Author Topic: Jon Oringer just sent me an e-mail... (Read 46316 times)

luissantos84 · « **Reply #175 on:** October 19, 2012, 13:14 »

Quote from: Poncke on October 19, 2012, 12:58

Shutterstock Rules !!!

DUDE thanks for sharing!

sharpshot · « **Reply #176 on:** October 19, 2012, 13:17 »

Quote from: stockastic on October 19, 2012, 12:14

I guess if SS cut prices and commissions until they cornered the entire market, and forced the other agencies out of business entirely, we'd love them even more. Because they would definitely be the "top earner". And we'd heap scorn on all those pathetic loser agencies that couldn't sell anything for us.

When have they cut prices and commissions? They've only raised commissions since I started using them in 2006. And for people that are only interested in RPD, that's gone up over 100%.

stockastic · « **Reply #177 on:** October 19, 2012, 13:49 »

Quote from: sharpshot on October 19, 2012, 13:17

Quote from: stockastic on October 19, 2012, 12:14
I guess if SS cut prices and commissions until they cornered the entire market, and forced the other agencies out of business entirely, we'd love them even more. Because they would definitely be the "top earner". And we'd heap scorn on all those pathetic loser agencies that couldn't sell anything for us.
When have they cut prices and commissions? They've only raised commissions since I started using them in 2006. And for people that are only interested in RPD, that's gone up over 100%.

Note that I didn't say they had; just speculated on what would happen if they did. As others have pointed out, they started with extremely low prices and commissions to begin with. Was it so long ago that photographers were outraged at getting less than $1 for a sale?

But think about it. They now control the lion's share of the microstock market; they just did a IPO, and will soon be under enormous pressure to make that stock price go up. It's only logical to expect them to either increase prices, or reduce commissions, or both. Whatever smart marketing or sales ideas they might have had - have no doubt been used already, to position the company for the IPO. I doubt they kept any really big ones in reserve.

My point was that it makes little sense to love SS just because they're your "biggest seller". That's just Stockholm Syndrome. But of course "history is written by the victors" (attributed to Churchill).

Poncke · « **Reply #178 on:** October 19, 2012, 13:56 »

Stockholm Syndrome??

Read up on that is all I can say

Equus · « **Reply #179 on:** October 19, 2012, 14:08 »

SS have cut commissions.

When they first started, they paid 40%. Jon Oringer used that fact as a point of difference with iStock, who at that time paid 20% to everyone.

SS now pay 25-30%.

I like to repeat this occasionally, even though I know it's pointless - people don't want to believe it, so they just block it out.

stockastic · « **Reply #180 on:** October 19, 2012, 14:15 »

With subscriptions, there are no "commissions" in the sense of a percentage of a sale price - we get a fixed payment when a subscriber downloads an image. The amount is arbitrary and not tied to the subscription price. If SS raises the cost of a subscription, and our per-download payment stays the same, you could say that our "commission" goes down.

pancaketom · « **Reply #181 on:** October 19, 2012, 15:04 »

I agree SS commission percent is a low, but it isn't as low as a few sites like say, IS or FT. The commission percent might have gone down, but they didn't lower the amount you got for a sub sale - maybe more of the buyers were downloading less of their total.

I think I make more at SS for a sub sale than at any other site, so it is in my interest for all sub sales to be at SS. (I might have made more with the DT levels system, but they scrapped that).

I calculated my total RPD at IS for August - the last month it is available - the total is 36.56 per sale - yup - less than what I get for subs sales at SS.

(for the same month my RPD at SS was 85.44)

Now that was an atypical month, so we'll look at July.

IS = 57.5
SS = 68.6

so with the rise of PP sales at IS it is quite clear to me that they are not my best place to sell things.

I think RPD is a bit of a useless statistic unless you are trying to decide where to send business.

jamesbenet · « **Reply #182 on:** October 19, 2012, 21:54 »

Interesting thread long read for sure.

I broke video exclusivity with iStock last June. I have been able to earn a few bucks more than I did then but at the cost of a lot of work getting my clips on other sites.

Shutterstock with the IPO is going to grow the video side according to the Oringer interview at Bloomberg. Hope this brings more exposure, customers and growth to this area. It can only go up from here IMO. The uploading process is fantastic and the site performs very good with large previews. They only need to grow the client base on video.

The pay is 30% which is much better than the 17% I was left with at iStock. Hope things improve and not go down the same path of their competitor. I cant avoid thinking that if Bruce had waited a bit more, iStock would have been self sufficient on its own. But different era different circumstances.

I wish Oringer and Shutterstock staff/contributors much success going forward.

