Hi all!

I recently wrote an article ( https://blog.mediacastpro.net/2024/05/27/stock-footage-better-to-sell-directly-or-use-an-agency/ ) on the advantages and disadvantages of:

• Selling stock footage through a microstock agency
• Selling stock footage directly

And on how mediaCastpro tries to combine the advantages of both of these modes.

Specifically on mediaCastpro:

• The seller can freely choose the selling prices of each video.
• Videos are put up for sale immediately without the need for prior approval.
• The seller gets at least 70% of each sale (versus 15-40% of many microstock agencies).
• The seller has a "shop" page in which all his/her videos for sale are shown and searches can be done within it.
• There are (almost) no constraints on codecs, resolution, duration, number of audio tracks, or anything else. For example, it is also possible to sell videos that are 3 hours long or have a Log profile (in the latter case, a LUT of the seller's choice can also be applied to the preview).
• The seller can choose whether to sell the footage with a standard license (i.e., multiple buyers can purchase and use it) or with an exclusive license (i.e., only one buyer can purchase it and get exclusivity). Both licenses allow unlimited use on any distribution channel, but of course only the exclusive license allows resale.

Is there any other feature that you think mediaCastpro lacks to really become a (almost) direct sales platform?

Some sellers have told us that they would like a little more flexibility on the choice of sales licenses, for example, to be able to sell some footage with a limited-time exclusive license. In case you also find the two licenses currently provided (standard and exclusive) lacking in flexibility, in what terms would you like more flexibility?

Every opinion is welcome. Thank you!

The Holy Grail of selling stock media direct (without an agency) is the requirement to sustainably drive large volumes of web traffic consisting of possible buyers to the platform.

Thank you for your feedback! You are certainly right, and in fact increasing web traffic from potential buyers is our main priority. However, it is only fair that as we try to increase traffic, we also try to improve the platform in terms of features. We also think: better features = more sellers = more supply = more traffic It is a side way to increase traffic.

Instead of asking what new features we want, first add the basic features that other agencies have.

I uploaded a batch videos contains different categories, which needs different titles and different information.
But when I am uploading, it is just shown add title and description for whole batch, not giving option to select individual clips to enter different information.

Are you a stock video producer yourself? If not - I'd suggest signing up for 6-7 different agencies, upload some clips yourself, to get a 'feel' for what is lacking and/or how easy/hard it is.

I'd say for most it really comes down to this:

a) Most people want to do very little, if any, work.
b) And they want to have HUGE MASSIVE PROFITS FOREVER AND EVER.

So if you can do that - cool.

While I haven't specifically taken a look at your site:

a) Make it super easy to upload & automatically categorize everything. People like EEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSY.

b) Have some basic theft deterrent things (otherwise you'll get east indians, etc stealing complete portfolios and uploading as their own). They already do that on the 'big' agencies - but the big agencies kind of don't really care. (Educated guess it is because they get money 2x over - 1st, for the (stolen) content - then 2nd - they get to keep "ALL" the profit when they 'take down' stolen content (they don't give it to the original contributor even though they should). But many producers find it extremely annoying when their portfolio is stolen. So put in some basic anti-theft stuff. Easy to do (none of the stupid "id verify" crap, that has nothing to do with safety/security - and much more to do with a small group of pyschopaths trying to control everything) - do it intelligently on the server end via programming when uploads take place. Super easy to do - and none of the 'id verify' crap (again, totally wrong, and totally unnecessary).

c) Then - of course - sales. Your MAIN "feature" should be focusing on how to drive MASSIVE MASSIVE sales. Producers/contributors really don't care too much else other than this. They don't care if you let them chose a pink or blue background, whether you let them upload an avatar, whether your font size is 12pt or 20pt. They care about MONEYYYYYYY AKA SALES. If you can make them lots and lots of MONEY, very easily without having to do a lot of work uploading/categorizing/etc - then they will be VERY VERY HAPPY.

That though, in a way, is a little bit of tricky part. It CAN be done - but requires a bit of work/focus/etc. Since you wish to act as a bit of an aggregate - much easier for you to do.

Funny thing is though - IF you start actually seeing the sales - you will actually (most likely) find you need to implement some type of moderation (which makes me suspect you aren't actually a producer, and rather a coder looking for an opportunity).

Simply because - you'll get morons that start uploading pornographic content, pure crap (like just absolute disgusting filth), spamming crap (i.e., 5000 videos of chickens), etc, etc... So you will actually need to do that, whether you do it now, or later. Unless - of course - your business plan is slightly different and you don't care about that - which - "could" work - but - it's a different business plan. So most likely you'll need to have some type of moderation. So you really shouldn't make that promise - because that is not really what contributors care about.

