Buy Stock Flash (a name built for SEO!) is one of the newest contenders to enter the competitive Flash stock market. Clearly inspired by the success of companies like envato, they have a rapidly expanding network of stock & tutorial based sites, after just one year.

Design

Aesthetically, things are ok; everything is consistently put together and there is a nice attention to detail. Overall the design does a great job of letting the content take the front seat. The logo however, is.. bewildering.

Usability

The homepage is really well thought out, providing a quick snapshot of new and popular files. There is also a latest files RSS feed, but unfortunately there are currently no individual category feeds.

The search is one the strongest we have reviewed with accurate results, large thumbnails and useful filters for further refinement. A small improvement could be made by displaying a summary of each file, rather than just the attributes. The search is backed up by a category browser, which has the nice feature of being able to filter by: Just Added, Most Popular, Most Viewed and Just Downloaded. Each file has also been extensively tagged making it easy to find similar items using the tag clouds present throughout the site.

The good news continues with the payment process, which has huge selection of payment options. Sadly they have stuck to the standard model of credit deposits, but this is negated somewhat by discounts for larger amounts and a very low minimum deposit. The bottom line is Buy Stock Flash has great usability, ranking right at the top of every site we have reviewed.

Library & pricing

At the time of writing Buy Stock Flash has over 1500 files in their library (impressive indeed, for the short time they have been open). The large majority of these files are coded in AS2, including a good proportion of the very latest ones. This is surprising as AS3 has been around for a long time now. That aside there is a good mix of files within all the usual categories. You certainly won’t be overwhelmed with choice, but are likely to find something suitable for most requirements.

Pricing is a little lower than a lot of competitors, and with a relaxed multi-use licence (the only restriction is resell) you really are going to get incredible value for money in most cases.

File quality & support

The file quality, is on the whole ok, but not great. If you are prepared to hunt around, you will find some nicely designed and well coded files, but you might well end up with a few regrettable purchases littering your hard drive. Unlike other sites there is no author test, and the quality threshold does not appear to be that high. Perhaps once the library has reached a greater mass, quality control can be reigned in. The overall sales figures are very modest for the marketplace, which might be deterring the better authors from investing in the site.

File support is pretty bare, mainly just because of the lack of sales, but each file does have a comments page and is required to include a help file. There is no community forum which is a huge mistake, as this is one of the keys to success of sites like Flashden. Contacting Buy Stock Flash should be made easy by using the live chat feature, but our messages where left unanswered. See the results below for response times to our emails.

Overall rating

Buy Stock Flash has great promise due to a good level of functionality, an excellent payment process and a very relaxed standard license. Its also one of the most usable sites out there. Unfortunately there is no stable of quality exclusive authors, no community of active buyers and so the site feels pretty vacant at times. Sales are low, whether through a lack of marketing or simply failing to attract good authors due to low sales (a real catch 22). This is a shame because the site has a lot going for it. The current site is a good platform to build from so as it matures, this is definitely one to watch.

At a glance

• www.buystockflash.com
• Established: 2008
• Total files:1595
• Lowest priced file: $1
• Highest priced file: $100
• Minimum deposit: $5
• Payment methods: PayPal, Western Union, MoneyGram, SWIFT, WebMoney, e-gold, Moneybookers, Credit Card.
• Standard licences restrictions: Nothing apart from resell
• Time before deposits expire: Never
• Volume discounts available: Yes
• Refunds: Yes, they claim a 100% money back guarantee

Tests

• Response time for non-urgent question: 2 hours
• Usefulness of response: Very good
• Total files found for “xml gallery”: 496 (at least half of these results were not relevant)

Disclaimer: We have sold and/or brought on all the stock sites we review. We do have some of these sites as our “sponsors”, but this is no way dictates any of the views expressed. The adverts on the Flash blog are not paid for by the site but are part of referral programs. These reviews represent our own opinions only. Key facts have been verified with the site owners and are correct at the time of writing, but are open to change.