Why stock? What is stock clothing? Material requirements

Stocks, photo stocks or stock exchange are platforms where you can sell or rent your own images, videos, illustrations, designs and templates to users from all over the world.

Essentially, a stock is an intermediary that helps you sell your work and attract new clients. The platform takes care of all organizational and technical aspects: marketing, promotion, legal and technical assistance. But at the same time, she takes her percentage of the sale, usually from 30 to 75 percent, depending on the exclusivity and level of sales.

Exclusivity is when you sell your digital product only on one stock and do not have the right to sell these works on other sites.

What can you sell?

The stock market is developing very dynamically, and with each passing year the number of products that can be sold is growing. Today I can mention the following popular and in-demand areas:

• Photo. The oldest and most profitable type of sale. Professionals and amateurs from all over the world upload their works. Everything is in demand here: from some home photographs to studio product photographs. Currently there is a very strict selection of works; photos taken from a phone will most likely not pass moderation. By the way, this article uses stock photos.
• Video. Also a common type of digital goods. You can sell video frames ranging from 6 seconds to several minutes. This could be a time-lapse of a sunrise or filming with actors.
• Vector. Here you can sell illustrations drawn in the vector editor Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. Both abstract elements, flowers or lace, and full-fledged illustrations and characters are in demand.
• 3D models. Sale of ready-made models made in 3D software. This could be furniture, characters, objects, etc.
• After Effects projects. Templates made in After Effects. The buyer, having purchased the project, will be able to insert his image, video, text and/or logo and receive his video.
• Music and sound effects. You can buy music for YouTube, presentations, podcasts, and so on. A huge assortment of music and noises. Given YouTube's aggressive copyright policy, this type of product is gaining momentum.
• Web-sites' templates. This is now one of the most profitable types of stock sales. Many people always need websites. Do you want your own blog, online store, business card website or landing page for sales? All this can be bought at stocks.
• Templates of graphic elements. Here you can sell logos, business cards, badges, mockups, posters and so on.
• Fonts. Buying fonts is not in great demand in the countries of the former USSR, but every year the demand for licensed products is growing.

To make full money on a photo stock site, you need to have at least 1000 photos, from that moment your earnings begin.

Today there is a lot of competition in the market, and the only competitive advantage is the quality of your work and promotion through third-party platforms. You essentially have no other instruments of influence. The price for your work is set by the stockist and you cannot lower it. If everything is very ambiguous with marketing and promotion, then with the quality of work and relevance of topics everything is extremely simple - good and in-demand work will sell and appear more often in searches. But having 10-20 works in your portfolio is very little. To make full money from a photo stock site, you need to have at least 1000 photos, from that moment your earnings begin.

Drains are increasingly being handled by professional studios and production companies with a large number of employees. They load leftovers and some commercial work, and some are designed purely for stock business.

What platforms exist?

At the moment there are several main, leading stocks:

• Shutterstock – selling photos, videos and wind content
• Depositphotos – selling photos, videos and wind content
• iStock – Selling photo, video, audio and wind content
• Fotolia
• Pond5 – this stock is more geared towards selling videos, but they accept images, music, After Effects templates,
• The Envato network of platforms is one of the largest players on the market, selling everything from website templates to music. Very large selection and very low price.
• Creative market
• Template Monster

There are many other sites, and there are more and more of them every month. Share in the comments if you know any other profitable ones.

Earning money without straining or earning $1000 without getting out of bed is not about the stock business. You have to work hard here.

Material requirements

I will not describe each area separately, because this requires a separate topic. But in general it all comes down to four basic rules:

• A technically correct product. For example, if this is a photograph, the main thing in the frame should be sharp and in focus, the ISO should be minimal, the white balance should be correct, and the amount of noise should be kept to a minimum.
• There must be professional equipment. A photo taken with a phone will most likely not work.
• Popular or unique story. In some cases, this can compensate for the previous points.
• You must not infringe copyright and must comply with the terms and conditions of the specific stock.

Is it possible to make money from this?

The answer is yes! You can make money from this, but it all depends on your desire and quality of work. We will look at this issue in more detail in future articles.

Where to begin?

If you are interested in the topic of stocks, I recommend starting by deciding what you want to do. Writing music, taking photographs and making 3D models all at once is a bad strategy. You must do this gradually and regularly. Only after you realize that drainage is also work and you need to bother, will you move to a new level - a person who is ready to conquer drainage.

All photos courtesy of stock

The concept of "stock" comes from a consonant English word, which translates as "store in a warehouse" or "stock". Thus, stock is clothing that has not been sold previously. In this case, a stock store is an enterprise that sells remnants of goods.