ClaridgeJ · « **Reply #183 on:** October 20, 2012, 01:04 »

Quote from: jamesbenet on October 19, 2012, 21:54

Interesting thread long read for sure.

I broke video exclusivity with iStock last June. I have been able to earn a few bucks more than I did then but at the cost of a lot of work getting my clips on other sites.

Shutterstock with the IPO is going to grow the video side according to the Oringer interview at Bloomberg. Hope this brings more exposure, customers and growth to this area. It can only go up from here IMO. The uploading process is fantastic and the site performs very good with large previews. They only need to grow the client base on video.

The pay is 30% which is much better than the 17% I was left with at iStock. Hope things improve and not go down the same path of their competitor. I cant avoid thinking that if Bruce had waited a bit more, iStock would have been self sufficient on its own. But different era different circumstances.

I wish Oringer and Shutterstock staff/contributors much success going forward.

Bruce started it all but he was mesmorized by Getty and dollars, well he got 50 mil which is a handy sum but peanuts compared to todays values.
The man had it in the palm of his hand and gave it away.

sharpshot · « **Reply #184 on:** October 20, 2012, 02:25 »

I wonder how many people here would of turned down 50 million? I wouldn't of done, unless running istock was more fun than spending 50 million and I very much doubt that. He might of made much more but how many millions do people need? It would be hard to spend the interest on 50 million, so he's probably worth more now.

rubyroo · « **Reply #185 on:** October 20, 2012, 02:46 »

Quote from: loop on October 19, 2012, 12:16

Well, so your numbers are different of those of my friends at SS. It can be, maybe different kinds of portfolios or whatever. Even so, if I'm not mistaken, you get about 2-4 $ for an XXXL OD sale. I get from 16 to 110 $, depending of the collection. At the end, revenue is not just dictated for % of commissions but for selling price too. I don't like sites that cut comissions, but it hurts the same if what they cut --or don't ever up-- are prices.

It depends on the license. They introduced some new licenses in the past year that are based on percentage of sale rather than a flat rate. IIRC, someone reported here recently that they made $95 on one of the newer license sales. I think it was Gostwyck, but he'll no doubt correct me if I'm wrong on that. Several people have reported $75 cuts on a new license also. I haven't had any of those myself yet, but I hope I'll see some before too long.

Congratulations on those $110 sales. They must be great to receive. I'm happy for anyone who does well in this game.

loop · « **Reply #186 on:** October 20, 2012, 05:18 »

Quote from: rubyroo on October 20, 2012, 02:46

Quote from: loop on October 19, 2012, 12:16
Well, so your numbers are different of those of my friends at SS. It can be, maybe different kinds of portfolios or whatever. Even so, if I'm not mistaken, you get about 2-4 $ for an XXXL OD sale. I get from 16 to 110 $, depending of the collection. At the end, revenue is not just dictated for % of commissions but for selling price too. I don't like sites that cut comissions, but it hurts the same if what they cut --or don't ever up-- are prices.

It depends on the license. They introduced some new licenses in the past year that are based on percentage of sale rather than a flat rate. IIRC, someone reported here recently that they made $95 on one of the newer license sales. I think it was Gostwyck, but he'll no doubt correct me if I'm wrong on that. Several people have reported $75 cuts on a new license also. I haven't had any of those myself yet, but I hope I'll see some before too long.

Congratulations on those $110 sales. They must be great to receive. I'm happy for anyone who does well in this game.

It doesn't happen very often, but it happens.

By the way, I've read something about those SS 70/95 licenses, but I don't really know what thery are. Is this thing about allowing your portfolio for sensitive use?

ClaridgeJ · « **Reply #187 on:** October 20, 2012, 07:48 »

Quote from: sharpshot on October 20, 2012, 02:25

I wonder how many people here would of turned down 50 million? I wouldn't of done, unless running istock was more fun than spending 50 million and I very much doubt that. He might of made much more but how many millions do people need? It would be hard to spend the interest on 50 million, so he's probably worth more now.

Ofcourse nobody would turn down 50 mil, point was, he was probably very rich before he sold IS and as you say, how much can one spend.

Poncke · « **Reply #188 on:** October 20, 2012, 07:50 »

Quote from: loop on October 20, 2012, 05:18

Quote from: rubyroo on October 20, 2012, 02:46
Quote from: loop on October 19, 2012, 12:16
Well, so your numbers are different of those of my friends at SS. It can be, maybe different kinds of portfolios or whatever. Even so, if I'm not mistaken, you get about 2-4 $ for an XXXL OD sale. I get from 16 to 110 $, depending of the collection. At the end, revenue is not just dictated for % of commissions but for selling price too. I don't like sites that cut comissions, but it hurts the same if what they cut --or don't ever up-- are prices.

