IS august sales

[Julied83]

I know the month is not over yet, but can we discuss about the first 2 weeks ?
I never had so low sales since years. I know it was summer breakdown but it was not supposed to be in july as usual ?
How are sales for you ?
I almost sell nothing and I used to sell a lot in august before. I keep on uploading new stuff better and sales goes low. 3 sales per day is now what I got instead of 15-20. Looks like week-end every day.

Tell me about you ? I'm I the only one getting anxious day after day ?

[BaldricksTrousers]

It looks pretty awful but my figures don't seem to be much different from last year, except this time I don't have a very large EL.  I'm about 30% down on last month, but it is August and it's always a slow month.

[Mantis]

My results are like the Coriolis effect on a flushing toilet.  I barely scraped by with $200 Istock sales last month and a measly $130 in PP.  I was in the $400-$500 per month combined total and am now at the $300 a month total.  This month is exactly the same. Half way through I am at $100 with 2600 images. The commission cut is just killing us. Volume wise the sales are there, revenue wise it blows bad wind. 

[Difydave]

Last week was actually just about OK, although an EL helped considerably with that.
This week. Five sales so far. Summer slowdown doesn't explain that!

[BoBoBolinski]

Pretty much as usual for summer here, down but fairly consistently down. I'm always amazed how consistent it is, week on week, like my sales are controlled somehow. I haven't uploaded for months now, doesn't seem to make any difference.

[Goofy]

with my sales I might as well close up shop and hike the mountains for the entire summer!

[KB]

I've had about 1/2 of the sales I had through the first half of last August, and well under 1/2 in terms of earnings.

But it's a bit better than I saw during the first half of July, FWIW.

[couchpotato]

Things are incredibly bad for me this month. Exclusive with close to 5000 images. 0 sales Monday, second week day in two weeks with 0 sales, half way through the sales day today 0 sales. Used the easily clear $100 most week days, now $50 is a good day.

I can't sustain this, not sure how I can afford to quit exclusivity, but I'm not seeing any other option at the moment.

[Difydave]

Things are incredibly bad for me this month. Exclusive with close to 5000 images. 0 sales Monday, second week day in two weeks with 0 sales, half way through the sales day today 0 sales. Used the easily clear $100 most week days, now $50 is a good day.

I can't sustain this, not sure how I can afford to quit exclusivity, but I'm not seeing any other option at the moment.

I was never doing quite as well as you, but I used to do OK. I do know that we're not alone in this. You only have to read the sales threads at iStock, and to look at other people's sales on new material. I'm in the same situation though. Where do I go from here?

[Beppe Grillo]

Sales, what sales??

[PixelBytes]

My best weekdays now looking like my worst weekends look two years ago. 

[etudiante_rapide]

My best weekdays now looking like my worst weekends look two years ago.

i added this in the ss thread on low august. i think it's across the board, the goose is cut.

Aesop Fable
 A man has a very special goose. Every day the goose would lay a golden egg, which made the couple very rich. "Just think," said the man's wife, "If we could cut up this goose and take out all the golden eggs  inside the goose, we could be richer much faster , and not  have to wait for the goose to lay her egg every day."

* sub sales = golden egg*

alas, no eggs inside 

[ShadySue]

All our downloads am belong to Nchant. 

[qwerty]

I'd agree start to August is terrible, worst in 8 years I've been on Istock including the first year when I had 100 images.

Northern Hemisphere Summer + More Images + Less Customers = Less Sales.

Bad Management + Poor Website Performance = Less Sales

[etudiante_rapide]

I'd agree start to August is terrible, worst in 8 years I've been on Istock including the first year when I had 100 images.

Northern Hemisphere Summer + More Images + Less Customers = Less Sales.

Bad Management + Poor Website Performance = Less Sales

or as ShadySue points out even though in jest, redirecting sales to lower paid newbies.
looking the same with the other thread here on ss sales as well; all claiming BME
as already pointed out ... with a small portfolio and new account, it is always BME .

and why not? the first shot of opium is always free, and it is all that's needed to get u hooked , isn't it?   but that's ok, time to move on,
there are new alternatives that look viable. 

[Monkeyman]

The whole year has been terrible but I've also noticed an extra downturn during August. I thought they've changed the best match to my disadvantage, but apparently I'm not the only one with bad sales... If sales keep going down at this rate I'll have to leave exclusivity this fall.

Maybe the major customers are switching to subscription... that could be the reason for the faster downturn in sales.

[Elenathewise]

4 (!!!) downloads yesterday with over 9,000 images in my portfolio... This is an all time low - never happened before. Makes me wonder if their sales reporting is broken  - in this case one can hope. But if it's just how sales are going to be from now on - scary and sad.

[Monkeyman]

4 (!!!) downloads yesterday with over 9,000 images in my portfolio... This is an all time low - never happened before. Makes me wonder if their sales reporting is broken  - in this case one can hope. But if it's just how sales are going to be from now on - scary and sad.

I don't think it's broken... it seems to be the same for quite a few people. I used to get at least 30+ downloads a day but now I'm down to 4-15.

The entire business is dying in the gigantic tsunami of content that's drowning us all. If this wasn't my only income I would have left this business a year ago... and in a few months I'll probably be forced to leave it when I can't pay my bills any longer. Depressing.

[Nikovsk]

In march/april I was selling 5 images a month with 250 files. I have doubled the port and now selling 2 images a month. This is most likely the effect of the new IS subscriptions. The PP is still doing ok and overall earnings are increasing, but people used on getting credit sales will be heavily affected.

[PixelBytes]

I think Monkey man is right and many sales are now going to subs.  Too bad cuz subs are so cheaper than credits and only reported at end of month.

[ShadySue]

This week just past (I do stats on Sunday night) I got under 1/3 of the dls and $$s of the corresponding week last year. 1/4 of the dls and c1/6th of the $$ of the corresponding week in 2012.
Can't sink much further, or I'll be in negative equity.

[blamb]

I have my buyer hat on this month and I've been running searches for illustrations and the Best Match is a complete disaster right now.  I get the most ridiculous results such as large numbers of new, low quality similars by the same contributor all in a row. Lower quaity work by newer artists is being pushed to the front when I'm expecting and hoping to see higher quality material from established contributors (which seems to have been shoved down some black hole).  From a buyer's perspective, wading through so much garbage is extremely frustrating and tonight I just gave up and went to another site and found what I was looking for.

I don't know if it's the same on the photo side, but on the illustration side I've never seen the search turn in such useless results.  That could account for some lost sales. Or all of the lost sales.   

[Colonel]

I have my buyer hat on this month and I've been running searches for illustrations and the Best Match is a complete disaster right now.  I get the most ridiculous results such as large numbers of new, low quality similars by the same contributor all in a row. Lower quaity work by newer artists is being pushed to the front when I'm expecting and hoping to see higher quality material from established contributors (which seems to have been shoved down some black hole).  From a buyer's perspective, wading through so much garbage is extremely frustrating and tonight I just gave up and went to another site and found what I was looking for.

I don't know if it's the same on the photo side, but on the illustration side I've never seen the search turn in such useless results.  That could account for some lost sales. Or all of the lost sales. 

I tend to agree - I've been subscribing to shutterstock now for the pretty much the whole year... it's just easier and less trouble with a come one come all price point... istock has gotten too complicated on that front... I didn't think subscriptions would suit my workflow but so far been pretty happy with the way Shutterstock is going work wise.

[MxR]

IStock IS a dISaster...

if it were not for the PP until I sell more canstockphoto or pond 5...

Worst % earning, worst upload sistem... worst web...