Runoff: what is it and when did it arise?

The first companies of this type appeared several decades ago. Their emergence was justified by the fact that retail chains and enterprises could not completely sell out the new collections, despite all their marketing tricks. At the end of each season, a decent amount of items from previous collections remained, and fashion moved on. This reduced the rate of capital turnover and reduced the financial capacity of companies. This state of affairs did not suit anyone, so a new idea arose. A separate store could sell leftover clothes and shoes, various accessories and other things - stock. What is marketing? The ability to dodge and not lose your profit.

Popularity

The idea found its consumers. After only a short time, the stock segment took a strong position in the market. In the States and European countries, people are worried about maintaining their family budget, so the stock business has long had large financial turnover, providing good competition for the release of new collections. Stock companies in the CIS gained popularity after the financial crisis, because the cost of Turkish and Chinese goods, which were previously cheap, has risen significantly. The middle class could not afford to buy clothes at such prices. Buyers learned about the stock that such an enterprise allows them to significantly save money.

The essence of a stock product

The peculiarity of stock companies is that they provide huge discounts on all goods. Discounts from branded stores can reach 70-80%, as, for example, in the Stoke City company.

Sources of flow

There are several main resources of stock items and their corresponding types:

1. Reproduction at a plant or factory.
   This type of drainage is called factory or factory drainage. It includes original items that for some reason did not leave the factory warehouse. There may be surplus goods, because after the end of the batch there are materials left over. They are paid in advance, and it is almost impossible to simply sell them, so the factory produces an additional batch of clothes or shoes. The sale of such items goes through stock wholesale companies, which directly buy large quantities from factories without intermediaries. Also, such a stock can be formed due to the refusal of the distribution network to accept part of the shipment or to cooperate altogether. Garment factories, like any other business, need working capital, so the goods need to be sold. Stock companies buy goods and sell them at a discount.
2. Wholesale stock, dealer stock.
   This is a product purchased by wholesale buyers. Such products were purchased by wholesalers from official companies. The latter were unable to sell the entire product, and as you know, in European countries a collection is considered fashionable for three months; some chains even shorten this period from two weeks to a month. Let's say the collection has nine thousand units, and the networks purchased only five of them. The company is forced to search for new connections or cooperate with stock companies. It is necessary to check this type of stock, because unscrupulous dealers are trying to sell stock that is five or ten years old.
3. Warehouse stock.
   What is this type of drainage? It should be highlighted as separate. Can be classified as retail chains or dealer residuals. The stock exceeds the quality and equipment of the store, it is packaged, has tags and does not contain minor defects that may arise during the fitting process in stores. An important feature of this type of drain is the presence of dimensional grids.
4. Stocks of retail chains.
   The bulk of the stock goods that arrive in the CIS are of this type. Western countries also often see this type of product. These are clothes that were not sold out during the season and after the end of the promotions. It is removed and stored in designated warehouses, and then it is sold to wholesale companies or sent to stock companies in European countries.

Formation of runoff

A new collection of goods from a certain brand arrives at the store. The company sets the initial price. Few people know that the markup can exceed more than a thousand percent of the cost of the product. A certain part of the lot is sold at a maximum price. Time passes, and the clothes are already sold at a discount of 20-30%. At this price, some of the lot is sold. Final sales at the end of the season sell products at a discount of 70-90%. Such promotions still do not sell the entire balance of goods, so part of the batch invariably remains. What can you do?

Solution options

The first option is to leave the clothes in storage. The second is to put it back up for sale. Neither of the proposed outcomes appeals to retailers for a number of reasons. During sales, you can sell a small part of the collection. If both a new collection and previously unsold goods remain in the same sales area, buyers feel awkward. Some people consider purchasing discounted items to be a decrease in their status, while others prefer not to go to a store with sales. Moreover, the brand’s pricing policy becomes inexplicable to the buyer. Products of the same quality are located nearby, but with a large difference in cost. This negatively affects the company's reputation. Another negative consequence of combining collections is a waste of space on the sales floor. Clothing from previously released collections reduces the store's profit per unit of sales area. Unsold goods freeze finances, which could bring much greater profits outside of goods.

Sales of goods to stock companies

So, store owners are faced with a number of difficulties that require immediate solutions. There is more than one way out. It is possible to open a dedicated store or a network of similar ones that could sell leftover goods at a significant discount. Not only does this option solve the problem of stockpiling and selling goods, it also helps to increase the target audience of the brand. People will come to such stores who cannot afford to buy this company's goods at the usual price. The option is acceptable for large and extensive networks that can open a separate outlet (Moscow offers many such examples) and stably fill it with goods.

