Slow slow sales @ Fotolia

[Velvia]

Anybody else experiencing slow sales lately at Fotolia?
My last sale was at the beginning of this month. I`m starting to wonder...

 

[CCK]

8 downloads, total of 13 credits from a portfolio of 63 images.

[stokfoto]

it is actually performing well for me and jan is my BME there.

[Peter]

BME on fotolia for me also.

[vphoto]

BME for me too

[madelaide]

Lately?  No, for me it's the same as last month, 5th earner.  It used to be much better though, my best earner in a couple of months.

Regards,
Adelaide

[fotografer]

Not Bme  because of a slow start but last 2 weeks have  been great.

[sharpshot]

BME for me too.

[jsnover]

This is been a good January - in part because of several extended license sales. Right now Fotolia and SS are neck and neck for most $$ this month.

It's not a BME there, but for January, that'd be quite a surprise.

[epixx]

I have a BME there as well   

[PaulieWalnuts]

BME, 3rd place earner out of 11 sites, and 7% of total sales.

[madelaide]

I feel bad!  Despite a mild increase in sales in the past days, it's still performing much lower than in the past.
Overall rank 1242
7 days rank 2083

Regards,
Adelaide

[nickp37]

... it's still performing much lower than in the past.
Overall rank 1242
7 days rank 2083

You got me beat!
Overall rank 1939
7 days rank 3025

They used to be my 2nd best site after SS (months ago). I had one decent week this month, but it's dropped off again since.

[takestock]

Been a good January for me also on FT

3rd in my top earning site and moving closer.

[LadyBlueEyes]

Fotolia is my worst site - even behind Featurepics and SnapVillage!!!!  I've not been with them very long - but I'm really disappointed.

[XeniaII]

Overall rank 96
7 days rank 124

Fotolia works .... the january is better than december because i have no christmas pics *g

I have 263 downloads on fotolia this month ... i think thats ok. November and october were better ... thats right

regards yvonne

[vonkara]

Wow... I just have one sale yesterday and a medium one!!! That push me up to the sky whit an overall rank of: 8195 and a seven day of 3910 Nothing more to say sorry

[XeniaII]

lol :-) but i have more than 5.000 pics online... thats the way it works

[andresr]

Fotolia has been the most stable and probably best site for me in the past few months.
Overall Rank: 2
7 days rank : 2

[XeniaII]

yes thats my opion tooo andre .. fotolia works

[erwinova]

Fotolia is number one for me.

Seem Yuri Arcur happy with fotolia too, read here:
http://www.fotolia.com/forum/?thems=106996

[Phil]

Fotolia has been the most stable and probably best site for me in the past few months.
Overall Rank: 2
7 days rank : 2

if you hit the top do you go back to bottom and start again?

[CCK]

Almost everbody beats me:
Overall rank 12825
7 days rank 3004

[Peter]

Overall rank     409
7 days rank    84

[MicrostockExp]

Overall rank: 2046
7 days rank: 572 my best so far

[Elenathewise]

Fotolia is doing really great for the past few months... At this point, it's number 1 earner for January. Go Fotolia Go!!!:) 

Overall rank     12
7 days rank    9

Climbing up slowly...;-)

[.shock]

for me, FL is only and the best. With V2 sales are exploded...

Currently I'm on
Overall rank 53
7 days rank 25

[Elnur]

Climbing up 2-5 places a week

Overall rank     144
7 days rank    54

[Smithore]

for me, FL is only and the best. With V2 sales are exploded...

Yes, I see you have many greats pictures at Fotolia, I just can imagine that it could be if you
upload at Istock and Shutterstock!!!
Fotolia is the best for you because you have pictures only here!!

[madelaide]

I saw a slight improvement in my sales this week, and that got me three steps up in FT's ladder of fortune.... 

Some amazing performaces here.  Congrats, people!

Regards,
Adelaide

[ZMB]

My rank is 5522 so I am not doing so well at the moment. I don't have many images on there but I am hoping to get more on which may help my ranking.

[leaf]

Climbing up 2-5 places a week

Overall rank     144
7 days rank    54

dahhh.. you are hot on my tail 

Overall rank     87
7 days rank    130

[hd]

So....I'm a little late to realizing the extent of the search issues with fotolia. Due to pretty slow sales there, I just don't give them that much of my time.

I read a little while ago about the "first 7 keywords' issue - basically that the first 7 are the only ones that count. I kicked myself for somehow missing the info and have gone back little, by little, and worked on re-ordering the keywords.

This morning I visit their forums for the first time and read that just editing those keywords will do nothing to improve search results. I think they want me to contact support to have them manually re-index each image! Does anyone know if this is true?

At this point it feels like it might be more worthwhile to clear out all 685 files in my account and start over....maybe...or maybe not.

I know I'm late showing up to the fotolia keyword party...so I apologize if I'm beating a dead subject here. I just don't know whether or not to call this a loss and move on or...what.

