MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: ronyzmbow on February 13, 2012, 01:28
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My sales in iStock went down VERY much - almost standstill - any idea why? How about you? I refused to be exclusive there or in any other site.
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Is something normal. they going down... at least regarding indies....
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What. Are. Sales?
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Sales seem pretty normal for me, sort of consistent for last 2 years, not independent. Small fish but holding my own. Hoping things get better
but at least it hasn't tanked.
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seem to be going down for me as well. Again, small fish so it's probably not an important statistical point.
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Sales pretty good for a Monday morning. Some first time sellers moving out the door.
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Sales pretty good for a Monday morning. Some first time sellers moving out the door.
+1. Looking good so far today. Sean is exclusive, and I am not, so it seems to be good right now for both groups, at least from where we sit.
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Looks like old files are at the bottom of the search today. I expect a slow day to follow a very slow Friday.
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looka t the good side ,it can only get better (hope?)
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looka t the good side ,it can only get better (hope?)
I'm not sure about that. Just because it's already very bad, doesn't mean it won't get worse. I have a portfolio of over 1500 on Istock, and 500 on 123RF. My revenue so far in February on 123RF is $34, beating my revenue from Istock, which is a miserable $33. That's about one-third of what I made this time last year on Istock. Buyers have probably realized that Istock is very overpriced. On 123RF, I get a 50% commission, so buyers have paid $68. On Istock, I get a 16% commission, so buyers have paid $206 for about the same number of photos. I've completely stopped uploading to Istock, and eventually will have my entire portfolio there duplicated on other sites. Gradually, their selection will become relatively poorer, and buyers will have even less reason to go there. Their attempt at making a huge profit margin is just not economically viable. If they attempt to cut their prices to make themselves competitive, and still pay me only a 16% commission, I will just delete all my photos from there. Why should I sell my photos for a dime on Istock, if I can always get 35 cents at Dreamstime or 123RF?
The only way Istock can remain viable is to cut their margin, and I'm not sure they have the foresight to do that.
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yep agree . It is not worth uploading to IS as an independent. Used to be my favourite site. Even though it is very immature the community badges and team perception wer winners. Goes to show never let goodwill blind you to commercial realities.
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Should istock cut their prices, others would do it next day.
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Sales pretty good for a Monday morning. Some first time sellers moving out the door.
... and, when US sales should have started picking up, around noon, things just sloooowed down. Total sales for the day up there with a few years ago.
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Nothing has changed for me. My sales for February are projected to be about 45% down on 2011 and about 55% down on Feb 2010 (before the RC fiasco when Istock went into self-destruct mode).
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this seems totally irrelevant. Exclusives pushed in up searches may do ok, most independents down. It should be two totally seperate threads. One for exclusives and one for independents. It is like saying that you are on average comfortable warm when your arse is in the freezer and your head is on fire. Looking at both ends and the picture is more descriptive of the true situation.
Ps I thinkk the fire will die out before the freezer is turned off.
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this seems totally irrelevant. Exclusives pushed in up searches may do ok, most independents down. It should be two totally seperate threads. One for exclusives and one for independents. It is like saying that you are on average comfortable warm when your arse is in the freezer and your head is on fire. Looking at both ends and the picture is more descriptive of the true situation.
Ps I thinkk the fire will die out before the freezer is turned off.
this analogy made my laugh out loud!
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.
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iStock is almost as good as SS. No complain
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still waaaaay down, but over the past 4 or so days, better than its been
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I have a portfolio of over 1500 on Istock, and 500 on 123RF. My revenue so far in February on 123RF is $34, beating my revenue from Istock, which is a miserable $33.
Your mileage may vary.
I have many more images on 123 than I have at iStock.
So far in February I've earned four times as much at iStock vs 123, despite the port size being a small fraction of it.
Yesterday was a very good day at iStock... things have been steadily rising there, at least for me. From where I sit, all this talk a few weeks ago about iStock being dead in the water seems to have been quite premature.
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If they attempt to cut their prices to make themselves competitive, and still pay me only a 16% commission, I will just delete all my photos from there
+1
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Should istock cut their prices, others would do it next day.
What makes you say that?
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Not bad last week, but this week so far it's dire. Certainly today is the worst weekday I can remember for a while.
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It is like saying that you are on average comfortable warm when your arse is in the freezer and your head is on fire.
