Selling Images

I would like to make the following suggestion:

You only support 4 image sizes:

Small - (web sized, 500x500 or smaller)
Medium - (up to 1200x1200)
Large - (up to 2500x2500)
X-Large - Original uploaded size

You allow the artist to set the price for all levels, including the ability to set percentages:

Original: 20.00
Large: 75%
Medium: 50%
Small: 30%

Or fixed prices:

Original: 20.00
Large: 15.00
Medium: 10.00
Small: 6.00

The difference being if there is a "%" in the pricing or not.

And you NEED to allow the artist to control the watermark. With an option for not only position, but also type (light or dark image).

Great suggestion Dave.
But remember there is already 190,000 photos online at this moment that are priced from $1.00 to $10.00
To get a higher price is at this point futile.
I think the competition is already set in stone, by the time they open it up to the rest of us, there may be 1,000,000 photos online.

Yeah, I don't think they thought this fully through...

Dave - excellent suggestion. As we're still working on those details for general submissions, we'll see what we can do to incorporate your ideas.

Jake - Pricing will be open, as always, and even though we're launching with a pricing structure one provider has designed, once we start accepting submissions from other providers there will be a bit more variation and we'll see the same sort of low/high price debates over photos that we see for videos. To put things in perspective, in our existing collection, roughly 200,000 of our videos are priced $30 or under. Clips over $100 still make regular sales.

I do hope you are correct Kennon.

All in all, I'm really happy Pond5 is in the photograph business. It will bring in new buyers that could need my clips.
(yes, its still all about me)

Jake

Yes but with 5 million photos expected in the next couple weeks what chance of competing at a more reasonable price level. 123rf has 9 million. I think that P5 just set the standard as a micro priced photo agency unless P5 can suggest to 123rf to double the price. Double their price will still sell very very well. Don't ya think that blog or web sized photos are actually more valuable than full size? A full size photo for a newspaper or magazine is a one time read and thrown away. Internet is a perpetual use and can easily fill a monitor screen at 72 dpi. Why do people believe a small size has less value??? It's really more of a convenience to the purchaser. Internet photos or video have more value or equal value than magazine photos IMHO.

Yes three sizes (maybe four) are more than adequate. Too many choices and the buyer takes too long to decide then gets buyers remorse.

Need to let the longtime Pond5 artists in on the ground floor. If needed set a floor of $10,000 sales but ya really need to let us in. 123rf did nothing to build P5, the professional photographers already here helped make P5 what it is.

Kennon quote "To put things in perspective, in our existing collection, roughly 200,000 of our videos are priced $30 or under"

Yes but how many 1920x1080 HD footage clips are under $30. That number includes SD, 720, point-and-shoot, animations and CG. Isn't there a way to see the pricing structure on full 1080HD footage?

@Don

Fair point, for footage classified as HD on the site (which does include 720, but is mostly 1080), approximately 110,000 are priced under $30. It's a solid quarter of our HD collection. The point I'm going for is that even though we're starting with cheaper images, we're confident that the market will equalize once other providers start submitting. By no means are we trying to bottom out prices or make you guys lower yours, it's still 100% up to you. We did heavily weigh the pros/cons of opening up submissions to either a select group or the whole site once we had the infrastructure in place, but in the end, this seemed like the best way to launch our photo section, without using you guys as guinea pigs for our interface and upload specs. When you guys upload your photos we want it to be as easy and headache-free as possible.

@Jake

We are pretty confident that this move will help everybody in the long run, and we're hoping it will help boost everyone's sales.

I don't understand... If you "fill up" the photo side of the business with millions of low-priced images from other sites, how can artists get a higher price? Sure, you guys occasionally sell footage in the $100+ range, but only because those clips are highly unique and in some cases serve a niche where nobody else has yet to compete and drive the price down.

But with millions of existing images already online (once we get the opportunity to start contributing), where is the opportunity for sellers to get a higher price?

Lets be honest, your competitors, whose collections you are shilling, have set the price here. If you cap the import at what you have now and do not import any more, then perhaps we have a fighting chance. But if you're gonna import millions of images, the game is over. We just need to upload, set our prices to be competitive and pray that we even get found in the search.

The way it is now your competors are all over the web. On other sites photographers are competing to get a few pennies more on preset prices. P5 has to have a large base to get people to start looking here for photos so they got a partner. This will start a rush out the door at other sites. Why sell your photos for 20 cents on the dollar when you can get 50? Why play the game of gold and diamond ratings when you can set your own price? Why sell on subscription? Why stay with the other sites when this one is going to be the place to be?

I did a short search through some of the photos from 123 and there is a lot missing that we still have to fill in. People don't shop at stores that on sell just one kind of bread. I think this will crush other sites if they don't reposition their pay scales.