Content Prices, WTF?
 

I got a mail asking me how many pics I have in my store and what is the price for all of them as whole.

I wrote that currently I have about 75'000 images in stock and the best price I can give is $3500 if he pays with bank wire. It's a x-mas time after all, I thought why to do not give him a good discount...

He wrote me back that usually they pay 0.01 per an image that's $750 and he was ready to send me a check.

WTF? I make more than $750 monthly from AVSs using only portion of that content. And this is when I do not spend more than 15% of my time promoting them.

Do the content providers really sell their content that cheap recently? Or he was just wise ass clown trying to rip me off?

I don't get it. If you cannot sell sites, why buying content at all? Why do not go find some job in McDonalds instead?


This reminds me of an old USSR anecdote. Russian tourist gets in France with the group, and before they leave he goes into local parfume store and looks if he can buy some present to his wife. He sees that he has not money even for smallest present. He asks salesperson - "Can you please cut that small piece of soap on two and sell me a half, I don't have money for a whole piece". Salesperson silently cuts that soap and gives him, but also gives him a pack of condomes. Tourist asks - "What's that?". Salesperson says "It's a present from our shop, we are interested in preventing of procreation of such customers as you".

all depends on the CONTENT....

I had that clown come to me as well, or someone similar. Told him the prices for bulk deals are on the site and if that was too expensive for him it was his problem.

But yes some do sell at that price, because they have nothing but crap, need the money and do not give a shit for thei existing clients. Both of them. :1orglaugh

But the Net is changing and now with Visa's new rules paysites that don't give the surfer something good, he feels is worth the money, the charge back fines will kill you.

Sadly, the TRUE PRICE of anything is what the MARKET says it is. Of course, you can tweak this rule by regulating information...but information always leaks and products always hit their "natural" price.

Agreed :thumbsup

If it's good it will sell and guys who can't afford shouldn't have it anyway. If it's crap it will still sell if you make it cheap enough. Be it cars, food or porn.

Phoenix66
Was not hard up for an extra $750. we were offered the same deal $0.01 a pic. Like we need $1100.00 :1orglaugh

The guys selling Daimlers do not sell them for the price of a Skoda for good reasons.

I think this guy has already contected close to any content provider, but I guess he has never made any deal :)

He event was going for some specials we had where you have this price. I think it's just bullshit he is talking

Phoenix66,

Why don't you tell him you can do a pricematch, if he can show you the $0.01 offer he got. Then you can decide for yourself. Sears have been doing pricematches for years and it seems to work for them :thumbsup

Of course, I haven't sold non-exclusive content (we produce exclusive only) so take my advice with a grain of salt:winkwink:

:1orglaugh

Im thinking of raising prices ... whereas before there were a shitload of newbies coming in all the time, and not so many problems (visa, extorcia) squeezing out the smaller webmasters (sell many licenses for less $), ... now, i see a trend towards only the pros staying in this game/ bigger companies gobbling up the little ones... and these people can afford to pay a reasonable price for content. (less customers, up the prices) ...

Ive heard the gammut of opinions about price points from webmasters ... most will say charge more so it is not overexposed, but then they want to bargain when it comes time to buy... bottom line is once it is posted on a large tgp once, the second guys submission is not going to be accepted ... or the paid spot is going to get the listing ...

I could be wrong, but at this point i see non-exclusive content as filler to an extent ... you sure as hell arent going to take over the internet with 100% non-exclusive sites.

Supply and demand. 5 years ago I was getting 50 cents an image and couldn't produce content fast enough.

2 years ago we went to 30 cents an image and $5 per min. for video on our non-exclusive stuff just to keep sales going.

Now we're at 20 cents an image and $2 per min. on video. Luckily, everything we produce for our store is ordered custom for 60 days exclusive, then it goes to our store. The client basically pays for the talent cost to get custom work.

Even at that, I wouldn't wash our prices down to a penny...it would hurt our biz and every other producer that is legit in this biz.

Best volume deals we do is 50% off on volume orders...hell can freeze over before we go lower than that

I would question the economics of that statement.

Yeah, you all are right, but nowadays there are some content providers, who sell new pics $0.01 a pic, not overused content, but new. (I know one of them in Russia :)) I don't think, that this providers would live on this market for a long time :)

hmm, im interested to hear what it is you question about it ... if i am licensing a set to 10 people instead of 100, i need to raise the price, no?

Heaps of content guys are willing to cut amazing deals.

I admire the 'big guys' of content but when you can get the same quality for a fraction of the price with full licence and model release then why not ?

AGREED ALSO! Thats why we set up http://www.imageauction.com to use an auction to let the MARKET decide how much your content is worth.

It's all these content places doing huge blowouts selling content for pennies that's REALLY bringing the market down. People expect content prices to be bargain basement all the time. Producing content takes money, folks, and if you want the content you buy to be worth ANYTHING, you should be willing to pay for it.

The problem is there is always someone willing to sell a bulk deal at a silly price just to get his hands on another 500 bucks or so - Some countries 500 is a tidy windfall.

Unique content has a very high value - if you got this for your members, you know no other site has the same - It is the only way I work. Fortunately, we have our own studios and our profit comes from membership, not from selling.

So I do understand that content sellers need their market to be correct, and undercutters is doing their business more harm than good.

I too have recently been contacted by a Russian showing me an impressive portfolio and made me an offer of producing unique content only for me at a price way below the content value -
I would like to cut a deal with him - But - I wonder how many "deals" this guy has for this "unique" content? Of course, it could very well be genuine -

I can see where you are coming from but you would be heading towards a semi-exclusive route which is a different business model. However, if we assume the conditions you outlined initially then market forces would dictate it to be a buyers market with only the savvy/experienced left in who would say yes you have great content, but so does Charly at a lesser price (for example).

My 2 pfennigs...

this is something to be careful about, and im not bashing russia, just making a statement ... i advise EVERYONE buying content to be sure that the models are not working under duress. If they can produce it for next to nothing, why are the models doing it?

Sure models may be willing to work for less in eastern europe/further east, but for legit work there is really not that large of a gap in model costs. Im not saying anyone is not legit, just saying inform yourself who you are dealing with.

Totally depends. If you're getting your content from the same talent agency, then good luck guarding against low ballers. But if your content is somewhat unique then go ahead and hold out.

However, I still agree with the observation made earlier, the real price of anything is what the market wants....never underestimate the market's intelligence because it may mean the difference between solvency and bankruptcy.

Same story here....Some dude tried to hit me up with that shit a couple of months ago. I offered him a decent bulk deal and he fired back with the .01 per image shit. :1orglaugh

Be careful when dealing with Russians. Well, I'm Russian myself, and I hope noone can say I cheated him, but I can't refuse that Russians are often cheaters.

Once I bought an "exclusive" content from one of the Russian photographers for reselling, and it was not that cheap at all - $1 per an image (solo). Afterwards I discovered that some of that content was very hardly used on FHGs and actually overexposed. I did not go fighting with him, because total amount was not that essential, just ceased any relationships with him.


Or I remember that story when one of the Russian producers started screaming on AWM board that webmaster who bought his content exclusivelly is not carefull and let it to be stolen and spread widelly. Webmasters then checked the sites he was pointing at and turned back on him, because they found out that actually "exclusive" he sold to all of them was shot during the same session, just by 3 photographers from 3 different but close points. In other words, those "exclusive" sets was so similar that he himself could not tell that they were not actually stolen, those just were "different" sets he sold to several different people as exclusive.

i sale 1/2 photo cheep

ahahahaha - a customer of mine told me a similar story about a pretty well known studio he bought exclusive shoots from.