Thoughts and Ramblings

[ChristineParticipant]

There have obviously been things going on behind the scenes as just six weeks ago Leo (“original” rather than “former” developer? )  mentioned getting things released.  Then Robin was sort of introduced, but who apart from having three years experience in stock and programming skills I know nothing about, not even his/her sex or where on the planet they live.  Not that I absolutely need to, just that we have grown over time into a community who at least know that much about each other and I feel it does help with trust.  Plus of course if you are in Europe you HAVE to include your name and address etc on any site you sell items from.

Now it seems that Leo has gone to pastures new, pushed or jumped who knows although I rather suspect the latter as he now seems be be concentrating on Illustrators rather than Photographer on a site with a different name, and Robin has taken over Symbiostock.  From what I can understand the “symbio” side of it, which was one of the primary focus’ of the  original idea will not be a main feature at least in the beginning?

However, to get back to our current developer, Robin, who seems to have different visions and hopefully we will soon learn what they are and how the will impact those who are staying with Symbiostock and any costs involved.  The demo site looks clean and neat but it would be nice to have a look behind the scenes at the working side of things as well as you can with most demo themes.

Personally, I would prefer now to see a centralised site where we can upload our images into our own “store”.  I mentioned **Etsy a few weeks ago, I do not know how many of you have come across it but it is somewhere everyone is responsible for their own “store” – the stock, prices, SEO and postage (they do mostly physical items as well as digital downloads).    They charge $0.20 approx £0.13 per item for four months listing which is then payable again should the item be relisted after 4 months or sell and be relisted, and you get free listings when you start plus when you introudce new sellers, plus they take 3% of the sale price.  For a stock site which might have hundreds if not thousands of images this would need to be lower, at least until a good customer base was established.   Fees are invoiced in the seller dashboard at the end of each month and if a store does not pay within 14 days it is closed.   For this Etsy are responsible for the hosting and dealing with tax and vat collection/dispersion etc.   This could be an good pattern to follow as I have discovered I have no wish to deal with the European VAT side of things – and in case you are not yet aware this affects EVERYONE who sells even one digitally downloaded item to European customers.

Robin, is this the sort of thing you are envisioning with your hosted sites?  What will we have to do to bring customers in, is there some central plan, or just google and seo etc.   I am currently looking at Google Merchant and adwords for my physical item store (somewhat complicated and taking a while to get various things approved) to see if that helps with customers.

 

** Etsy – if anyone wants to sell anything there please contact me before you register so I can get both of us some free listings 🙂

http://kerioakimaging.com - trying to reopen
http://nail-art-at.kerioak.com - Art and Nail Art

[cascolyBlocked]

re etsy — I tested it over a year ago — it’s a nice site, with friendly people, but I sold nothing in several months of trying — I used single images & collections that sold well on ebay back in the time they allowed digital products

I also looked at bonanza, but that was horrible – ZERO views after a month or more, even using their ‘enhanced’ listings options.

so for the moment, the only sites I know that produce at least some results are those like zazzle (a pain to set up since you have to set up each image separately) and ffa, etc

 

 

[RobinKeymaster]

Hey Christine – I’ve posted a blog entry relating to some of the questions you’ve asked.

The Etsy idea is a good one – the main problem is that Etsy, as far as I understand it, is mostly for consumer clients, not business ones. Accordingly, digital media is a different animal, and we’d need Symzio to operate in a way that appeals to both corporate and individual clients. I already have a solid plan that should remain both competitive and provide growth, but can’t discuss it right now as I am focused on getting Symbiostock released. Additionally, Symzio will require lots of community input prior to release to ensure that its mechanisms work for all of us. I will be posting a thread where we will discuss the ins and outs of Symzio at some point after Symbiostock is released.

[Author]

Posts