Another option for solving the situation is to sell the goods to another stock network or wholesale stock enterprises. For example, the Adidas brand is sold to many enterprises. This allows you to sell shoes and clothes that were not sold previously. The cost of selling such products is naturally much lower than retail store prices. But solving the above problems is worth it. Moreover, this is a suitable way for branded boutiques to get rid of the accumulation of rare sizes. Wholesalers buy such items if the clothing was recently released, but its supply is no longer planned.

Fashionable clothes always cost a lot of money and not everyone can afford to dress fashionably, and in difficult economic times, fashionable, high-quality clothes become a real luxury! That is why now buyers are increasingly turning their attention tostock centers . After all, large stock stores receive goods several times a month, and discounts on goods reach up to 90%! The best price-quality ratio is the formula for success in stock clothing. It is this quality that allows these stores around the world to dress people in fashionable and high-quality clothes at affordable prices! Visiting a stock store is a great way to update your wardrobe while saving money.

All over the world, stock centers have already become a part of people's lives. Many experts believe that this phenomenon is only in its infancy and that soon stock stores will become real competitors for large brands.
Moreover, as statistics say, many branded stores in Russia and Europe do not want to transfer their goods to stock centers, but they also do not want to reduce the price. They restore the clothes to marketable condition and try to sell them for the same money. This means that sometimes in boutiques you can buy goods that may be even worse in quality than in a stock store.

Stock trading is a unique type of store that is already very relevant in the West, but is considered relatively new in Russia.Stock stores They differ from ordinary ones in that they sell goods that remain unsold. All the clothes there are of absolutely normal quality and appearance, but due to the constant development of fashion, these things are considered old-fashioned and depreciate in value.

In stock stores you will never find a division of goods into categories, as is often the case in second-hand stores. All goods in stock centers are of the 1st quality category, which means they are in no way inferior to their expensive counterparts in boutiques.

The main advantageshopping at stock centers are, of course, prices. Sometimes discounts on goods reach up to 95%. Such offers attract people, because this is a chance to get a high-quality branded product at a great price!

An interesting fact: for the most part, all clothes sold on stock sites come to the market from Europe! But why is that?
The point is that Europeans, due to their financial status, have the opportunity to update their wardrobe regularly. It turns out that many things that fashionable Europeans consider to be illiquid are sold to stock centers or second-hand stores. In European countries it is not customary to store things; they immediately hand them over to special centers, from where they then end up on second-hand store shelves. The highest quality items may end up in stock centers.

Stock center receives its goods from various sources. The main suppliers of clothing are brand stores. They give tostock store goods of a slow-moving size, the latest models, items from shop windows or with traces of trying on (most often this means torn tags). Another important source of goods instock centers are wholesale companies. From such companiesstock store receives a product that is considered outdated by fashion standards. This product is of excellent quality and attracts customers the most.

Also instock stores You can often find a product called "factory surplus". Such clothes and shoes go tostock center straight from the factory. The reason for this sending is the following:

After sewing a batch, there are materials left, the manufacturing company spends the material on creating a small batch of goods and sends it to the stock center. They do this because any business needs working resources, so they are interested in quickly selling their small batch of goods.

There are not many types of stock stores, let’s take a closer look at them:

1) Stock store one brand. Datastock stores have at their disposal goods from only one manufacturer, such stores, as a rule, have a narrow focus and are intended for a specific audience.

2) Retail - park. A stock store of incredible size, built as cheaply and quickly as possible. The products there are very diverse. From clothes to tools and toys.

3) Stock online stores. This typestore stock is now very popular, because the prices are even cheaper than in physical stores. Cheaper, since the seller does not spend money on renting the premises. Our online store “Europe-Stock” is exactly such a stock center.

People are so involved in buying cheap things instock stores that over time they even formed their own rules for purchasing clothes instock centers:

1) Don’t be shy about spending more time in stock stores than in regular stores. Search and rummage through things and baskets. Many clients of stock centers may deliberately hide the best product in the depths, hoping that they will buy it later.

2) If some thing has sunk into your soul, take it right away without any hesitation. Don’t put off shopping, because tomorrow it may not be there. Yes, besides, the prices for goods in stock stores are always friendly and small, which means everyone can buy the product they like at any time!

In our store you can find a huge selection of clothes not only for adults, but also for little fashionistas and fashionistas.

