Oversupply Not a Problem for Buyers

Posted on 10/3/2008 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (1)

There are a number of reasons to believe that a rapidly growing supply of images may not be as big a problem for the buyer as some industry insiders think. Large image collections are outpacing tightly edited rivals in revenue growth in all pricing categories, suggesting that collection size and pricing are not the only factors influencing buyer decisions.

Customers responding to surveys have always said they wanted better-edited collections. They did not want to be forced to look through too many images in order to find the right one for their needs. Consequently, sellers responded with tighter editing. But the tightly edited collections of Getty, Corbis and Jupiterimages, while growing slow in size, are not showing significant growth in revenue.

In contrast, Alamy—the largest online collection, with 13.35 million images currently—does not edit and still has the best annual revenue growth in the traditionally priced category. Despite what buyers say about not wanting to go through lots of images, they evidently would rather do that than be forced to accept an image they don’t want, because the agency’s editors have not made the right image available.

Alamy has made search easier for buyers by using an algorithm to organize search returns that puts the most desirable images, from the clients’ point of view, at the top of the search-return order. Other traditional agencies tend to deliver search results with their newest images first, regardless of their appropriateness. They also give preference to wholly owned imagery, even when image-partner images might be more appropriate to a customer’s needs.

Microstock collections offer a different perspective. They tend to be much larger and growing much faster. Despite this, customers are using microstock a lot more than traditional sites. In 2007, iStockphoto licensed 12 times the amount of images licensed by Getty Images. Traditional sellers argue this is all because of cheap prices, but it is not the main reason.



Despite large microstock inventories, customers can still find what they want quickly, because they can organize search results in several different ways. The most useful of these is by total downloads. This allows customers to see what others liked and results in less time spent searching through inappropriate images.

Some iStock images have been licensed as many as 5,000 or 7,000 times. This didn’t happen in one month; although these are great images, most have been on the site for a long time. If the only search-return option was newest-images-first, many of iStock’s top-selling images would never have been seen by a significant portion of the buyers who ended up using them. For suppliers, the disadvantage of organizing images by downloads is that new images get pushed to the bottom of the search results and are seldom seen.

In addition, microstocks edit but tend to accept a larger portion of a photographer’s production than traditional agencies. Most leading microstock producers have many more images online that the bestsselling photographers of Getty or Corbis.



Microstocks are also more focused on expanding their number of contributors rather than limiting it, as do traditionals. This benefits the buyer by providing a greater variety of vision and subject matter. The disadvantage for image producers is that the vast majority does not earn much at all from their images.

All things considered, sites with lots of images may be providing a better service to buyers than those with tightly edited collections—even if we disregard the price advantage.


Copyright © 2008 Jim Pickerell. The above article may not be copied, reproduced, excerpted or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author. All requests should be submitted to Selling Stock at 10319 Westlake Drive, Suite 162, Bethesda, MD 20817, phone 301-461-7627, e-mail: wvz@fpcubgbf.pbz

Jim Pickerell is founder of www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that publishes daily. He is also available for personal telephone consultations on pricing and other matters related to stock photography. He occasionally acts as an expert witness on matters related to stock photography. For his current curriculum vitae go to: http://www.jimpickerell.com/Curriculum-Vitae.aspx.  

Comments

  • Don Farrall Posted Oct 3, 2008
    As for Alamy's Alamy Rank. It works. Despite the size of the collection, they have figured out how to make the cream float to the top. It is contributor based, not image based, so a consistent quality producer can earn their way to top search status. When this is achieved the sales results are pretty good, proving once again that search order really does matter.

    As for microstock images...And people want to use an image that everyone else is using? I guess so , but sounds like a pretty stupid way to make a creative decision to me. The fact that new material is at the bottom of results (the way most people search) should help to discourage new contributors. It plays well to the "super stars" of microstock, the only few who are making any money in this give-away business model.

    Microstock, where a few make some money, and a lot make very little money and photography is generally devalued beyond reason.

    Don Farrall

Post Comment

Please log in or create an account to post comments.

Stay Connected

Sign up to receive email notification when new stories are posted.

Follow Us

Free Stuff

Stock Photo Pricing: The Future
In the last two years I have written a lot about stock photo pricing and its downward slide. If you have time over the holidays you may want to review some of these stories as you plan your strategy ...
Read More
Future Of Stock Photography
If you’re a photographer that counts on the licensing of stock images to provide a portion of your annual income the following are a few stories you should read. In the past decade stock photography ...
Read More
Blockchain Stories
The opening session at this year’s CEPIC Congress in Berlin on May 30, 2018 is entitled “Can Blockchain be applied to the Photo Industry?” For those who would like to know more about the existing blo...
Read More
2017 Stories Worth Reviewing
The following are links to some 2017 and early 2018 stories that might be worth reviewing as we move into the new year.
Read More
Stories Related To Stock Photo Pricing
The following are links to stories that deal with stock photo pricing trends. Probably the biggest problem the industry has faced in recent years has been the steady decline in prices for the use of ...
Read More
Stock Photo Prices: The Future
This story is FREE. Feel free to pass it along to anyone interested in licensing their work as stock photography. On October 23rd at the DMLA 2017 Conference in New York there will be a panel discuss...
Read More
Important Stock Photo Industry Issues
Here are links to recent stories that deal with three major issues for the stock photo industry – Revenue Growth Potential, Setting Bottom Line On Pricing and Future Production Sources.
Read More
Recent Stories – Summer 2016
If you’ve been shooting all summer and haven’t had time to keep up with your reading here are links to a few stories you might want to check out as we move into the fall. To begin, be sure to complet...
Read More
Corbis Acquisition by VCG/Getty Images
This story provides links to several stories that relate to the Visual China Group (VCG) acquisition of Corbis and the role Getty Images has been assigned in the transfer of Corbis assets to the Gett...
Read More
Finding The Right Image
Many think search will be solved with better Metadata. While metadata is important, there are limits to how far it can take the customer toward finding the right piece of content. This story provides...
Read More

More from Free Stuff