The Pixmac microstock agency is proud to announce that we now offer 7 million stock photos for our customers. Only a few competitors can say the same. Our collection consists of 3 sources. Two are creative and one editorial called “Celebrity”. Pixmac is the fastest way to get a stock photo or illustration for your design for a price that might surprise you.

When the pink company launched its marketplace in September 2008 it might have seemed like just another microstock company that is trying to make it. But look how much we have grown in a year! Pixmac has partners in 9 major markets and its sales are growing faster than expected.

Our company is  growing faster than other competitors in the microstock market according to respected site Alexa.com and  the amount of pictures grows with it. Not only that, Pixmac invented the “One Stop Shopping” way to get inexpensive quality photos in a matter of seconds without need of registration. Lee Torrens, a well known microstock blogger, says: “I LOVE your one-stop-shopping idea! It has always been a missing element of microstock agencies…” Yes, Pixmac focuses on speed and user friendliness.

Pixmac offers a lot now and has more in the oven to offer our customers. For example, Pixmac is working with a University on a project that will change your searching abilities and will make searching quicker and easier. We are also adding another few million photos to the database soon and working on some nice stock photo searching tweaks.

This week we’re launching a new updated website together with features such as Moneybookers payment method which added with payments by PayPal and/or  Credit Card. Also we have included a popular feature that sorts search results by downloads or date.

Vitezslav Valka (CEO) comments: “I’m always thrilled to see our customers happy with the user interface. Everybody deserves an easy tool that just works. I’m watching everything that happens in the company and believe me, it’s better than Red Bull and Duracell together!”

And one last thing for insiders. Watch our Twitter for special offers!

There are always some photographers  who are not quite satisfied with their microstock agency. The same thing seems to be happening at Apple App Store. Why does that happen? How to avoid it or fix it? After almost a year of Pixmac  service  being up and running, I’ll try to find answers.

First things first. Be sure I want to have Pixmac as a social responsible company. We are nothing like a bank or large burger chain that seems like a black box that just takes your money and does nothing with it. No! Not when I’m here. Sure, the company has to generate revenue, sure it must satisfy its investors. But why  push it to the edge? Why to cut affiliate programs in half, when the company believes it will be no pain?

I went over several threads at Microstock Group and found out that there is always people posting that some (in fact any) agency is the worst and they will delete their portfolio right away. Usually the agency owner doesn’t even read it and if they do they propably don’t take it seriously. I think that this is not the right way for our users(customers?). We’re all on a same boat, we’re here to help people that need pictures and we’re here to feed ourselves – together. So, let’s talk about the pain and find a cure!

Pixmac after a year of service

Pixmac is still a newcomer to microstock. Since our start in September 2008, we have had a few bumps in the road, and we’ve made some mistakes. We’re learning from them.  But I am proud to report that we made a huge jump forward since  Pixmac was started. But believe me, we have always kept our customers in mind every step of the way.

Good news

I’m really proud to sum up what we’ve achieved in last 11 months. And I’m looking forward what we can do in the future. There will be some challenging times ahead, but I am confident that I and the Pixmac team will be ready to face them.

Better sales every month

We are still growing! No matter in what season, no matter during a time of  crisis, and  no matter if CEO is on honeymoon! Pixmac proves that fast and user-friendly interface is the right choice for serving your needs. Tell your friends, tell your family, spread the word over Twitter and Facebook! There is still place for some more figures in the gross sales number. We do banners, promos, articles, contests to attract buyers. But it’s the word of mouth that makes the difference.

Low subscription prices

We know that  trying to beat the competitors with a rock bottom price was not the right choice. So we took down the advertisement on that in the first place. We pushed the prices of subscription to a  higher  rate. Still, we know it is not ideal. But trust me, there are some bright new ideas in the oven already.

Nice revenues from bonus credits

When we’re giving bonus credits to contests or on any other occasions, we have to set their price somehow. We used the subscription prices as a measure before. But I thought it’s time to reward you when  you spend time uploading to Pixmac. So now we’ve set the price of a bonus credit to $0,9 (as same as in the $500 credit pack). So you should get noticeably more if some user comes to your portfolio to buy a picture.

Slow/bad approving process

Fixed already, but worth noting. In the early months there was a lot to fix. Even when we came up with the idea to pay you for just uploading  as your first agency. Now it should be faster (matter of hours to few days) more positive and easier to use. We’ve also added a dispute option to the process. So you can always complain if some of your recent uploads were not approved and we will get back to you as fast as possible.

Lock-in time

If anybody remembers this. We started with 2 year lock-in. But, in February 2009, we’ve changed this to 1 year after a discussion with photographers. Sure it can be less and it will be. It just needs time to convince the owners, that they will not loose anything if they open the system a bit. Believe me, I am looking for a way to satisfy both sides.

Sliding commision without explanation

This is our fault. I’ve explained this issue on Microstock Group, so I’ll do the same here. Basically it’s about splitting the earned money into a few parts. First is the photographer, then from the rest something goes to affiliate and rest to Pixmac. Sure, the time of registration matters, because the options change as time goes by, so if you’ve registered today, your contract is the same for a lifetime unless you request a change (if the offer becomes better than what you have).

