a German city that I uploaded with English keywords, and it appears in search results ONLY if the language is set to English, although I translated later the keywords into German. This file will just not be found if the buyer is using German interface. I will contact support about that, because this is the picture that got a sale on Shotshop after 1 week of being online.

If anybody would like to join Panthermedia, here is my referral link:
http://www.panthermedia.net/?aff=126849

Snufkin · « **Reply #2 on:** March 28, 2008, 19:14 »

On PM you get 30% commission if the image is sold also by cheaper sites, and 50% if the image is sold only by PM or more expensive sites. Some contributors don't like this regulation, but I can understand that they want to protect their market.

I split my images between the two options, and will see what brings more money in the end.

null · « **Reply #3 on:** March 28, 2008, 23:17 »

Quote from: Tom on March 28, 2008, 19:14

Some contributors don't like this regulation, but I can understand that they want to protect their market.

Correct, I dislike that arrangement because it's stupid. Exclusivity is something else, but apart from that, they have no business where and for how much I sell. If they like to punish contributors that don't behave like serfs like iStock does, that's fine. No uploads then. Nice market protection

Snufkin · « **Reply #4 on:** March 29, 2008, 00:20 »

Quote from: FlemishDreams on March 28, 2008, 23:17

Quote from: Tom on March 28, 2008, 19:14
Some contributors don't like this regulation, but I can understand that they want to protect their market.

Correct, I dislike that arrangement because it's stupid. Exclusivity is something else, but apart from that, they have no business where and for how much I sell. If they like to punish contributors that don't behave like serfs like iStock does, that's fine. No uploads then. Nice market protection

If a customer buys an image from PM for 49 EUR, and later finds out that he could have bought it for less than 1 USD, will he ever come back to PM?
I would like to see a growth of midstock sites, there is no reason that buyers should get any image they want, in superior quality for less than a buck, for the photographers it is a road to nowhere.

But the problem with PM is that they take into account the price for an A4 print, and apart from that size PM is actually often cheaper than their competition.

BTW, there is also a Swiss site called Imagepoint.biz, their approach is that generally they want exclusive images, but it is possible to make a deal with them that the image is also offered elsewhere, but for at least the same price. Compared to Imagepoint, PM is actually a low-cost agency. I heard that Imagepoint can sell quite well for very good prices, because they offer unique content.

diego_cervo · « **Reply #5 on:** March 29, 2008, 03:15 »

Quote from: takestock on March 28, 2008, 17:57

How is it going for you on Panthermedia?
I see it as a very slow animal!
Long review times and very few " clicks" on images in Stock Agency.

right, the review process is quite slow.
However, PM is starting to sell on a costant basis to me. This month I got 12 sales on a relatively small portfolio of 115 images.
In the next weeks I'll upload a portfolio specifically designed for the midstocks and see what happens with the 50% royalty. I'll keep you updated guys
Best regards,
Diego

null · « **Reply #6 on:** March 29, 2008, 06:58 »

Quote from: Tom on March 29, 2008, 00:20

If a customer buys an image from PM for 49 EUR, and later finds out that he could have bought it for less than 1 USD, will he ever come back to PM?

I still don't see the logic of punishing the contributor with just 30% instead of 50%. The buyer doesn't know that, and PM still wants to sell it. That means the buyer will get the same bad feeling. It would be much more logical of PM to ask for exclusivity.

You could adopt the strategy of uploading to PM first, and see what they accept. As I heard, they are rejecting a lot, so you could still upload the rejects to microstock afterwards. But since it seems their review process is very slow, you will effectively block your port for weeks when it could have made good money at DT, IS and SS.
If you consider your shots as capital (they are), long review times are blocking that capital from producing interest.

I probably was too fast on judging and I totally agree with your swing to midstock. I will leave Crestock and CanStockPhoto in the fall if they keeping selling my 10MP shots for my share of 0.25$, while MP sells exactly the same shots (2 till now) for my share of 12.5Euro. It doesn't feel right, even if the buyer will never know.

It's interesting to mention the discussion a year or more ago about the BigStock-Crystalgraphics thing. While BigStock sells shots for 5$, their (secret at that time) affiliate Crystalgraphics sold the same shots for 70$. Dawn defended this practice by telling that every site has its customer base and it knows what the market there can take. It's a pity, but all those threads seem have to be evaporated.

I just keep lurking on PM here, and how they handle review times and rejects...

leaf · « **Reply #7 on:** March 29, 2008, 08:05 »

vanished threads?? there are quite a few crystal graphics threads around.

do a search for

"crystal graphics" crystalgraphics (any of the words)

and you will find 5 threads.

or were your meaning on bigstock?

null · « **Reply #8 on:** March 29, 2008, 08:44 »

Quote from: leaf on March 29, 2008, 08:05

or were your meaning on bigstock?

Yes and especially Talkmicro where the battle was very heathed that time with Dawn posting. But TM had a few crashes and lost stuff.

Snufkin · « **Reply #9 on:** March 29, 2008, 12:40 »

Quote from: FlemishDreams on March 29, 2008, 06:58

You could adopt the strategy of uploading to PM first, and see what they accept. As I heard, they are rejecting a lot, so you could still upload the rejects to microstock afterwards. But since it seems their review process is very slow, you will effectively block your port for weeks when it could have made good money at DT, IS and SS.
If you consider your shots as capital (they are), long review times are blocking that capital from producing interest.

