Future of Microstock

There's an annual talkfest that's winding up at the moment in Dublin related to the Stock industry organised by CEPIC - the European association that represents stock agencies.

Its significant in that many of the leaders and thinkers behind the industry are there from both the "Micro" and "Traditional" stock agencies. As is usual for these events, what's not on the program or being said officially is far more interesting that what is.

I stopped in for the first few days to catch up with some of those attending that have more serious discussions and business reasons for going. It provided an opportunity to meet and talk about some of what's going on in the industry - and more importantly to get an informal feel about where things are heading.

While I don't intend this blog to become focused on stock photography, its a topic of interest to many of my regular readers, and still my main source of funding for my wandering lifestyle, so I figured its a timely opportunity to share my thoughts about some of the trending topics, and where I see things are heading. Like everyone else who talks about these issues, I don't have a crystal ball - so take all comments with a healthy pinch of salt.

Convergence

You often still hear a number of people referring to online stock agencies such as Istock, Shutterstock, Dreamstime and Fotolia as "Microstocks". These sites are characterised by images available at relatively low prices - for some applications as low as $1 per image. These are supposedly distinct from "Traditional" Stock agencies which ordinarily price images significantly higher.

However the distinction has been disappearing and will continue to diminish: "Microstock" agencies are raising prices whereas "traditional" stock agencies are dropping them. In future we'll continue to see an industry with different price-points, however these will more accurately reflect the market on both the buyer and seller sides.

In particular I'd expect to see more higher priced content available directly through Istock following the success of both Vetta and Exclusive Plus. Other agencies will probably continue to be more limited in their ability to raise prices through the overlap in content with one another.

The "Good Old Days" are Gone (and Aren't Coming Back)

When I mean the good old days, I'm talking about both on the traditional and micro sides.

"Micro": There was a time in micro where new contributors could upload images and consistently see spikes in income, sometimes irrespective of the quality. Submitting high quality content at that time could result in "crazy money" for some. Unlike those times, there are now largely behind us. The "low-hanging fruit" have been well and truly picked, and if your strategy is to shoot images that look just like Yuri's, or feature a large selection of objects isolated on white, well good luck with that.

"Macro": In past some stock photographers were able to make embarrassingly large profits from shooting stock.

Significant barriers to entry - both technological and institutional are now largely gone. While there is still significant inertia from an established arrangement of buyers and sellers that is partly maintaining some higher prices, the overall trend is to lower prices except where content is well and truely high quality or fits a unique niche. Investing considerable cash in shoots with the idea that this is a sure-fire investment would now be a courageous decision. The nature of the competition is that creativity and unique content is still rewarded, but big rewards for anything but the best content is far from certain.

Does this mean its all bad news? Of course not, the market will be healthy for the foreseeable future - particularly for those producing quality content. The market for images continues to grow steadily. The big "but" is that if your work isn't able to stand up to competition from "amateurs", you don't have a big future in this industry. Don't expect to hide behind equipment - in this market its results that matter - technology provides an ever more limited safety net.

Internationalisation

The key battlegrounds for stock agencies seem to be shifting further afield from the US. Its looking pretty clear that Istock dominates the US market for stock and is successfully consolidating this position.

The new battle fields are in Europe and emerging economic areas. There isn't much talk of Asia just yet - but markets like China will be of interest for the future, and will be a space to watch.

Its likely to be online agencies that can capitalise most on this trend, particularly those that pay attention to language and cultural differences inherent in each market.

Not all Doom and Gloom

In any rapidly changing market there are winners and loosers. After a wave of negativity - lead by Fotolia's slashing of commissions for contributors and followed by Dreamstime - we're starting to see some positives for micro contributors.

For Istock exclusives, the access to some higher priced collections is a welcome positive that looks set to continue.

For non-exclusives, there's also the growing recognition by some agencies that there needs to be a stop to the exodus of established microstockers to exclusivity. A sign of this is the current round of incentives being offered by Veer and Polylooks. Another opportunity will arise in the form of a growing acceptance by traditional agencies of microstock who will start to look more seriously at attracting those who are able to produce images with a lower cost base than they've been used to.