Whats going on at SS??

rinderart

« on: May 09, 2008, 00:09 »

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Tons of threads about sales tanking??What ya think??


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DanP68

« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2008, 00:22 »

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Laurin,

What about your portfolio? Are sales holding up for you at Shutterstock? My sales are down there this month, but they are down everywhere else too. To this point, I was thinking European holidays plus poor economic conditions, leading to slow sales.

It's possible some buyers have left with the intention of using iStock's new plan, but I am not concerned yet. I'm interested in what you are seeing however.


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sharpshot

« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2008, 01:16 »

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Quote from: rinderart on May 09, 2008, 00:09

Tons of threads about sales tanking??What ya think??

They put the prices up for buyers at the start of April but we are still waiting for our raise. Not a surprise that most of us are making less. Last year we had our raise by 1st May. I feel we have lost out on an extra 9 days so far this year.


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nruboc

« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2008, 01:33 »

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Can't say I'm seeing a slowdown as last month was my best month ever and this month is going strong too. I have a large portfolio (+5000) so I think if there was a downward trend I would see it.

Looking forward to the raise though, as SS has not been growing "as fast" as Fotolia.


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fotografer

Premium Member

« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2008, 01:40 »

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No slowdown here. Bme last 2 months and although the long holiday weekend was slow things are back on track now. Portfolio of about 1000 images.


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Clivia

« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2008, 02:22 »

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I have over 1000 pictures there, and I am seeing a dramatic slowdown. Even the surge after uploading has not happened this month.
But then again, I am seeing this across all the sites.
Looking back over the last three years, it was the same at this time every year.


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Magnum

« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2008, 02:46 »

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Some sell, some don´t. It´s a matter of style and taste. Change model and sell like butter in the sun. What more is there to it?


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holgs

« Reply #7 on: May 09, 2008, 02:56 »

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Quote from: rinderart on May 09, 2008, 00:09

Tons of threads about sales tanking??What ya think??

Including your threads? Last month was pretty good overall but trailed off towards the end. This month has been a bit up and down - the 1st was way down, but that's to be expected, then yesterday was half the DL' that I'd usually have on a weekday. I uploaded a batch of 40 that appeared in the search engine today, so will see what effect this has.

I think SS has also lowered their standards on submissions for whatever reason lately - I did a search on Egypt just to see how much material has come online since I uploaded some photos from there - about 900 photos since I uploaded 2 months ago - thing is about 500 of those were pretty dull looking photos of fish and crabs.


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hospitalera

« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2008, 03:35 »

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Don't forget there was a mega-week-end to start the month off Shocked

but apart of that May is already better then April for me ;-) SY


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patrick1958

Premium Member

« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2008, 03:53 »

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Quote from: rinderart on May 09, 2008, 00:09

Tons of threads about sales tanking??What ya think??

April ended 18 % below march.
Prognosis for may will be another drop of about 26 % (according to spreadsheet).
So yes, sales are decreasing inmensively.

Patrick H.


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Phil

« Reply #10 on: May 09, 2008, 03:54 »

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april was down a few hundred dollars on march and has been quiet for me until 3 days ago when it seems to picked back up.


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Bateleur

« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2008, 04:12 »

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Eb-an-flo, man. Eb-an-flo. Grin


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Eco

« Reply #12 on: May 09, 2008, 04:20 »

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Well for me the answer is quite clear: the subscription model of SS is not sustainable and we are now starting to see the effect of this. Do some simple mathematical calculations. The number of images on SS are currently growing at a rate of 46 000 a week (that is 184 000 new images a month) and this number is growing each month. I am sure that the number of buyers and the number of images downloaded per month do not grow nearly at this rate. The images that you add each week and each month (no matter how many you add) will comprise an ever smaller part of the total number of new images added, hence the decline in downloads. By "feeding the beast" we are just contributing to an acceleration of this whole vicious circle.

The second consideration is that with a decline in the economy and increases in the prices of the subscription packages, many buyers will not renew their subscriptions. Why should they? I am sure that some of the big buyers must by now have such a vast collection of every possible image that they just have to search through their own collections to find the image they require. Should they then require an image not in their collection they will rather go to one of the sites that offer per photo sales and buy that one or two unique images, rather that taking out a subscription package again.

