So Long StockXpert

Just when StockXpert was starting to produce good sales for me, they close shop. As of today, StockXpert is no longer accepting submissions. They will continue to sell images until the 11th of this month. After that, our images are supposed to be transferred to iStockPhoto. This is really depressing because last month I had my 2nd best sales month with the dollar wise, and my best month by number of sales. Also, not all images will be moved to iStockPhoto. That means a potential loss of 1343 products from the market for me.

This further eliminates competition in among the microstock agencies. This means a higher potential for 2 things. 1) higher prices for buyers. 2) lower commissions for contributers. My lowest commissions to date are $.25 an image. I cannot see how the agencies can think of lowering it even further, but I'm sure they will try. The little guy cannot do much about it so we can only hope that the big contributers Threated to pull there content if this downward spiral does not stop.

On the bright side, it will force us to really step up our game. iStockPhoto is very selective in what they accept. You have to produce high quality content to make in on their site. Time to work on composition and technique if you want to stay in the market.