ROFL! Brilliant! ;D
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I could moan about acceptance but can't complain about sales on the few that have got in. Last year 20 images in IS netted 75% of what I earned on FT and 50% of DT with over 300 images. Per image earnings were 4 times SS despite the fact that my most downloaded images are not on IS.
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I could moan about acceptance but can't complain about sales on the few that have got in. Last year 20 images in IS netted 75% of what I earned on FT and 50% of DT with over 300 images. Per image earnings were 4 times SS despite the fact that my most downloaded images are not on IS.
Then exclusivity is the obvious answer for you ;)
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Jaysus NO! ;D Per image is fine but it's about 10% overall and if IS changed their approach to this kind of stuff all the folks who do it much better would be there.
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looka t the good side ,it can only get better (hope?)
I'm not sure about that. Just because it's already very bad, doesn't mean it won't get worse. I have a portfolio of over 1500 on Istock, and 500 on 123RF. My revenue so far in February on 123RF is $34, beating my revenue from Istock, which is a miserable $33. That's about one-third of what I made this time last year on Istock. Buyers have probably realized that Istock is very overpriced. On 123RF, I get a 50% commission, so buyers have paid $68. On Istock, I get a 16% commission, so buyers have paid $206 for about the same number of photos. I've completely stopped uploading to Istock, and eventually will have my entire portfolio there duplicated on other sites. Gradually, their selection will become relatively poorer, and buyers will have even less reason to go there. Their attempt at making a huge profit margin is just not economically viable. If they attempt to cut their prices to make themselves competitive, and still pay me only a 16% commission, I will just delete all my photos from there. Why should I sell my photos for a dime on Istock, if I can always get 35 cents at Dreamstime or 123RF?
The only way Istock can remain viable is to cut their margin, and I'm not sure they have the foresight to do that.
I hate to be an a**hole but if that is typical for 1500 images (non-exclusive), I'd rather stay exclusive on Istockphoto.
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looka t the good side ,it can only get better (hope?)
I'm not sure about that. Just because it's already very bad, doesn't mean it won't get worse. I have a portfolio of over 1500 on Istock, and 500 on 123RF. My revenue so far in February on 123RF is $34, beating my revenue from Istock, which is a miserable $33. That's about one-third of what I made this time last year on Istock. Buyers have probably realized that Istock is very overpriced. On 123RF, I get a 50% commission, so buyers have paid $68. On Istock, I get a 16% commission, so buyers have paid $206 for about the same number of photos. I've completely stopped uploading to Istock, and eventually will have my entire portfolio there duplicated on other sites. Gradually, their selection will become relatively poorer, and buyers will have even less reason to go there. Their attempt at making a huge profit margin is just not economically viable. If they attempt to cut their prices to make themselves competitive, and still pay me only a 16% commission, I will just delete all my photos from there. Why should I sell my photos for a dime on Istock, if I can always get 35 cents at Dreamstime or 123RF?
The only way Istock can remain viable is to cut their margin, and I'm not sure they have the foresight to do that.
I hate to be an a**hole but if that is typical for 1500 images (non-exclusive), I'd rather stay exclusive on Istockphoto.
True, but if you then upload those 1500 images to half a dozen other sites it adds up. There is very much a case of diminishing returns on some of the smaller sites, but there are a number that would return more than 123RF on that volume.
There are definitely benefits to being exclusive to iStock, but if iStock is in decline then having benefits there is like saying "I have a first class cabin on the Titanic."
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i upload on 10 sites. all of them doing quite ok compared to last year.
but istock went down from the 2nd to my 5th best within 2 month. february on istock is horrible so far >:(
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Buyers have probably realized that Istock is very overpriced.
It's not overpriced, the others are underpriced. $18 for a quality vector image is not a whole lot of money, especially compared to a custom vector design.
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I agree. I wish I had the kind of business that required me to buy some of the amazing work other people on IS do. It would be well worth the cost.
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I hate to say it, but I am considering starting to upload again to iStock. The recent fury over changes and declining sales had convinced me to stop a while back.
But since relatively few contributors of note have pulled their ports to cause iStock any real pain, and since I've seen a significant boost in earnings over the past few weeks, I think I may start sending them stuff again... that is, if I can bear the painful uploading process.
Anyone want to talk me out of it?
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...Anyone want to talk me out of it?
I've no idea who you are, so how could I talk to you at all?
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Hello, I am new to the forums. I've had diamond status for a couple of years and iStockphoto and my sales absolutely cratered last year. Back to 2006 levels. A few dozen of my flameworthy images got destroyed by best match changes. Images downloading 8-12x times per month just stopped being purchased altogether. Coupled with consecutive royalty cuts at the end of 2010 and 2011, and it's not even worth uploading to iStock. New stuff gets buried.