The issue is, they take everything I send them

and 50% of the images get reviewer's recommendation

. But this is surely because my port is veeery small, and I do a tough pre-selection myself... Maybe I also found a niche, where they are less picky.

As for review times, I guess it takes about 10 days, which is similar to other German midstock sites, and not much worse than Istock. I can live with that.

Snufkin · « **Reply #10 on:** March 29, 2008, 13:01 »

Quote from: FlemishDreams on March 29, 2008, 06:58

Quote from: Tom on March 29, 2008, 00:20
If a customer buys an image from PM for 49 EUR, and later finds out that he could have bought it for less than 1 USD, will he ever come back to PM?

I still don't see the logic of punishing the contributor with just 30% instead of 50%. The buyer doesn't know that, and PM still wants to sell it. That means the buyer will get the same bad feeling. It would be much more logical of PM to ask for exclusivity.

I think they just want to discourage people from uploading the same content to microstocks. They probably don't feel self-confident enough to ask for exclusivity (Imagepoint does).

What they do might not be the smartest thing, because the buyers can easily find out about their commision rates, and then they will know that the same content may be found cheaper and may start looking for other agencies.
It annoys quite many contributors, so PM will have to decide if this is the right business strategy.

graficallyminded · « **Reply #11 on:** March 29, 2008, 14:13 »

I get no views on my images there, and reviews are realllllly slow. I'm keeping them on the back burner. I dumped like 500 images on their ftp, but ill be completing the submissions very slowly.

leaf · « **Reply #12 on:** April 01, 2008, 05:18 »

anyone try ftp uploading today?

I thought i would try pantermedia out, but am getting an error after I edit the image info.

I also think it is ridiculous to have that 30% commision for images in other microstock sites

And since PM offers a license for UNLIMITED uses, whereas most other sites limit the use to 10,000 or so in print - they would be fored to buy the extended license on regular microstock sites making the cost MORE on other sites than on PM... hmmmmm

Contakt · « **Reply #13 on:** April 01, 2008, 06:05 »

Quote from: leaf on April 01, 2008, 05:18

anyone try ftp uploading today?

I thought i would try pantermedia out, but am getting an error after I edit the image info.

I also think it is ridiculous to have that 30% commision for images in other microstock sites

And since PM offers a license for UNLIMITED uses, whereas most other sites limit the use to 10,000 or so in print - they would be fored to buy the extended license on regular microstock sites making the cost MORE on other sites than on PM... hmmmmm

Anyone actually tried selling anything there first???

leaf · « **Reply #14 on:** April 01, 2008, 06:16 »

check out the march earnings thread
http://www.microstockgroup.com/index.php/topic,4100.msg40224/topicseen.html#new

freezingpictuers and yader are both uploading there... amoungst others

Snufkin · « **Reply #15 on:** April 01, 2008, 11:59 »

Quote from: leaf on April 01, 2008, 05:18

anyone try ftp uploading today?

I also think it is ridiculous to have that 30% commision for images in other microstock sites

And since PM offers a license for UNLIMITED uses, whereas most other sites limit the use to 10,000 or so in print - they would be fored to buy the extended license on regular microstock sites making the cost MORE on other sites than on PM... hmmmmm

IS pays 20% if you only cooperate with other agencies, 40% percent if you work only for them.
The lowest PM royalty for contributor is 1,47 EUR for a screen thumb, which is practically useless. 600x400 on PM brings for the contributor 2,97 EUR.
Istock: last week I had a sale for 0,24 USD.

Yet I do not see anyone complaining that Istock is ripping them off. PM actually pays much more than IS, both in percentage terms and in amount terms, but everybody seems to be complaining about PM.

I don't understand how difficult it is for people to divide images between agencies, and upload premium content only to the sites that charge premium prices, and the rest to the sites that charge peanuts.
By uploading premium content to sites charging peanuts, photographers are selling them rope with which they will be in the end hanged. Sooner or later the microstock market will get oversaturated and the revenue per image will drastically decrease.

Snufkin · « **Reply #16 on:** April 01, 2008, 12:03 »

Quote from: leaf on April 01, 2008, 05:18

anyone try ftp uploading today?

And since PM offers a license for UNLIMITED uses, whereas most other sites limit the use to 10,000 or so in print - they would be fored to buy the extended license on regular microstock sites making the cost MORE on other sites than on PM... hmmmmm

1. What percentage of your micro sales are EL?

2. I don't think that any microstock site actually monitors the usage of images sold for peanuts. It's not feasible.

I like it more when customers are charged more and do not have such limitations.

Snufkin · « **Reply #17 on:** April 01, 2008, 12:09 »

PM doesn't require photographer or image exclusivity, they just pay more if THE SAME IMAGE hasn't been uploaded to a cheaper site. Seems quite fair too me.

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Author Topic: What about the Panther ? (Read 9934 times)

takestock

Snufkin

Snufkin

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Snufkin

diego_cervo

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leaf

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Snufkin

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graficallyminded

leaf

Contakt

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