understanding pricing...?

I generally do a search of like videos that I have produced to see what others are selling for. I pretty much let that be my guide. If I have a video that I feel has some elements in it that the competition is lacking then I'll price it upwards, if I have one that just doesn't stand out like the others or I feel the resolution just isn't as crisp (I always click on the image magnification to see other's quality), I'll either delete it altogether or price it on the lower side. My feeling is you get what you pay for and I'm going to price it accordingly.

The reason your chances of selling are increased by having thousands of clips is that by nature you're going to cover more material and appeal to a more varied group of buyers. Of course they should be clips of value, not just filler.

wgzn, I think the idea is NOT to even bother uploading 5000 so-so clips. Take the time and build a portfolio with quality clips. Use a tripod, build or buy a camera slider for smooth shots, etc. Take the time to light the shots. My clips are priced from $20-$80. I know some people on here will call me a "bottom feeder" for pricing some of my clips at $20, but those $20 clips are like my B roll clips. For example, I was doing a beer pour video and my cat jumped up on the table and sniffed the beer. I had to cut it, but I still had a 5 second clip, nicely lit. If someone wants that for $20 they can have it. One man's trash is another man's treasure and I'm sure someone out there someday will need a cat sniffing a beer. I don't think its worth $30 or $40. What I won't do is price a clip for $20 when the competition is selling them for $40..that's just bad for business. You're putting a few dollars in your pocket and cheapening the industry in the process. That being said, I do feel there is a strong market for the $20 clip, as long as it truly worth $20 and not $40 or $50 clip. I see sellers on here using beautiful models and pricing clips at $300. I would too if I spent the time and investment in shooting that type of shot.

I'm still a small guy in this, but building up my portfolio a lot over the last couple of months. I know its going to be awhile before I see steady sales. One thing about selling stock is that the camera work is only half of it, you need to be innovative and use your imagination.

Ask around here at P5 to see if you can find anyone who is making $2000 a month or more and their clips are at $20 across the board. I would bet not many or maybe no one in that group. Then ask around here for artists that are making $2000 and significantly more each month and you will find many that sell at $60 and above across the board. Profit is all that counts, the number sold means absolutely nothing. The pricing discussion will never get a consensus here ;)

either way, it's really interesting. i've just posted a couple clips from last summers wildfires here in texas. so i did a quick filename search, referenced, price, vs age, vs number of purchases vs what i'd (as an editor) consider a good looking and useful clip. and it seems that you get the most downloads at the $30-$80 range but only ONE (that i noticed at least) sold for over $100, and it only sold one. so in the case of firemen. it looks like $30-$80 is the sweet spot depending on how dramatic your shot is...

thanks for all the input. it's all been quite helpful!

30 to 80 is a good baseline for most material, unless it is more unique or contains model released people, which can cost more.

Pricing is an interesting animal. I am not sure how pond5 works with stock video because I am an audio producer, but margin is the key. There are tons of sites that offers formulas to calculate margin. So to keep the math easy if you sold stock for $10 and you made 5$ profit, if you lowered your price 20% to $8 and you made 4$ profit you would have to sell 25% more (5/4=1.25 or 25%) to make the same amount of profit. The same is true if you want to use bigger numbers like $100 a clip lowered 20% is $80 dollars with the same being true that you have to sell 25% more to make the same profit. So if you sell 10 clips at 100 a month your gross profit would be $1000. Have the 50% commission taken out and your left with $500 bucks net profit. To equal that same profit level at $80 a clip you need to sell 12.5 so basically 13 clips to get the same profit.

I guess when it comes to pricing you need to really think about whether lowering your price will really stimulate that increase, and with the large selection of clips available more then likely it probably would make absolutely no difference. Just to put it in perspective if the clips sell for 100 and you reduce your price 50% to 50$ a clip you'd have to sell 20 clips just to break even. Those prices are just general for easy math but you start to see how lowering your prices to rock bottom really hurts you more then it stimulates sales. Especially in a marketplace with so much variety and competition.

There is a lot of interesting points of view in this thread and I totally agree with a lot of them. Just remember no body wins in a race to the bottom. Focus on quality, variety, and upload regularly, and the sales will come. Price in a way that covers your costs, and still leaves profit. Remember that in business margin rules and if your not making profit you wont be in business for very long.

Couldn't agree more

I would rather sell 10 clips at $60 than 20 clips at $30.

There is an old saying in business "turnover is vanity, profit is sanity". I guess in stock video it should be "sales are for vanity, profit is for sanity".

TE

"but you start to see how lowering your prices to rock bottom really hurts you more then it stimulates sales."

from a math standpoint certainly. but it seems here like there is a price point at which the odds of people buying AT ALL or in any kind of reasonable timeframe start to fall off pretty quickly.

looking at the ages of clips. the guy with the $100 clip sold ONE in three years. but the guy with the $40 clip sold like 13 in less than one year. and that $40 clip wasnt compositionally much better or worse than the $100 one.

"I would rather sell 10 clips at $60 than 20 clips at $30."

why?

i guess if you could do either in the same amount of time it might make one feel better from an ego standpoint to fetch a higher price. but what if it takes you three years to sell those 10 clips? as opposed to a few months to move the 20?

from where i sit, thats $600 from either direction ; ) and technically having the greater volume of traffic through your "door" might increase the odds of repeat sales. - though i have no idea if its common for folks to shop by contributor here...

wqzn

The first thing I learnt here is that you will never be able to figure out what sells and why.

I have clips here that I was convinced would sell and they haven't. Equally I put up some shots "just because I had them" and they have sold. This is a prime example:



The other thing you need to consider is the perception of the buyer. Have a look at my other thread https://www.pond5.com/de/community?thread=12966309 - one of the things that was discussed was that you can make footage "too cheap" so that people disregard it as probably shot by someone that doesn't know what they are doing (or they wouldn't "give away" their labour!).

Ultimately you (as we all do) need to decide if you are doing this as a business or as a hobby.

TE

I think that is a great video Engineer. I agree, I have sold more clips I took on a whim than those I planned out and personally liked and thought would sell. As I said I have quite a few $20 clips, but they are worth $20. For whatever reason, maybe I had to bump up the ISO too high and it looks grainy at larger sizes, or maybe I had to cut it to 5 seconds due to camera shake or whatever. I'm not selling $40 clips for $20. In fact, most of my $20 clips are about to go up to $30.

I think the real question here is "are these cheap clips actually generating more buyers overall?" If the answer is no, which I think it is, then all you're doing is reducing overall revenue and cheapening the industry. That buyer who scores and pays $30 for a $60 clip will expect to pay that next time.

"I would rather sell 10 clips at $60 than 20 clips at $30."


I'd rather sell to 20 people at $60 ;-)