I canceled my exclusivity after more than 5 years. I never thought I'd do it, but it'd be dumb not to, at this point. Diversifying seems like the smart way to go.
stockmarketer, this is a roundabout/self-important way of saying that I wouldn't recommend resuming your iStock uploads, nor would I recommend deactivating all of your stuff there, either. Just keep a toe in the water. You can't drown that way.
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I hate to say it, but I am considering starting to upload again to iStock. The recent fury over changes and declining sales had convinced me to stop a while back.
But since relatively few contributors of note have pulled their ports to cause iStock any real pain, and since I've seen a significant boost in earnings over the past few weeks, I think I may start sending them stuff again... that is, if I can bear the painful uploading process.
Anyone want to talk me out of it?
Whats the point? unless youre an exclusive, all your stuff will eventually end up at TS anyway and by the look of things, TS, could even be a better bet then IS?
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stockmarketer, this is a roundabout/self-important way of saying that I wouldn't recommend resuming your iStock uploads, nor would I recommend deactivating all of your stuff there, either. Just keep a toe in the water. You can't drown that way.
Regarding deactivation: you have to remember that many buyers look at more than one agency, so you are always competing against yourself when you upload to more than one place. I have a few images that are fairly unique to me, and I have deactivated those from istock. If the price I get for that photo is less on istock than everywhere else, I may end up making more by removing it from the site where I am paid the least for it. On principle, I would rather let an agency that takes a more reasonable percentage commission get my business.
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Maybe my experience does not weigh much, since I stopped regular uploads almost two years ago, but iStock is the one agency where earnings really dropped massively. There is a small decline in all other agencies as well, except with shutterstock. If I would start again to submit regulary, I would not see a point in uploading to iStock, I fear it would only slow down the demise.
I am totally surprised by SS, I never thought they would hold up so well. But altogether, I do not see a future in microstock, if it continues the way it always has. I am happy I ventured off into other areas of photography to have a income with a better outlook on the future. But istock above all other agencies has really highlighted this and this really discouraged me of doing more microstock.
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After lot of checking, testing and calculations I think I know where is the catch. After exclusivity other most important thing in weighting on Istock is regular upload. If you regularly upload on Istock and number of images can put you even in front of some exclusives.
We all now from last year that weighting on DT is all about description (longer is better)-title(google rank) and number of keywords (shorter is better). So I hope that we will find formula for IS too.
I drop exclusivity in video few days a go on istock so I will test this Istock theory on video also and if I got same results as for images I will post it here.
Edit:
I didn't say that I think that is the reason why sales going down.
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stockmarketer, this is a roundabout/self-important way of saying that I wouldn't recommend resuming your iStock uploads, nor would I recommend deactivating all of your stuff there, either. Just keep a toe in the water. You can't drown that way.
Regarding deactivation: you have to remember that many buyers look at more than one agency, so you are always competing against yourself when you upload to more than one place. I have a few images that are fairly unique to me, and I have deactivated those from istock. If the price I get for that photo is less on istock than everywhere else, I may end up making more by removing it from the site where I am paid the least for it. On principle, I would rather let an agency that takes a more reasonable percentage commission get my business.
Good points. I'm feeling some immediate remorse given that my initial submission set of 10 to Shutterstock was rejected. Seven of 10 were necessary... they rejected all 10, all of which had been previously accepted to iStockphoto. I guess I need to up my game.
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stockmarketer, this is a roundabout/self-important way of saying that I wouldn't recommend resuming your iStock uploads, nor would I recommend deactivating all of your stuff there, either. Just keep a toe in the water. You can't drown that way.
Regarding deactivation: you have to remember that many buyers look at more than one agency, so you are always competing against yourself when you upload to more than one place. I have a few images that are fairly unique to me, and I have deactivated those from istock. If the price I get for that photo is less on istock than everywhere else, I may end up making more by removing it from the site where I am paid the least for it. On principle, I would rather let an agency that takes a more reasonable percentage commission get my business.
Yeah I probably would have waited to be accepted somehwere else before dropping your exclusivity.
Good points. I'm feeling some immediate remorse given that my initial submission set of 10 to Shutterstock was rejected. Seven of 10 were necessary... they rejected all 10, all of which had been previously accepted to iStockphoto. I guess I need to up my game.