I'll re-iterate.

They care about:

a) SUPER EASY uploading with VERY LITTLE WORK categorizing/etc
b) Making sure easy indians + other cultures who like to steal & resell other people's works don't do that (quite simple to implement, and not with the stupid id verify thing. Just verify uploads, you are a coder, you know its simple to do).
c) And then MAKE MONEY! LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY! Figure out an effective marketing plan. Then ppl will be very interested.

That's what you do.

Before this, I felt uploading to Dreamstime is very time taking process, but Mediacastpro replaced it.

Very time taking to upload files/loading pages. All the microstock sites gives all the options(titles, descriptions, categories, tags, pricing, etc) to enter in one page, But only this site giving many pages for each option, and every page loads very slowly, and too many unnecessary pages

Before this, I felt uploading to Dreamstime is very time taking process, but Mediacastpro replaced it.

Very time taking to upload files/loading pages. All the microstock sites gives all the options(titles, descriptions, categories, tags, pricing, etc) to enter in one page, But only this site giving many pages for each option, and every page loads very slowly, and too many unnecessary pages

Thank you for your feedback. We are happy to inform that we have made some improvements to the web site to make the upload procedure faster:

• We have started using a CDN to speed up page loading (especially for those connecting from outside Europe).
• We have reduced the number of requests that are made to the server during the upload process, so as to reduce the waiting time (especially for those connecting from outside Europe).
• We have made optional some fields that were previously mandatory (such as categories or classification of files as original or transcoded).
• We have added a field where you can write or paste all tags together separated by commas, without the need to enter them individually.
• We have provided a new upload procedure, called �fast procedure�, which asks for all the data in one screen and pre-fills them with the data of the latest uploaded video. In this way it is sufficient to edit the data that need to change (such as title and description) while leaving all others unchanged (such as price, license, video type, etc.).

In any case, if you have a lot of videos to upload, it remains our recommendation to use FTP uploading. For metadata we accept CSV, XLSX and ODS, even in formats from other platforms.
If anyone has other suggestions for improving the web site, please let us know. We are always open to feedback or advice on how to improve.

This is just another stock agency, and it�s strange that you don�t want to call yourself that. Your difference from other stock agencies is very small.

We consider ourselves a marketplace because we allow sellers to set up their own store, where they can put all the videos they want for sale at the price they want.
eBay (or even Amazon) is universally considered a marketplace and does exactly that: it allows sellers to create their own store with the products they want at the price they want.
If you think mediaCastpro is missing some key feature to be considered a marketplace, let us know.
Agencies, on the other hand, choose what videos you can sell or not sell (sometimes taking up to months) and they decide the prices.
I understand that this may be a small difference for you (and many other contributors), and perhaps for you it may be a bad thing (we understand and respect that), but that is precisely the difference between an agency and a marketplace.

On the site, as a buyer, I do not see the search bar and cannot search for anything. You probably need to register for this, but this is not always convenient for customers.

You can browse mediaCastpro videos without being registered. There is a "Log in as guest" button on the home page, and also a "Log in as guest" button on the login page.

I also read from you:
"Are you interested in selling footage?
You have 1 TB free to upload your clips, with the option to ask us for more space if your clips sell well."

Since we are a marketplace and we do not submit content for prior approval, it is obvious that we have to somehow protect ourselves from users uploading endless amounts of poor quality videos that will probably never be sold. To protect ourselves from that, we have set a limit of 1 TB per user, so that if the videos are of poor quality, the user at most can take up that space, but no more. If the videos are of good quality, we give as much space as needed. Yuri Arcurs, to date, uses about 100 TB of space on our platform.

While this limitation can be troublesome (although we actually find it less troublesome than approval on every video), there is also a positive side, however: since we have less moderation work, the percentage we retain on sales is only 25-30% versus 60-85% for most agencies. I know the obvious objection is "it's better to take 15% from a platform that sells a lot than 75% from one that sells little". However, all platforms started out selling little and then grew, thanks to people believing in their business model.

After this phrase, I didn�t read anything further; I�m not interested in such a site for selling my videos.

We are sorry we did not meet your expectations. We still thank you for the feedback hoping to change your mind in the future

eBay

There are no limits on the number of items sellers can list. More precisely, the limit there is very conditional. For example, 250 products per day, per month is 7,500 products, per year - 90,000.

 

Better introduce moderation than what you are doing. And yes, I expressed my opinion. I avoid such sites.