What Happened When the Stock Photo Business Moved Online?

In the old days (the mid-90s) the stock photo business was not on the Internet. People would shop for photography by requesting samples on CDs. In ancient times, a sales rep would show up with a large glossy book that showcased photos in a particular category of interest. Sometimes a buyer wanted to see more than one category, so these sales people never needed to go to the gym. But the Internet changed all that. In the very late 90s, companies began sprouting up that had images online. These companies enabled people to browse using keywords, and make selections without assistance, while sitting in a comfortable desk chair. Shopping carts and broadband were added later, and a person didn’t need to even pick up the phone to buy something and download it.

This revolutionized the stock business, and reverberations are still being felt. Many new market entrants used this new Internet distribution model as a platform to create a lower priced tier called the Microstock agency – where photos could be purchased for just a few dollars. Quite a bit of market share was gained by the Microstock entrants, at the expense of the larger, well-established players. At the same time, these larger players were buying up niche agencies that had extensive collections of Rights Managed and traditional Royalty Free photography. So what’s the end result? The big players got even bigger, and the new players in the new Microstock category continued to gain significant market share.

This is a fantastic new world for the stock photo buyer, as there is more inventory than ever at a wide variety of price points. In 2008, equilibrium may be setting in between the various categories. Experienced stock photo buyers know that they need to spend the extra money on a Rights Managed image for a certain project need, but can use Microstock to get something perfectly great for another project at a bargain price. The market share numbers and average price points may still be moving around a bit, but all three categories remain vital – Rights Managed, traditional Royalty Free, and Microstock.

At xcavator.net, we are catering to busy stock photo buyers in a new way. They can see right away that we’ve got millions of images in multiple categories, and use our visual search tools to quickly find exactly what they need.