Your stock site and pricing vs. Alamy's pricing

[rickboden]

For those of you who sell your own stock (PhotoShelter, etc.,) as well as having it on Alamy, I'm curious how you deal with pricing.  Do you have the same pricing and structure as Alamy or do you charge more or less?  I'm also trying to figure out if there are any ethical concerns in selling for more on your site when a customer could perhaps get the same image for less on Alamy and maybe a better term.

Ever since I discovered Alamy gives high resolution files for low resolution usage, I have been toying with the idea of limiting the resolution of my Alamy images to say, 4000 pixels and putting higher resolution versions on my own site.  Wondering if anyone has any thoughts about that.

 

Thanks for any replies.

 

Rick Boden

 

 

Edited September 17, 2019 by rickboden
word change

[John Mitchell]

If you're licensing images through your own website these days, you are very lucky.

 

BTW, you appear to have a lot of RF images containing property and people with no releases available. If you don't have releases, you need to check the "for editorial use only" box in the image manager or make the images RM.

 

 

Edited September 17, 2019 by John Mitchell

[rickboden]

44 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

If you're licensing images through your own website these days, you are very lucky.

 

BTW, you appear to have a lot of RF images containing property and people with no releases available. If you don't have releases, you need to check the "for editorial use only" box in the image manager or make the images RM.

 

 

Thanks, I don't believe I have much in the way of people but I will certainly check those and make them "editorial."   As for property, mostly it is cities and buildings and industrial complexes, not personal property.  I thought the common wisdom was to put the decision into the hands of the buyer...at least that is what I read a lot here.  But I understand that is not ultimate protection.   And one last question...it's late here so it may be clear to me in the morning...but why would RM protect me where RF wouldn't?

 

[John Mitchell]

Deleted -- I made some errors in the info that I gave.

Edited September 17, 2019 by John Mitchell

[John Mitchell]

2 hours ago, rickboden said:

Thanks, I don't believe I have much in the way of people but I will certainly check those and make them "editorial."   As for property, mostly it is cities and buildings and industrial complexes, not personal property.  I thought the common wisdom was to put the decision into the hands of the buyer...at least that is what I read a lot here.  But I understand that is not ultimate protection.   And one last question...it's late here so it may be clear to me in the morning...but why would RM protect me where RF wouldn't?

 

 

I can't really answer your questions about protection. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can.

 

However, if an image contains people and/or property (such as buildings), you can specify that you don't have a release or releases and do one of the following:

 

1. mark the image as RF and "for editorial use only",

2. mark the image as RM and let the buyers decide if they need releases,

3. mark the image as RM and "for editorial use only".

 

 

[Joseph Clemson]

12 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

I can't really answer your questions about protection. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can.

 

However, if an image contains people and/or property (such as buildings), you can specify that you don't have a release or releases and do one of the following:

 

1. mark the image as RF and "for editorial use only",

2. mark the image as RM and let the buyers decide if they need releases,

3. mark the image as RM and "for editorial use only".

 

 

 

A while ago Alamy gave me this answer to that question:

 

With RM, the customer has to declare details of the use before a license is issued i.e. what the use is, what size they need, how long the image will be used for etc. With RF the customer simply has to pick a size they want, and they can use that however, wherever and whenever.

 

Both license types can be used for editorial or commercial, but RF is often more associated with commercial as they are usually released images, and the customer doesn’t have to declare all the details of the use. This is why we have always advised that images that contain unreleased people and property should be RM, as this reduces the risk of the image being used commercially. When we introduced RF-Editorial, you could have annotated the unreleased images as RM or RF-Ed.

 

So long as you have annotated that the image contains people/property, and that there are no releases, the onus will be on the customer to clear the image for commercial use if that was what they wanted to use it for.

[dustydingo]

Images licensed for commercial use: I calculate as close to the proposed use as I can using another long-usually-wooden-structure-jutting-out-over-water like place's pricing structure, then cut 25% off (and let potential license purchaser know my price is 25% lower than that other place). Works for me, I'm comparatively way ahead in that I pay no commission to anyone.

 

I can't see any ethical dilemmas therein--purchasers are free to shop wherever they choose, and purchase from whomever they choose.

 

For electronic image, personal use, price depends on the event and who the purchaser is etc. Electronic images are 2600 pixels on longest side.

 

don't provide prints anymore.