Have others done the re-ordering/re-indexing? Did you see sales improve at all?

[Pixart]

Have others done the re-ordering/re-indexing? Did you see sales improve at all?

Yes, I did.  My sales went down by at least 50%.  So something happened.  It wasn't favourable.  I did it just as they were emerging from that V2 fiasco.  Maybe there was trouble then that affected me.  Numbers are slowly beginning to increase again, but at the same rate as my port growth.  My individual sales in January were still short of last year, but my port is double in size and the quality has vastly improved.  (BUT - so has every other contributor - so who knows?)

I just can't believe that for some they are #1 earner!!!

[ParisEye]

I must be missing something there ! I am a beginner at Fotolia with only 8 photos but on the last three I had a keyword problem (in fact I had a problem on the first one too as they don't accept double key word, so my "trafalgar square" went lost, if you want to see my picture you have to search through "london fountain").

They are photogs of Annecy, a french town. Unfortunately, "Annecy" doesn't appear in the keyword. I had put it as the first one but it disappeared (three times). I asked Fotolia, the answer was that their machine was only using the first nine words (not 7, then) so if it was not in the nine, it was not recorded (that was not the case as I just said) and furthermore, their "artistic management" decided wich words to use in order to avoid spam. I can understand that, but I don't understand that the name of the town (the only cause for a buyer to look at it in 90% of the cases) will be dropped at this occasion. And as for correcting these keywords, the answer was "no, that's impossible".

Of course, I would like to be able to correct the keywords and make sure that the nine remaining will be accurate.

So, my question is : how do you do it ?

[madelaide]

Given the past bad months I had in FT, March is looking good.  So far I've earned 84% than January (in half the time) and 30% more than in December (which was my worst month in the past six).  The new prices are helping this result.

Now, searches are still a problem in FT.  I've sent an email to the lady from FT BR with whom I had some contact when they started here.  The problems at first seemed to be the translation, but problems exist in all languages.

Just try a search for "rio de janeiro", with or without quotation marks.  Without, you get images with Rio indeed - some are not, but I've noticed they are spammed (like an image of the Iguassu Falls with keywords Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo).  With, you get images of Paris and San Diego.  Apparently, the search returns anything with "de". Pure absurd.  In any case, my images don't appear in the first case, and in the second I also don't find them in the first 10 pages.  Also a search for "sugarloaf" doesn't return anything, and "sugar loaf" return only bread images.  I wonder how people find my images there...

BTW, look how spammed is this image:
http://www.fotolia.com/id/2331179

america bahia beach blue brasil brazil brazilian capoeira carnaval carnival cloud dance de falls fantasia girl height helicopter high holiday iguacu iguazu janeiro jesus lady loaf mountain ocean performance performer pond rio rock salvador sao paulo sky south statue sugar sun sunset swim swiming travel turtle view walk walking water wave

Regards,
Adelaide

[Read_My_Rights]

I am done with FT. 600 pictures no sales. When my 6 month are up at DT I am going IS exclusive. The worst outfit of all the micros.

[Kngkyle]

I am done with FT. 600 pictures no sales. When my 6 month are up at DT I am going IS exclusive. The worst outfit of all the micros.

I have a hard time believing that...
Sales are picking up quite a bit for me lately. I get about 2-3 sales per day with 310 files.

[vphoto]

sales are better for me too.

[Mellimage]

For me three. FT is one of my top earners.

[sharpshot]

I am done with FT. 600 pictures no sales. When my 6 month are up at DT I am going IS exclusive. The worst outfit of all the micros.

I have a hard time believing that...
Sales are picking up quite a bit for me lately. I get about 2-3 sales per day with 310 files.

Me too.  My sales have doubled there since October and I haven't uploaded much.  They are catching up with istock.

[Read_My_Rights]

592 pictures, 7 sales in January, 2 so far this month. I am not relabeling my keywords or uploading new pictures with no guarantee for improvements.
Just for comparisson sake IS 142 DL in January with 250 pics.
Nuf said.
The good news is the low cash out price - I do not have to wait to reach it.

[PaulieWalnuts]

FT is now my 2nd place earner, has passed SS, and is showing some nice growth. Due to my day job I haven't been able to upload much and SS earnings dropped like a rock.

[mwp1969]

Almost everbody beats me:
Overall rank 12825
7 days rank 3004

CCK this should make you smile 

My rank:
Overall rank 22453
7 days rank 5471
based on only 32 images  (BME there for January)


Mark

[leaf]

speaking of fotolia i might want to remind those who haven't done it that fotolia very happily changes all your extended licenses to a given price.

I had lots of extended licenses listed at 10 credits from before when that was the max?? or i am not sure why.

Anyhow i asked them to change all my files to the max amount of 100 credits - and they did it within a day.

In the last week I have had 2 extended license sales. Makes me glad I changed the pricing when i did.

[mwp1969]

speaking of fotolia i might want to remind those who haven't done it that fotolia very happily changes all your extended licenses to a given price.

I had lots of extended licenses listed at 10 credits from before when that was the max?? or i am not sure why.

Anyhow i asked them to change all my files to the max amount of 100 credits - and they did it within a day.

In the last week I have had 2 extended license sales. Makes me glad I changed the pricing when i did.

Do you send them an email to do this ?

Mark

[hd]

Not that I'm asking for specifics, but without them it's very hard to compare sales between users. "Great sales" seems often quite subjective.

Using my own trends as a guide...my sales jumped 300% from 2006 to 2007. Fotolia is not responsible for much of that increase. Perhaps it's due to their poor programming or perhaps I don't shoot what the average Fotolia customer is looking for. I don't know the cause behind it, but I do have to take into consideration which sites give me the greatest return on investment, including my investment of time/effort.

and for what it's worth my fotolia stats are..
Overall rank: 1445
7 days rank: 2054

[madelaide]

Anyhow i asked them to change all my files to the max amount of 100 credits - and they did it within a day.

They are normally responsive to that.

However, are you having problems setting your own EL licenses prices? I think it started after the new price scheme, now I can't edit prices, either upon uploading either after they're approved. 

Edit: Ouch!  All my images, even old ones, are showing only $17.50 in EL although they were set for the maximum!!

Regards,
Adelaide

[nickp37]

Edit: Ouch!  All my images, even old ones, are showing only $17.50 in EL although they were set for the maximum!!

Same here. Did you email support? I should probably email them now, myself.

[PaulieWalnuts]

I thought that was kind of weird too. My images are all locked in at the standard prices.

[fotografer]

I've changed mine a couple of times now by using the 'contact support' link and each time it was done in a couple of hours.  Don't be afraid of putting them at the maximum allowed.  I always have and have carried on selling the same amount as when I had them at 10$.

speaking of fotolia i might want to remind those who haven't done it that fotolia very happily changes all your extended licenses to a given price.

I had lots of extended licenses listed at 10 credits from before when that was the max?? or i am not sure why.

Anyhow i asked them to change all my files to the max amount of 100 credits - and they did it within a day.

In the last week I have had 2 extended license sales. Makes me glad I changed the pricing when i did.

Do you send them an email to do this ?

Mark

[ParisEye]

Another proof that buyers are not as "price sensitive" as some seem to think. When they find the picture they are looking for, they buy it.

Now it's up to everyone to charge 10$ 100$ or 10 cents...

[maunger]

592 pictures, 7 sales in January, 2 so far this month. I am not relabeling my keywords or uploading new pictures with no guarantee for improvements.
Just for comparisson sake IS 142 DL in January with 250 pics.
Nuf said.
The good news is the low cash out price - I do not have to wait to reach it.

my sales are similar - i wonder why some people are selling much and others sell nothing at FT. FT has always been about dead last for me.

[graficallyminded]

FT beat even my SS sales last month, which was crazy - so no complaints here.

Overall rank     445
7 days rank    553

I wonder what would happen if I had actually been ordering my top 7 keywords at the beginning of the list, all this time?  I never even did that.  I have no intention of going back and reordering the words on 600 images.

[madelaide]

I emailed support last night, so far it hasn't changed, but they're usually fast at this.

However, such a programming mistake is unforgivable in a big site.  It's like the IPTC data problem in another thread.  How can they have old errors again?  Are they mixing old and new codes?  Geez...

Regards,
Adelaide

[vonkara]

I wonder what would happen if I had actually been ordering my top 7 keywords at the beginning of the list, all this time?  I never even did that.  I have no intention of going back and reordering the words on 600 images.

I did it on all my about 50 files at this time. I was having about 6 or 7 sales a month. Since this change barely nothing. My file whit most sales didn't sale anymore??

 I'm very angry to have made this keywords ordering change and don't understand why it's affected my sales like that. If all was stay like it was at the beginning. Fotolia was going to be barely my top seller close to SS and IS, because it was my best seller at the beginning while I was having barely nothing on others.

I still have a small folio, but this is the stranger thing that happen in my small experience in microstock and i do not know why. I still upload there but I don't reorder the keywords anymore. My newest files just have some downls lately. I just hope this bad dream will end. But who knows, maybe I just was lucky at my beginning??

[Read_My_Rights]

592 pictures, 7 sales in January, 2 so far this month. I am not relabeling my keywords or uploading new pictures with no guarantee for improvements.
Just for comparisson sake IS 142 DL in January with 250 pics.
Nuf said.
The good news is the low cash out price - I do not have to wait to reach it.

my sales are similar - i wonder why some people are selling much and others sell nothing at FT. FT has always been about dead last for me.

I can only speculate that for some reason my images are not beeing seen by the buyers and once you are an old-timer and do not sell reasonably - the search algorithm just drops your pictures to the end of the line. All the sellers claiming good results are already high up in the ranking. There must be some sort of threshold if you are above or have just started your pictures are beeing seen. If you are below you disappear into oblivion. Good riddance FT.