Alamy market penetration

[DDoug]

Looking at the monthly "Have you seen any…" threads, one sees some usual suspects: The Guardian, The Mail Online, Telegraph, Independent, BBC, Sunday Times, once in a while Conde Nast and other North American publishers.

 

My question is, is Alamy's market penetration heavily weighted to British publications or is this simply a matter of people who are forum regulars reporting what they see in print while many other markets go unreported in this forum?

 

On the surface it looks like a respectable number of sales go to a rather small number of clients and those photographers who sell well have subject matter on offer which appeals to those (primarily British) clients.

[losdemas]

Results in the Have you found...? threads tend to have most images reported from the UK daily newspapers since online usages are easiest to find in UK newspapers - just type 'Alamy' in the newspaper's search bar and you'll come up with lots of results.

 

Many who report in these threads also look through print papers and magazines and the majority who contribute most consistently to the thread tend to be from the UK though there also others who report from various locations throughout the world.

 

Alamy has worldwide reach in many outlets, so the reports you see in the threads are to a certain degree skewed, yes.

[Guest]

The found threads do reflect the reading habits, although Alamy is strong in UK editorial. Globally it's not great compared to other agents, the distribution network leaves a lot to be desired but that is probably due to it being an unedited collection and not very proactive in placements.

[John Mitchell]

My sales are almost all international. Very few UK ones, but then I'm not in "the scheme."

[DDoug]

Uh... what is "the scheme?

[John Mitchell]

Uh... what is "the scheme?

 

Sorry, the UK newspaper scheme.

[Bryan]

The normal warning applies that my sample size is tiny compared to the Alamy total, but my experience has been that looking at my sales relative to the number of images available, the USA tops the list, with the UK coming second and the remainder of Europe well behind.

 

I've sold a few morsels of non UK European imagery, but nothing compared to my sales of UK and USA based shots.

 

The fact that Alamy has sales offices in the UK and the US might have something to do with it, but I would like to to hear from the more successful mainland European contributors who appear to do well here.

[wiskerke]

It's been mentioned here twice before:

2014 art buyers survey on stock licensing

 

wim

[clupica]

Visual Steam shared the "Art Buyers Guide" - 2014 results.  They asked the group to name Stock photo agencies.  This link was originally shared by Geoff Kidd. 

 

the stock sites with the most "Top-of-mind" where

1. Getty - 77%
2. iStock - 57%
3. shutterstock - %53
4. corbis - 40%
5. Veer - 32%
6. Thinkstock - 28%
7. Masterfile - 20%
8. Google Images - 15%
9. Media Bakery, Pacasearch, and Stocksy at 10% each 

"Other agencies were mentioned but not enough to rank including: Age, imagesource, Big Stock, Alamy, Superstock, Offset, Pond5, Junkinvideo, stockxchange."

 

Clearly Alamy has some work to do to gain mindshare. My content is mostly European and so are my sales but I have had sales to Japan, Argentina, and a few other non-European countries. 

[Martin P Wilson]

Visual Steam shared the "Art Buyers Guide" - 2014 results.  They asked the group to name Stock photo agencies.  This link was originally shared by Geoff Kidd. 

 

the stock sites with the most "Top-of-mind" where

1. Getty - 77%
2. iStock - 57%
3. shutterstock - %53
4. corbis - 40%
5. Veer - 32%
6. Thinkstock - 28%
7. Masterfile - 20%
8. Google Images - 15%
9. Media Bakery, Pacasearch, and Stocksy at 10% each 

"Other agencies were mentioned but not enough to rank including: Age, imagesource, Big Stock, Alamy, Superstock, Offset, Pond5, Junkinvideo, stockxchange."

 

Clearly Alamy has some work to do to gain mindshare. My content is mostly European and so are my sales but I have had sales to Japan, Argentina, and a few other non-European countries. 

 

Interesting, that means there is still a major opportunity for Alamy, and by association us contributors.

[Guest]

 

Visual Steam shared the "Art Buyers Guide" - 2014 results.  They asked the group to name Stock photo agencies.  This link was originally shared by Geoff Kidd. 

 

the stock sites with the most "Top-of-mind" where

1. Getty - 77%
2. iStock - 57%
3. shutterstock - %53
4. corbis - 40%
5. Veer - 32%
6. Thinkstock - 28%
7. Masterfile - 20%
8. Google Images - 15%
9. Media Bakery, Pacasearch, and Stocksy at 10% each 

"Other agencies were mentioned but not enough to rank including: Age, imagesource, Big Stock, Alamy, Superstock, Offset, Pond5, Junkinvideo, stockxchange."

 

Clearly Alamy has some work to do to gain mindshare. My content is mostly European and so are my sales but I have had sales to Japan, Argentina, and a few other non-European countries. 