Subscriptions are bad. If I must vote for the MS site that have the best long-term potential it will not be SS. I was good while it lasted, but my own logic tells me that it will not last.


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CofkoCof

« Reply #13 on: May 09, 2008, 04:21 »

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Currenty 14% up comparing to the first 9 days of April.


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Contakt

« Reply #14 on: May 09, 2008, 05:13 »

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Pretty much consistently lousy. You've got to upload your shirt each week to try and keep downloads on an even keel. I've close to 3,000 images there and earnings always decline if I don't upload regularly.


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Bateleur

« Reply #15 on: May 09, 2008, 07:45 »

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Quote from: Eco on May 09, 2008, 04:20

I am sure that some of the big buyers must by now have such a vast collection of every possible image that they just have to search through their own collections to find the image they require.

I think that, maybe, you're being over-pessimistic here. I would imagine that most big buyers don't want to run their own image bank. That would mean setting up a storage, classification and retrieval system. Far cheaper to get a new image at a dollar or so a pop.

And, anyway, I would imagine that they won't want to use an image they've used already.

There will always be a market for new, fresh images. I can see it on iStock, which gives the downloads per month figure for each image. Mine drop, steadily, as the images get older ... even for images that don't date.


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stock_fan

« Reply #16 on: May 09, 2008, 08:47 »

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SS wants to make money!!!

More new images means more downloads at SS

Acceptance ratios, number of contributers and accepted images per week went up big time! -> more money for SS

Contributors growth & image growth larger than customer growth -> even more money for SS because fewer payout as sales spread over more contributors.


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Allsa

« Reply #17 on: May 09, 2008, 10:53 »

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My downloads at SS have been going down each month since January. I uploaded a few new illustrations this week, but it didn't seem to help. iStock has been declining, too. Meanwhile Dreamstime is doing better than ever. I can't explain it.

Linda B


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helix7

« Reply #18 on: May 09, 2008, 11:10 »

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Quote from: rinderart on May 09, 2008, 00:09

Tons of threads about sales tanking??What ya think??

I think more people are quicker to complain about a bad day than to celebrate a good one.

For me, May is on pace for a BME. April was my previous BME, nearly doubling the previous BME before that.

Slowdown? Never heard of it.


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lisafx

Premium Member

« Reply #19 on: May 09, 2008, 14:14 »

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April was my BME at a number of sites including SS. This month started off a bit slow due to the holiday and still seems slightly off April totals but only slightly.

I haved to admit, I am getting really impatient for the raise. As Dan mentioned, I suspect they are holding off to see how much of a bit istock's subscription plan takes out of their business.


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Whiz

« Reply #20 on: May 09, 2008, 16:30 »

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Shutterstock: Down 60% for the past three weeks.

Stockxpert: Up 60% for the past three weeks.

iStockphoto: Normal.

Dreamstime: Normal.

Bigstockphoto: Normal.

So far it's balancing out.


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gbalex

« Reply #21 on: May 09, 2008, 18:06 »

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Shutterstock Up 20% last two months to date

Stockxpert Up 10% last two months to date

iStockphoto Normal

Dreamstime Normal

Bigstockphoto: Sales have been lower than LO for months thinking of dropping this site, it is not worth my time to upload


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Karimala

« Reply #22 on: May 09, 2008, 18:29 »

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May is waaaaay down from March and April, probably because I didn't upload much in April. Or should I say...I didn't have much accepted in April. Keep getting bitten by that stupid "lack of commercial value" rejection. I should really stop trying to shoot creative photos and just shoot crap...it seems to have a better chance of getting accepted.


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ozbandit

« Reply #23 on: May 09, 2008, 18:41 »

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Microstock is a strange game... while its true that my sales have also dipped a fair bit thus far this month at iStock and Dreamstime, they are really taking off at ShutterStock with the past seven days being my best week ever and 123rf and StockExpert also doing ok thus far. So I guess it all really depends on what you're selling and at what time and quantity...