This week both Getty and Corbis launched their Photography Supermarkets. Thinkstock (Getty) and Veer (Corbis) will sell both RF and microstock. Thinkstock will have a subscription model. Veer will simply integrate their RF and microstock images into one website, but it is expected that soon the price difference will disappear.
Since most stock shooters (and agencies) have been pumping commodity images in high volume into the RF libraries it is not that weird to integrate RF and micro into one big library. Let’s be fair, the quality difference between most RF and some of the micro images is not that big. Soon we will have photography megastores filled with millions of images, partly consumer generated micro and partly professional RF imagery.
Who will win, who will lose ?
It looks like that the stock game is over for most professional stock shooters. Only those willing and able to shoot high volume against low cost will survive. But most professional shooters will probably call it a day.
Some think the stock industry will keep going and also think it will be the companies who will win out in the long term. In this new business model most contributors will make only pocket money, it will be the photography supermarkets who will take the profits. Like in normal supermarkets the margins are very thin but the profit is made by selling in high volume. That’s why only the professional shooters capable of shooting high volume against low cost have a chance to take a serious profit in these photography supermarkets.
So it appears that the professional photographers are the losers and the companies the winners. I don’t think so.
Also most companies will lose
Most general stock agencies are relatively small. And we all know what happened with the small “general” supermarkets when the megastores came….they all have gone out of business. It is not only the professional that will lose, most stock agencies will also have to stop their business. It is only the hubs, the megastores who have the sheer volume in internet traffic and sales that will make a profit. Margins on the new RF/micro will be too small for the low volume business of the small general stock agencies.
This is visible already in micro. When you are not the hub, where buyers and sellers meet, you are not a player. Istock, Shutterstock, Fotolia and Dreamstime are the players. The rest is fighting for the leftovers. When Getty, Corbis create these RF/micro megastores they will have the traffic, they will have the best shooters, they will have volume, they can make the profit. Small supermarkets will have a lousy collection, bad traffic and will not make a profit (with these very very small margins on an individual sale).
A common interest
I think small stock agencies and good professional stock shooters have a common interest. Neither professional shooters nor most stock agencies have anything to win by continuing the current business. Eventually the megastores will kill them.
In normal retail we have seen that the small general stores have all closed their business. But a little later new small stores have arisen. Butchers, bakers, cheese shops, etc. But all very specialized. High quality. Unique products. High prices. People most of the times do their daily shopping in the megastores, but for this nice piece of cheese they go these specialty store.
It is probably true that for many many purposes the cheap images from the photography supermarkets will suffice, but some clients will have the need for these unique, high-quality images. Sometimes it will be the same clients shopping in the megastores as well in the speciality shops, all depending on their needs.
Re-invent your business
Serious stock shooters and most small agencies have one common interest: to re-invent their business (or else leave the business). The answer may be in highly specialized RM collections, but not necessarily. But stop the commodity business !! You cannot win it – not the photographer and not the agency. The megastores and some shooters that are capable of running a highly industrialized production company will win. The amateurs (and other professional shooters) will at best take some nice pocket money.
Small stock agencies need the professionals. The professionals need the agencies. But there is only one road …leave the commodity business and invent new businesses. Back to a photographer/quality led business. Craftsmanship, creativity and independence. The agency serving the creative professionals.
This will require strong brands. Known for quality, service, art directed imagery, unique and fresh imagery, innovative. This will not be the place for those stock shooters who depended on shooting commodity in volume. Maybe these agencies will not be stock agencies. Maybe these agencies will be partly assignment partly stock business. May be it is not simply selling your RF business and focusing on one or two RM collections. Maybe it is seriously re-inventing the business. But I think there is a common interest for agencies and their photographers to do this together.
Or else the agencies will die and the photographers will go direct selling or start up some collectives. This will happen anyways. But the agencies have no chance without photographers !!