It depends on the license. They introduced some new licenses in the past year that are based on percentage of sale rather than a flat rate. IIRC, someone reported here recently that they made $95 on one of the newer license sales. I think it was Gostwyck, but he'll no doubt correct me if I'm wrong on that. Several people have reported $75 cuts on a new license also. I haven't had any of those myself yet, but I hope I'll see some before too long.

Congratulations on those $110 sales. They must be great to receive. I'm happy for anyone who does well in this game.

It doesn't happen very often, but it happens.

By the way, I've read something about those SS 70/95 licenses, but I don't really know what thery are. Is this thing about allowing your portfolio for sensitive use?

I think it is, they are called Single and Other Downloads, SOD. I had one for 70$

pro@stockphotos · « **Reply #189 on:** October 20, 2012, 09:07 »

Quote from: lisafx on October 19, 2012, 10:34

Quote from: jsnover on October 18, 2012, 19:26

And as far as that snide remark about people who weren't maintaining sales, the only way for an indie to keep a 20% royalty rate was to have over a million RCs. I think only Yuri got to keep 20%. So yes, they cut indie royalties for everyone but Yuri.

Yep. My sales maintained very well that first year of the royalty credit fiasco, and I still got stuck at 19%. Of course now that sales have plummeted across the board for pretty much everyone on IS, a lot of us are going to go down a level or more.

It's unreasonable to blame a failure to "maintain sales" on contributors when the site has been barely functional for months.

Look, all you independents did was get getty 2.4 billion and then h&f 4.4 billion. Do you really think it was a good long term (more than 2 years) strategy to heavily promote ( mainly yuri and monkey) on istock best match from 2008 - 2011. Why would a company allow prominent shelf space to a non-exclusive files that are available at 10 cents on the dollar a click away. You got played by men who pumped and dumped istock. Why do you think the strategy of promoting independents suddenly stopped. It was bleeding off customers. Sure the price hikes sped up the migration but the short term balance sheet got two groups of owners 4 billion. Now they have a problem. They built up the competition beyond a controlling interest and now the value of their brand is going the wrong way. How will the new group sell for 7 billion in three years at this rate?? Anyone with half a brain new that promoting non exclusives while raising prices was incongruent. But it worked like a 4 billion dollar charm.

ClaridgeJ · « **Reply #190 on:** October 20, 2012, 09:46 »

Quote from: pro@stockphotos on October 20, 2012, 09:07

Quote from: lisafx on October 19, 2012, 10:34
Quote from: jsnover on October 18, 2012, 19:26

And as far as that snide remark about people who weren't maintaining sales, the only way for an indie to keep a 20% royalty rate was to have over a million RCs. I think only Yuri got to keep 20%. So yes, they cut indie royalties for everyone but Yuri.

Yep. My sales maintained very well that first year of the royalty credit fiasco, and I still got stuck at 19%. Of course now that sales have plummeted across the board for pretty much everyone on IS, a lot of us are going to go down a level or more.

It's unreasonable to blame a failure to "maintain sales" on contributors when the site has been barely functional for months.

Look, all you independents did was get getty 2.4 billion and then h&f 4.4 billion. Do you really think it was a good long term (more than 2 years) strategy to heavily promote ( mainly yuri and monkey) on istock best match from 2008 - 2011. Why would a company allow prominent shelf space to a non-exclusive files that are available at 10 cents on the dollar a click away. You got played by men who pumped and dumped istock. Why do you think the strategy of promoting independents suddenly stopped. It was bleeding off customers. Sure the price hikes sped up the migration but the short term balance sheet got two groups of owners 4 billion. Now they have a problem. They built up the competition beyond a controlling interest and now the value of their brand is going the wrong way. How will the new group sell for 7 billion in three years at this rate?? Anyone with half a brain new that promoting non exclusives while raising prices was incongruent. But it worked like a 4 billion dollar charm.

Sure we got played, show me any business that doesnt play its members or employees. Banks play their customers every day.

However you have to be extra, extra stupid to give them carte-blanche to play you, by signing up for exclusivity. Next step would be the nut house.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Jon Oringer just sent me an e-mail... (Read 46316 times)

luissantos84

sharpshot

stockastic

Poncke

Equus

stockastic

pancaketom

jamesbenet

ClaridgeJ

sharpshot

rubyroo

loop

ClaridgeJ

Poncke

pro@stockphotos

ClaridgeJ

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors