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Author Topic: iStock - slow sales  (Read 32760 times)

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« Reply #50 on: October 08, 2007, 20:21 »
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Well... they favor exclusives several ways. More uploads, more money per download and faster approval times. A couple of intangible ways are that the bar for approving an image is lower for exclusives and they show higher in "best match". Sean L. may tell you otherwise, but a bunch of us on the Micropayment list proved it about a year ago...


« Reply #51 on: October 08, 2007, 20:46 »
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Well... they favor exclusives several ways. More uploads, more money per download and faster approval times. A couple of intangible ways are that the bar for approving an image is lower for exclusives and they show higher in "best match". Sean L. may tell you otherwise, but a bunch of us on the Micropayment list proved it about a year ago...
Um...more uploads, more money per download, and faster approval times are part of the exclusive contract. Nothing about those should be a surprise. Could you show the thread where you "proved" that exclusives have a lower bar? The bar seems to be the same to me.

« Reply #52 on: October 08, 2007, 22:22 »
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Yep, don't know anything about that.

« Reply #53 on: October 08, 2007, 22:57 »
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Well... they favor exclusives several ways. More uploads, more money per download and faster approval times. A couple of intangible ways are that the bar for approving an image is lower for exclusives and they show higher in "best match". Sean L. may tell you otherwise, but a bunch of us on the Micropayment list proved it about a year ago...

There was something else recently.  I remember reading in the forums on istock that some people were angry because they had a special day where the exclusives got to keep 100% of sales commissions of their images for that one day.  The nonexclusives were left out of it.  Now, I can understand allowing people who are exclusive members upload more pics than nons, and I can also understand the faster approval time and overall higher commissions, too.  But I would have to agree with the angry villagers on that one - that special day thing was just tacky.  All contributors should have been allowed to keep the commissions that day, as they all contribute to istock's success. 

« Reply #54 on: October 08, 2007, 23:03 »
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Well... they favor exclusives several ways. More uploads, more money per download and faster approval times. A couple of intangible ways are that the bar for approving an image is lower for exclusives and they show higher in "best match". Sean L. may tell you otherwise, but a bunch of us on the Micropayment list proved it about a year ago...

There was something else recently.  I remember reading in the forums on istock that some people were angry because they had a special day where the exclusives got to keep 100% of sales commissions of their images for that one day.  The nonexclusives were left out of it.  Now, I can understand allowing people who are exclusive members upload more pics than nons, and I can also understand the faster approval time and overall higher commissions, too.  But I would have to agree with the angry villagers on that one - that special day thing was just tacky.  All contributors should have been allowed to keep the commissions that day, as they all contribute to istock's success. 

I disagree. Exclusives commit a lot by being exclusive (to me the biggest thing is that once IS rejects your image you can't sell it anywhere else, which is important for me since 30% of my images would be a waste of time). So exclusives SHOULD be rewarded greatly. Honestly I don't think that IS appreciates them enough.

And just to clarify I am NOT exclusive.

« Reply #55 on: October 09, 2007, 02:00 »
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I agree that exclusives should have priority, and as long as it doesn't create problems for the rest, good for them. But when exclusives had unlimited uploads a whole weekend not so long ago, with the result that they had to halt uploads for everybody, before reducing it to the crawl we are seeing now, they really shot themselves in the foot. And mind you, this happened only days after they had increased the limits for non-exclusives to fairly acceptable levels.

Incidents like that makes me place a big question mark over the abilities of the current management. That kind of stunt can work well in a small organisation, but when you have tens of thousands of suppliers and customers spread all over the globe, it's not a good idea.

Most people prefer predictability and stability in any business relationship, and a business relationship is basically what IS is offering their suppliers as well as customers. A couple of "Yay" or "Hallelujah" in the forums don't change that fact.

« Reply #56 on: October 09, 2007, 02:57 »
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I do not mind exclusives getting preferred treatment, I think they should! I mean they just sell their stuff at iStockphoto. And I think iStock offers them a good deal. It allways can be better, but overall the deal is not too bad.  iS favours exclusives in the search engine. Although not so strong as they used too at one time. I am even ok with this although it would be better not to favour them in the search engine, because customers can search  just for exclusive images as a search option, if they prefer exclusive images. Also iS earns more money with non exclusives. (IS gets a higher commission).
I do not believe, that exclusives can submit lower quality images which will be accepted, that makes no sense to me.
I am very interested in the future development. Currently most photographers who are on all major agencies seem to make just 30% on iStock from their overall microstock earnings. Will they make more or less in future, that would be an interesting question..

« Reply #57 on: October 09, 2007, 05:21 »
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I agree that exclusives should have priority, and as long as it doesn't create problems for the rest, good for them. But when exclusives had unlimited uploads a whole weekend not so long ago, with the result that they had to halt uploads for everybody, before reducing it to the crawl we are seeing now, they really shot themselves in the foot.

That really didn't have anything to do with the queue.  Most exclusives reported uploading their normal amount that weekend.  Only a couple said they had a few extras.  The queue was more affected by the decision to have a ton of admins/inspectors at the France meetup for several days.  Plus the site outages.

« Reply #58 on: October 09, 2007, 05:36 »
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And they reduced the bronze level to 250 downloads, so a lot of new contributors could go exclusive and have higher upload limits.  They will probably have lots to upload with the low weekly quota.  That just adds to the queue problems.

« Reply #59 on: October 09, 2007, 07:08 »
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That really didn't have anything to do with the queue.  Most exclusives reported uploading their normal amount that weekend.  Only a couple said they had a few extras.  The queue was more affected by the decision to have a ton of admins/inspectors at the France meetup for several days.  Plus the site outages.

Here's the official explanation from IS:

"Here's what happened. Last weekend, we raised the limits to effectively allow unlimited uploads. Y'all took advantage of this and uploaded a whole bunch of files. When the free-for-all was over, we lowered the limits to normal levels. Unfortunately, with the lower limits, and the fact that we normally count the number of uploads over the past 7 days (168 hours actually), many of you are now over your limit.

As a temporary measure, so you can start uploading again, I've change the system so that it only counts uploads in the past 24 hours against your limit (the limits have been reduced by 1/7 as a result). Next week, when the unlimited upload days are history, we will bring back the "x uploads per 168" period limits."

For me, the effect was that I had no upload slots for a week.

« Reply #60 on: October 09, 2007, 07:41 »
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But I would have to agree with the angry villagers on that one - that special day thing was just tacky.  All contributors should have been allowed to keep the commissions that day, as they all contribute to istock's success. 
How did that event actually effect non-exclusives? Did it somehow lower your income? No. I found it rather childish when all the non-exclusives complained on the IS forum. It was a special perk to being exclusive in order to compensate exclusives for not uploading to other sites. What all the people that were complaining were basically saying is that there should be no/few benefits for exclusives, and that exclusives and non-exclusives should be treated exactly the same. That's ludicrous.

« Reply #61 on: October 09, 2007, 08:35 »
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[/quote]
How did that event actually effect non-exclusives? Did it somehow lower your income? No. I found it rather childish when all the non-exclusives complained on the IS forum. It was a special perk to being exclusive in order to compensate exclusives for not uploading to other sites. What all the people that were complaining were basically saying is that there should be no/few benefits for exclusives, and that exclusives and non-exclusives should be treated exactly the same. That's ludicrous.
[/quote]

Yes it is ludicrous! yingyang0 and very much  your own interpretation, I doubt very much that any non Exclusives begrudge the Exclusives "percs" goodness knows they have earned some extra for giving that added Commitment.
 
It is the way it is done!.... the amount of times it is done!!.... and the effect on non-exclusive's Portfolio performance and moral...  Istock need to keep everyone happy to keep up high Standards 

Let the Cream float to the top regardless of the status of the Member says I    8)



« Reply #62 on: October 09, 2007, 09:07 »
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For me, the effect was that I had no upload slots for a week.

That's not how that worked.  The effect was that it parceled out upload slots by the day, instead of by the week.  So, if your limit was 15, you could upload two each day, instead of 15 at a time.  Inconvenient, but that was over with in a week, and it certainly wasn't the cause of the large queue.

« Reply #63 on: October 09, 2007, 10:33 »
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For me, the effect was that I had no upload slots for a week.

That's not how that worked.  The effect was that it parceled out upload slots by the day, instead of by the week.  So, if your limit was 15, you could upload two each day, instead of 15 at a time.  Inconvenient, but that was over with in a week, and it certainly wasn't the cause of the large queue.

That was not how it worked in reality because:

- The uploads I had just before the weekend were deducted from the first days

- It required people to stay home every day to upload, since the quota from one day wasn't transferred to the next.

But this isn't really anything new. I lose around half of my upload slots because I travel a lot. Why the quotas can't be on a monthly basis is beyond me, but things are what they are, and I've chosen to live with that.

« Reply #64 on: October 09, 2007, 12:26 »
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What all the people that were complaining were basically saying is that there should be no/few benefits for exclusives, and that exclusives and non-exclusives should be treated exactly the same. That's ludicrous.
yingyang,

IS has the right to give all advantages they want to exclusives. Not that I think it's fair.  Not that I think it's good if you want to attract some new talented people who have just started.

I think however that they should be clear about such policies. What is visible today is basically the upload limits.  Everyone here has opinions about other "hidden" advantages, which may or may not exist. 

Again, it's their right.  I just think they should say rules clearly, and I think in some occasions they don't.

Regards,
Adelaide

« Reply #65 on: October 09, 2007, 13:35 »
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Yes it is ludicrous! yingyang0 and very much  your own interpretation, I doubt very much that any non Exclusives begrudge the Exclusives "percs" goodness knows they have earned some extra for giving that added Commitment.
 
It is the way it is done!.... the amount of times it is done!!.... and the effect on non-exclusive's Portfolio performance and moral...  Istock need to keep everyone happy to keep up high Standards 
That's just it, the 100% royalties day didn't have an effect on non-exclusives. It's different if the perk has an effect on non-exclusives (such as the supposed favoring in the best match). Perks that actually hurt non-exclusives shouldn't be allowed, but all this one did was provide an extra benefit for a day. It didn't diminish the downloads or royalties for non-exclusives. The problem is that people are saying exclusives and non-exclusives should have all the same benefits. Exclusives sarcafice the right to sell on the other sites and should be compensated for it.

@ madelaide - which advantages has iStock not made clear?

« Reply #66 on: October 09, 2007, 14:45 »
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I haven't seen anyone say that exclusives and non-exclusives should be treated the same.  There was probably some bad feelings about the 100% royalties day because istock take 80% commission from us and there are better ways they could spend it.

« Reply #67 on: October 09, 2007, 16:05 »
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The gods must be reading this forum. While we are discussing this, I'm having my best day ever at IS, and way over anything I've had since April. Weird   ;D

« Reply #68 on: October 25, 2007, 10:52 »
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I've been having a terrible week at iStock. Anyone else? It's probably just me.

« Reply #69 on: October 25, 2007, 11:27 »
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I am having a good week  :)

PaulieWalnuts

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« Reply #70 on: October 25, 2007, 12:05 »
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I just started with IS recently and it is by far [knocks on wood] picking up momentum more quickly than any of the other sites I'm with.

digiology

« Reply #71 on: October 25, 2007, 12:08 »
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not so good   :'(

« Reply #72 on: October 25, 2007, 12:47 »
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mine is just ok.

« Reply #73 on: October 25, 2007, 16:08 »
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I'm having a good month, best in the past 6 months. IS and StockXpert are disputing head to head. 

One thing I noticed this month is a higher $/dld.  I still sell many XS images, but I'm getting a good portion of higher sizes.

Regards,
Adelaide

vonkara

« Reply #74 on: October 25, 2007, 16:48 »
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Disappointing a little bit for me... and the review time is loooong, a lot longer that what they post.


 

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