 

DD

Edited September 17, 2019 by dustydingo
clarity

[rickboden]

9 hours ago, Joseph Clemson said:

 

A while ago Alamy gave me this answer to that question:

 

With RM, the customer has to declare details of the use before a license is issued i.e. what the use is, what size they need, how long the image will be used for etc. With RF the customer simply has to pick a size they want, and they can use that however, wherever and whenever.

 

Both license types can be used for editorial or commercial, but RF is often more associated with commercial as they are usually released images, and the customer doesn’t have to declare all the details of the use. This is why we have always advised that images that contain unreleased people and property should be RM, as this reduces the risk of the image being used commercially. When we introduced RF-Editorial, you could have annotated the unreleased images as RM or RF-Ed.

 

So long as you have annotated that the image contains people/property, and that there are no releases, the onus will be on the customer to clear the image for commercial use if that was what they wanted to use it for.

 

Thank you, that is some very useful information for me.  I've always been on the RM side but felt pressured into going RF.  Also I didn't like the hassle of dealing with usage inquiries for my own RM images.  I may start to slowly switch my images back to RM and I'm wondering about doing so with images that have already sold as RF.

 

The most surprising thing to me is reading that RF is more associated with commercial.  I think that must have switched over the years, or perhaps I am thinking of more high end use which likely doesn't exist anymore.

 

Rick Boden

[rickboden]

1 hour ago, dustydingo said:

Images licensed for commercial use: I calculate as close to the proposed use as I can using another long-usually-wooden-structure-jutting-out-over-water like place's pricing structure, then cut 25% off (and let potential license purchaser know my price is 25% lower than that other place). Works for me, I'm comparatively way ahead in that I pay no commission to anyone.

 

I can't see any ethical dilemmas therein--purchasers are free to shop wherever they choose, and purchase from whomever they choose.

 

For electronic image, personal use, price depends on the event and who the purchaser is etc. Electronic images are 2600 pixels on longest side.

 

don't provide prints anymore.

 

DD

Thank you, appreciate you sharing your method on this.

 

Rick Boden

[John Mitchell]

PhotoShelter's e-commerce setup uses fotoQuote pricing. I have the images on my PS website set at 50% of fotoQuote's recommendations . Not sure how that compares with Alamy's price calculator. It's a bit of a moot point, though, since I don't get customers any longer. 🤧

 

 

Edited September 17, 2019 by John Mitchell

[geogphotos]

I think that for 99% of us the idea of attracting direct customers is just a fantasy. 

[John Mitchell]

17 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

I think that for 99% of us the idea of attracting direct customers is just a fantasy. 

 

Sadly that seems to have become the case. I used to see some very good sales through my PS site. I even had some regular clients. Now it's tumbleweeds...

 

Hopefully there are some more positive DIY stories out there.

 

 

[rickboden]

30 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

PhotoShelter's e-commerce setup uses fotoQuote pricing. I have the images on my PS website set at 50% of fotoQuote's recommendations . Not sure how that compares with Alamy's price calculator. It's a bit of a moot point, though, since I don't get customers any longer. 🤧

 

 

Thanks.  I don't get a lot of customers but enough to at least pay for the site.  It helps, I guess to have a specialty and in my case it is aerials.  It probably also helps to promote the photos on social media...for example last week I took some aerial photos of a large Cannabis grow operation under construction and since it is timely, I should be trying to flog them.

[John Mitchell]

3 minutes ago, rickboden said:

Thanks.  I don't get a lot of customers but enough to at least pay for the site.  It helps, I guess to have a specialty and in my case it is aerials.  It probably also helps to promote the photos on social media...for example last week I took some aerial photos of a large Cannabis grow operation under construction and since it is timely, I should be trying to flog them.

 

Good for you! Aerials sounds like a good niche to occupy these days.

[rickboden]

15 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

Good for you! Aerials sounds like a good niche to occupy these days.

 

Thanks.   In a roundabout way, Bill Brooks got me started on my aerial photography career many years ago when he suggested since I lived fairly close to the oil sands, I should take some photos there.  I took his advice but then found there was virtually no accessibility other than from an aircraft.  Those photos did fairly well but that market has since dried up with competition and declining oil prices.  But I got hooked on flying after that.

 

But just like how the internet changed the stock industry, the advent of drones has changed the aerial photography industry.  In both cases, (In my case) for the worse.

 

Rick Boden

Edited September 17, 2019 by rickboden
added sentence