Our store has some of the best prices on the RuNet, as well as a good system of discounts and bonuses for regular customers.

For more than 6 years we have been supplying high-quality clothing from the best boutiques in Europe. Our assortment includes only suppliers and brands that have been proven over the years. We guarantee quality!

When asked what I do, I answer that I draw for stock, my interlocutors are pretty confused :) And I have to explain for a long time what stock is, because the vast majority of people have absolutely no idea about them. And this is normal, a couple of years ago I myself knew nothing about illustration or microstocks. If you try to ask Google “what are wastewater and why are they needed”, it will give you a lot of links to a site about wastewater treatment plants :)) But these are completely different wastewater. The stocks that interest us are exchanges on which producers of visual content sell their photographs, illustrations, drawings and videos, and buyers purchase them. ​

In this article I will talk about stock from the point of view of an illustrator (or rather, a vector illustrator); for photographers and videographers, the data may vary.

Imagine the Internet as a shopping center, inside of which there are many stores, that is, microstocks. You, content producers, give your creativity to them for sale, and when your product is bought, you get your penny from the income.

Each microstock has its own amount of royalties to authors, which depend on many factors, but we can talk about an average price of $0.25 per purchase.

HOW DO YOU EARN EARNINGS IF STOCKS PAY SUCH PENNY TO THE AUTHORS?

This is where the shopping mall analogy breaks down, because when your product is purchased, it does not disappear from the shelf, as in a regular store. When you upload a picture to a stock, it’s as if you are selling an infinite number of copies :) And one picture can be sold many times, bringing you penny after penny, and as a result, serious sums accumulate. In addition, your picture can be bought at a higher price - this happens when it is bought “on demand” - that is, without a subscription, or under an extended license - for business use.

HOW MUCH CAN YOU EARN FROM MICROSTOCKS AND WHEN WILL THE STOCKS START GENERATING INCOME?

These are two of the most frequently asked questions about microstocks, and at the same time two of the most “unanswered”. It is impossible to predict how much a particular person will earn and when he will start receiving at least $50 a month.

The amount of earnings depends on:

• time that you are willing to devote to stock
• your desire to improve and draw, and not just flowers and patterns
• competition on the stock market - the longer you wait to pass the exam, the more difficult it will be to start earning income
• portfolio size
• quality portfolio
• Good luck:)

In fact, there are many, many more factors. You may have an incredible story and, having uploaded your work, you will be included in the promotional list of the shutter in the first month - and customers will come to you (though I haven’t heard such stories yet :). Or maybe you will “unearth” such a rare but popular topic that you will immediately attract a lot of buyers who were just waiting for you.

I don’t want to hand you rose-colored glasses and say: quit your job, draw for fun and become a millionaire! Because it's not true. Stocks are hard and sometimes tedious work (because you not only need to draw, but also correctly text files, upload them to different stock sites, monitor sales, prepare releases, analyze trends). And the experience of all the stockers I know personally or virtually suggests that those who persistently upload work no matter what over a fairly significant period of time (a year or more) manage to succeed on microstocks.

I myself have been actively working with wastewater for five months now. I started from scratch, knew almost nothing about illustrator, my drawing skills were limited to visiting an art studio as a child, in general, without exaggeration, we can say that I started from the very bottom of the Mariana Trench :)) And only in February I felt, what's shutterstock? At the same time, today I can live on the money earned from stocks, even in Thailand :) But I see good positive progress, my earnings are growing by an average of 60% per month, so in no case do I plan to quit stocks, but just the opposite - now I will actively master other microstocks, draw for print shops, participate in competitions and develop my drawing skills, as well as improve my knowledge as an illustrator.

If you have an artistic background and/or excellent knowledge of drawing programs, and even better - you already have your own style and maybe even some kind of portfolio of work, you will probably start from a better position and be able to get to the point " breakeven" faster.

With due patience, improving your skills and constant work, you can count on an income of $500-1500 per month or more. My goal today is to receive an income of $2000 from all stocks in total, and I hope to achieve this goal within a year, or better, of course, sooner.

WHO BUYS PICTURES AT STOCK AND WHAT DO THEY DO WITH THEM?

WHAT SIZE OF PORTFOLIO CAN SUPPORT ME?