More features for buyers

We want the users to be happy, that is our way to satisfy photographers in the long term. For example, our latest great feature is  the similarity search. Even now we’re still working on improving, every result as an icon, which finds similar images. The user  doesn’t even have to know the keywords! Another  thing  worth mentioning is the eg. Facebook App that shows your stats to others;  A widget that can be used in several ways to promote your portfolio or any theme etc.

New languages and local people in team

This is my personal favorite. Pixmac has been translated into 6 languages already: English, German, Russian, Czech, Spanish and Finnish. Dutch, Italian, Brasilian Portugese, French and Polish are in the progress these days. And not just that! We have people in those regions that take care about the customers, preparing marketing strategies and are in everyday contact with  our headquarters in Prague.

Upcoming partnerships

We’re doing a lot in this field. Stay tuned and we hope you’ll be impressed. Pixmac should be much more than just another microstock site. I’m doing my best and the rest of the team  is too. By the way, have you tried Ginipic tool?

Yes, we can do more. And we will. Vitezslav “Zager” Valka, CEO of Pixmac

Pixmac will be unavailable on Thursday, 30th July 2009 from 7pm to 7.30pm GMT (1am to 1.30am EST). We are upgrading our hardware and unfortunately that will interrupt the service.

We apologize for the inconvience and we will be back up and running as soon as possible. Thank you for visiting Pixmac and we hope to see you back again soon.

Edit: Pixmac will be available all the time, we will upgrade our hardware without interrupting the service.

Pixmac microstock photobank was nominated and won the prize in the 2009 Internet Effectiveness Awards contest in the  Award for Innovation category. The competition was very high as there were 11 other innovative projects nominated.

IEA 2009 ceremony

Pixmac has been operating in the market since September 2008. The key advantage is the maximal simplicity and low prices of photos which you can use both in the advertisements and news. Even with this recent beginning, Pixmac has approached the tenth position among the world of microstock photo agencies. And we keep growing.

Our ongoing aim is to spread our great service onto the expanding global market.Its no secret, its our goal! Simultaneously, we are increasing the volume of photos and decreasing the time needed find them by the user. Cross your fingers!

Internet Effectiveness Awards

Pixmac was shortlisted for Internet Effectiveness Awards 2009 in the “Business to Business” category! IEA (Internet Effectiveness Awards) is the competition of e-shops and commercial websites for the most effective internet project. The winner will be announced on June 18th 2009. We are crossing our fingers!

Pixmac will be unavailable on Thursday, 28th May 2009 from 1pm to 1.30pm GMT (7am to 7.30am EST). We are upgrading our hardware and unfortunately that will interrupt the service.

We apologize for the inconvience and we will be back up and running as soon as possible. Thank you for visiting Pixmac and we hope to see you back again soon.

There were some small agencies that already are not with us. Lucky Oliver is one of them. Is the field is actually getting crowded? Or those companies were not healthy? Lets dig deeper in it.

The first thing everybody should know is that the reader actually is a possible buyer. So the user interface and its feeling of speed is the crucial thing to have in mind. Then, the photographer.

The Photographer is in totally different position. He or she knows much more about the field, is curious about what’s happening inside the agency, because it’s his pictures what’s selling. And that is something what every agency should keep in mind. Pixmac, as a young alternative to big elephants, is making this true.

The other thing is the target groups. Most buyers, as we have been researching, are small companies or even individuals. Usually entrepreneurs or freelance designers who know a bit about on-line services. They know it’s easier way to get pictures than negotiate with some old-fashioned agencies. The other thing is, that these electronic pictures usually remain there between ones and zeros. Most users are putting this into website designs or as a desktop backgrounds. Some are using them for print or jut for a decoration of their home.

Pixmac tries harder

Because we already know that microstock field is getting a bit crowded we try harder. We’re paying people to do the keywording for free for our photographers. We are thinking about the user interface as a tool that should be fast and easy. No marketing “blah blah” around. And the last thing we do is listening. We reply to every email that falls into our mailboxes. And we actually do the change if there is something that is not working well for the users – usually within hours.

Pixmac is also friendly to buyers. As far as I know, we are first agency who acquires photographers and in the same time sells pictures from other agencies. That is why we already have more than a million of pictures for the buyers. For the short time we’re here its great news for the buyers.

The Microstock phenomenon

The difference between regular photo agency and a Microstock agency is price. Most of the traditional agencies depend on a small group of their photographers. Pixmac depends on a growing community of freelancers and photo enthusiasts. And the digital era brings better prices to everybody. That is why Pixmac can offer more for better price.

Design Federation is a group of people oriented on design and new media. They wrote an article mentioning some interesting microstock agencies and Pixmac was one of them.

For Pixmac, this is good news. Everyday we are working hard to bring you the best tool for selling or buying photos. And this type of article shows that we are heading to the right direction. In the article the positives were a clear message to us:

Here you can find many high quality pictures which i have not seen on any other microsite. The site is very quick and easy to work with and the price levels rank among the lowest on the microstock market. They also have quite big thumbnails which i appreciate.

The only negative was the lack of advanced searching. But that is a thing we are already cooking in our kitchen. We hope that this, and a couple of other new features will pop-up shortly on Pixmac website.

More at Design Federation (November 12th, 2008)