What Photo Buyers Want from Photographer and Agency Websites

I just received this post from cutcaster.com listing the top ten things that photo buyers want from an Agency and/or a Photographers website. For those of you in, or thinking of going into stock photography I think this is useful stuff to know. It is re-printed here with the permission of custcaster.

Today, we are releasing the comments that some images buyers told us during last year’s survey in the hopes that this helps photographers and designers tailor their offering to attract more buyers. We took 10 of the most popular comments and arranged them below in a random order to show you what features or services they like an agency to offer. The question was actually a two-part question and was “What do you like most/least about the stock photo sites that you work with?” Later this week, we will share the things they didn’t like about their current stock image agency. 

Top 10 things image buyers said they liked which their stock agency provided.

1. Current and wide selection of images from international sources at reasonable prices.

2. Special picture collection pricing for royalty free or rights managed photos.

3. Stock agency websites that can show an entire photo purchase history with a simple click to avoid duplicate image purchases.

4. With current rates that image researchers get, we need to work FAST. The most important features for a stock site are direct downloading and embedded metadata. If you do not offer these two things, you are a 2nd tier vendor.

5. Picture pop-up windows to review images instead of having to use “back” button.

6. Advanced features like search filters when we need to give restrictions.

7. Love seeing Creative Inspiration.

8. Great sales help when a user encounters a problem. (From Cutcaster: Most image buyers didn’t say they needed a specific sales representative to help them use an agency)

9. High resolution comp images with metadata embedded.

10. Agencies with multicultural, disabilities, youth, and well executed food shots most cited image needs.

Overall, most image buyers stressed that they needed the highest quality images, fast / accurate search results and lower pricing which is understandable in the current economic environment.

I am publishing these stats to help others and in the name of transparency so hopefully more agencies and experienced photographers will follow our lead and publish more data they have collected on picture buyers. 

After obtaining permission to re-print this post I looked through the cutcaster.com website. What I saw was impressive, enough so that I am considering sending them images to market. (For the record, I'm NOT getting any kind of compensation for endorsing them.)

You can reach cutcaster.com here or at Twitter: http://twitter.com/cutcaster or Facebook: http://facebook.com/Cutcaster.