I read a lot on the topic of the relationship between portfolio size and earnings and came to the conclusion that in the first stages of conquering stocks (from 0 to 6 months) the size of the portfolio is still important. More precisely, it is important that you constantly load a certain stream of work. While you are a beginner, you have a small “internal rating” (there is no way to know it, but it definitely exists), so your images in the search engine will be reflected in the most unfavorable positions, and almost all sales will happen when the buyer sees your illustration among new. To make the task easier for the buyer, I advise you to read my note on how and follow the advice :)

Once you are no longer a beginner, the quality component of your portfolio becomes more important. I know guys who earn several thousand dollars from a portfolio of 700 or less works, and I know those who, with a portfolio of several thousand works, do not earn even $500.

It’s one thing if you have 100 works in your portfolio, but each one is unique, detailed, elaborate, drawn on a niche topic. And another thing - if you have 1000 works, but of them only 100 are “originals”, and 900 are “similars”. Similarities are pictures made from the same base. That is, you drew five flowers - this is an original work, repainted them - this is a similar one, rotated them 90 degrees and placed another background - another similar one. So the picture can be multiplied indefinitely, but it’s better not to load many similarities in one “batch”, inspectors don’t like that :))

IS IT WORTH GOING TO STOCKS, THERE IS A LOT OF COMPETITION THERE?

If you love to draw and dream of turning it into your main source of income, and are willing to devote at least one full day a week (or an hour or two every day) for at least six months, it’s definitely worth it. Firstly, the number of not only stockers, but also buyers is growing. Secondly, our world is becoming more and more remote, and we need more and more pictures. Thirdly, there are still plenty of unoccupied niches, and they will continue to appear.

I decided not to spread myself thin and for the first four months I worked only with Shutterstock, since this stock is the main breadwinner of all illustrators (I’m not sure about photographers and videographers). Then, when I had formed a certain portfolio, I decided to start mastering other stocks.

I will write separate notes about uploading to each of the stocks, and also talk about my file preparation system, and share my experience of uploading a portfolio of 100 works to five stocks in two days :))

For now, I’ll just say that there are “first echelon” microstocks - the so-called “Big Four” - that bring the maximum profit to illustrators, and this is:

• Shutterstock
• IStock
• Dreamtime
• Fotolia

And there is a mass of “second echelon” stocks, of which I have highlighted the following:

• 123рф
• Bigstock
• CanStock
• ColorBox

I haven’t considered the rest of the drains for myself yet. On average, a shutterstock brings an illustrator 70-90% of the profit, and 10-30% comes from all other microstocks in total. Therefore, if you currently only earn $100 on the shutter, is it worth spending a few days a month uploading works to other sites for the sake of an extra ten bucks?

For myself, I decided that it would be better to master print shops - this is another category of sites that allow illustrators to earn money by selling pictures on real things like iPhones and pillows (for example, you can see my just opened store on society6). There will be a separate large article about print shops (or maybe I’ll write separately about the opening of stores on various similar sites), but for now, if you have questions about what waste products are and what they are eaten with, write commercial comments :))

The word stock, which is unusual for Russians, literally means “inventory surplus,” which is why stores positioning themselves as stock centers sell new clothes that were fashionable last season. This is the fundamental difference between a stock and a second-hand store. Second-hand stores sell used clothing and shoes, while stock centers sell goods that were not sold in a timely manner.

At first, Russians avoided stock stores that appeared after the 2008 crisis, not fully understanding what kind of goods were sold there. However, when it became clear to many that the main feature of such outlets was the sale of new clothes and shoes with discounts, sometimes reaching up to 90%, stock stores acquired thousands of loyal fans.

Most buyers consider the main advantage of stock to be the opportunity to seriously save money by purchasing items from well-known brands at “ridiculous” prices. However, sellers make significant discounts only because they sell slow-moving or stale goods. In other words, items that were not promptly snapped up by customers in mono-brand stores, luxury boutiques or large shopping centers end up in stock.

What products are sold in stock stores?

Stores receive stock products from several sources. The main one is retail stores. They put up for stock sale items of slow-moving sizes, the last items, items with minor or barely noticeable defects, as well as clothes and shoes that have lost their marketable appearance, for example, items from display cases or with traces of trying on.

Another important source of stock goods is large wholesale companies. They usually sell the remnants of seasonal collections that they purchased from manufacturers or official dealers, but, for certain reasons, were not purchased by retailers. In this case, the stock store will receive clothes and shoes from last year’s or the year before last collections. But these things have not lost their presentation, in addition, there is a full range of sizes and heights of models.

Sometimes stock stores receive goods directly from manufacturers, who in this way sell surplus, unclaimed lots or leftover seasonal goods. In order not to occupy retail premises and to receive money in a timely manner for already produced products, an enterprise is forced to sell goods at a significant discount. However, these are high-quality fashion items that can be found in regular stores.