 

Interesting, that means there is still a major opportunity for Alamy, and by association us contributors.

 

 

That's incredibly optimistic......I guess Torquay United still has a major opportunity to win the Premier league........

 

I would say it means a missed opportunity...a long missed one at that.....for Alamy, not Torquay United.

[DDoug]

Thanks for all replies. I'm going to continue to upload the images I have just because they're what I have.

But being located in Middle Wallop, Germany, their version of Iowa, and with winter coming, I'll probably focus more on studio tabletop in my basement setup in the future.

[Robert Brook]

.

[Alex Todd]

Google Images as a stock agency at 15%. That shows how many people go there for their 'free' images and Google don't pay for the content.

[Guest]

The poll was not strictly about stock agencies but about tools and destinations (says so quite clearly), where do they look for images/how do they find them.....Google is an obvious tool for image locating. 

[Joseph Clemson]

Google Images as a stock agency at 15%. That shows how many people go there for their 'free' images and Google don't pay for the content.

I suspect a goodly proportion of images taken from Google are images generated by Street View, such images illustrate news stories on a daily basis in local newspapers and their websites. What really aggrieves me though is the BBC using Google street view images on their website when I know there are suitable (and better) images on Alamy. I would rather my BBC licence fee was spent with a British-based company rather than an overseas company who strive to minimise their tax bill in Britain by basing their operations outside the UK while still deriving the maximum possible revenue from the UK population. Legal, I know, but it still sticks in the craw. I avoid Amazon for the same reason.

[Phil Robinson]

The Images Found thread is certainly useful but not very representative. It is largely there thanks to three or four heroes (we all know who they are) who do sterling work, and reflects their reading habits and sometimes very odd bookshelves. Online images are much easier to find, and they tend to be low-paying newspaper uses.

 

My best sales seem to be US textbooks and Japanese TV - understandably they don't get noticed and reported quite as often.

 

As for missed opportunities / growth potential, I'd like to think that Alamy have a better talent pool than Torquay United (apologies to any supporters listening). I have noticed a huge increase in Google results from Alamy, which makes finding published pics harder but certainly increases our exposure.

[Robert Brook]

.

[David Davies]

Looking at my sales over the past year I see that the vast majority were not from the UK, but S.Korea, France, the Czech Republic, Finland, Poland, as well as a few from Germany and N. America. A couple of years ago I made my best sale ever, in Japan!

 

I know that looking at the "have you found" thread it gives an impression that sales are mainly made to UK publications, but I wouldn't place too much importance on what a few good people find in the publications in W. H. Smiths etc.

 

Good sales are still to be made!

 

 

PS.Greetings from Niederrhein, Don.

[vpics]

Alamy's reach sometimes surprises me.

 

I've sold images of Peruvian poverty to Chile, images of Argentine landmarks to Brazil, pictures of Martin McGuinness to Ireland, pictures of Peru to Peruvian publications, photos of Italian scooters to Italy, pics of South African dance groups to South Africa etc. Okay, some will have been distributor sales. 

[Bryan]

The Images Found thread is certainly useful but not very representative. It is largely there thanks to three or four heroes (we all know who they are) who do sterling work, and reflects their reading habits and sometimes very odd bookshelves. 

 

 

 

I started searching after reading claims of suspected non payment,  and my searches are certainly not necessarily a representation of my reading habits! 

 

In fact my own recent experience of the newspaper scheme is that they normally do cough up - whether or not the images found thread assists in that respect I don't know.

 

The bulk of my sales (numerically) are to the newspaper scheme, but of course they do not represent the larger percent of my income. However sales probably do affect ranking, which can lead to more lucrative deals, while successful newspaper scheme images sometimes sell for rather more elsewhere - again maybe due to their exposure in the bargain basement?

[regen]

As long as Alamy continue to pile em high and sell em cheap through an unedited model they will never compete with the big boys.

 

Regen

[Phil Robinson]

 

The Images Found thread is certainly useful but not very representative. It is largely there thanks to three or four heroes (we all know who they are) who do sterling work, and reflects their reading habits and sometimes very odd bookshelves. 

 

 

 

I started searching after reading claims of suspected non payment,  and my searches are certainly not necessarily a representation of my reading habits! 

 

In fact my own recent experience of the newspaper scheme is that they normally do cough up - whether or not the images found thread assists in that respect I don't know.

 

The bulk of my sales (numerically) are to the newspaper scheme, but of course they do not represent the larger percent of my income. However sales probably do affect ranking, which can lead to more lucrative deals, while successful newspaper scheme images sometimes sell for rather more elsewhere - again maybe due to their exposure in the bargain basement?

 

 

Your efforts are much appreciated. I am still waiting to hear from Alamy about one of mine found ages ago in a Swedish online paper. And it's very useful for examples of published work to stick on the website.

Thanks again Bryan and friends.