I would like to buy some pictures of my races this year, and there are a couple of cool ones, but i just can’t bring myself to spend the money. Does everyone else think it’s really expensive or am i just stingy?
From a business point of view i think they sell a ton load and actually make more money if they were about a quarter of the price?
I completely agree.
They are obviously banking on the idea that people doing their first event or biggest event will pay anything for a photo. The prices really are absurd. I’d love some photos and would buy a few if the prices were half reasonable, indeed I’d buy plenty more if the prices were low enough but I refuse to be ripped off to such an extent.
I think they’re missing out on the vast bulk of the market by focusing on getting small numbers to pay huge prices instead of trying to sell huge numbers at reasonable prices.
I agree with you that the pricing is crazy, however, I guaranty you they’ve (and every other photo company) done some market analysis and have figured out the price point at which they make the most gross sales.
In my area we have a series of races (tri and running) that include free race photos. They are high quality pics by a professional company. I did three of their races this year. Guess how may photos I downloaded … zero. I looked at the pics from each race and there were some good ones but I never bothered to get any for some reason.
I completely agree.
They are obviously banking on the idea that people doing their first event or biggest event will pay anything for a photo. The prices really are absurd. I’d love some photos and would buy a few if the prices were half reasonable, indeed I’d buy plenty more if the prices were low enough but I refuse to be ripped off to such an extent.
I think they’re missing out on the vast bulk of the market by focusing on getting small numbers to pay huge prices instead of trying to sell huge numbers at reasonable prices.
+1
Also - chances are that a majority doing their first (and possibly only?) event already have friends or family with a camera out on the course. Why pay 20 bucks to download a single picture, or 50 bucks + to download all (of which only a few are interesting)?
Give me 5 bucks for a single-pic download, and I bet atleast every ST’er will download the picture they usually snap from the side on the bike, catching your aero (brick)-position.
Personally, I think Finsiherpix does an outstanding job and has great customer service. I don’t always buy photos from them (I have way too many race photos) but when I do, their photos are great quality and usually taken at great points on the course. Their product is really something that would be very hard to get any other way. Pricey, I suppose so, but I also think they provide a very good value when you think of what it would take to get what they offer.
I completely agree.
They are obviously banking on the idea that people doing their first event or biggest event will pay anything for a photo. The prices really are absurd. I’d love some photos and would buy a few if the prices were half reasonable, indeed I’d buy plenty more if the prices were low enough but I refuse to be ripped off to such an extent.
I think they’re missing out on the vast bulk of the market by focusing on getting small numbers to pay huge prices instead of trying to sell huge numbers at reasonable prices.
+1
Also - chances are that a majority doing their first (and possibly only?) event already have friends or family with a camera out on the course. Why pay 20 bucks to download a single picture, or 50 bucks + to download all (of which only a few are interesting)?
Give me 5 bucks for a single-pic download, and I bet atleast every ST’er will download the picture they usually snap from the side on the bike, catching your aero (brick)-position.
+2
Personally, I think Finsiherpix does an outstanding job and has great customer service. I don’t always buy photos from them (I have way too many race photos) but when I do, their photos are great quality and usually taken at great points on the course. Their product is really something that would be very hard to get any other way. Pricey, I suppose so, but I also think they provide a very good value when you think of what it would take to get what they offer.
In my experience there are people in my pictures that aren’t me and there are lots of pictures of me in the “lost of found” where my race number is clear. Also there are out of focus, poorly framed shots which i can buy.
So I can only assume their business operates something like: take a load of pics, upload the pictures, run some race number recognition software, upload the files to the site, over charge people to download… I don’t think they do not perform any “human” reviews to identify the people or perform any any quality control of the images.
I don’t think it’s a very difficult business to do a “great” job of, and i think they do an adequate to poor job of it.
I think your review of how they operate is probably fairly accurate. I have always been personally pleased. If they are so bad and they are so expensive why doesn’t a challenger come into the market and and take their share of the business?
I would like to buy some pictures of my races this year, and there are a couple of cool ones, but i just can’t bring myself to spend the money. Does everyone else think it’s really expensive or am i just stingy?
From a business point of view i think they sell a ton load and actually make more money if they were about a quarter of the price?
Wait a minute…you think the Walmart/discount stores model actually works!!! Come on!!!
They would absolutely make a crap tonne more money if it were a lower price.
I would like to buy some pictures of my races this year, and there are a couple of cool ones, but i just can’t bring myself to spend the money. Does everyone else think it’s really expensive or am i just stingy?
From a business point of view i think they sell a ton load and actually make more money if they were about a quarter of the price?
Wait a minute…you think the Walmart/discount stores model actually works!!! Come on!!!
They would absolutely make a crap tonne more money if it were a lower price.
Not sure the Walmart/discount stores model is a good comparison as there are many choices to both their products from. Finisherpix is exclusive to most races. Part of the cost of the pictures is the royalties paid to WTC by Finisherpix to have access to the database of athletes, website, and marketing. It would be hard for a third party to set up shop, take the pictures and figure out a way to contact everyone with a better product at a cheaper cost than Finisherpix does. Not justifying the price, just some thoughts. I think a better price point would be about 75% of what they are changing about $100 for a WTC IM, I think. Regardless, i am sure they have run pricing models and this is the maximum revenue they can generate at various price points.
I do not know about anyone else, but I do not think there is a race picture I have ever really wanted.
On the bike, the vast majority are from head on and none of those look cool. A couple races have the photographers set up on the steepest climbs, maybe thinking this is where people are going the slowest, so they can a bunch of photos, but picture of people out of aero with aero helmets just looks silly to me. I understand, because if they tried for some cool side shots it would be hard to get many photos before they were out of view and it would harder to match up the pictures to numbers.
On the run I always feel like death and it turns out I always look like I am about to die, so none of those pictures ever look cool.
I guess it varies by person and event.
Last years Seattle Marathon I didn’t buy any. Looked through them post-event and there was nothing I wanted.
IMC this year I pre-ordered the full package and was glad I did. Despite the crappy conditions I wound up with some really great photos. The quality of pics no doubt varies by who’s taking the photos.
Agree with others, if you want just one or two it’s pricey. And if you pre-order at a discount you’re gambling on both the number and quality of photos.
I agree. The pricing seems ridiculously expensive, and prohibitively so for me. I assume they know what they’re doing to maximize their revenues, but they would get a lot more revenue from me (anything is more than none) if they halved their pricing.
In 2014, the NJ State Triathlon offered free pics, taken by a professional crew, which was pretty cool and I downloaded a bunch, but that didn’t happen again in 2015. Maybe not enough people used the free service, or they decided it wasn’t worth offering as a free perk, or both.
I’m not expecting free, but in this day and age of digital photography, I would have thought they could make more money offering relatively inexpensive free digital downloads. But what do I know.