MicrostockGroup

Hello,

I have to tell you that the new best match has really killed my sales. Close to -54%. Now I don't want to sound like winer, but I did notice a lot of the Top Sellers are down too. Do you think it's a trend or something else. I lot of my images that were strong page 1 sellers are now on page 5 or 6 in the search. I'm considering dropping my crown and moving content to some other sites. What's your experience? Thanks!

It's not so much 'swung a bit too far', it's simply been removed __ as it should. Let the images compete on equal ground. It seems to me that 90% of images/contributors nowadays are exclusive anyway so it is unlikley to have made any difference to you.

Truth is sales are down for almost everyone. Just check out that German chart which is now a sea of red. I can't see any pattern there with exclusives down and independents up.

Not much change for me either way.

Ebb and flow

Relying on one site is tough!

I don't think I would do better If I was exclusive with IS since working with 7 sites gives me good consistency. When one site is down the other one is usually up so I don't really worry about the sales on a single site. I have no idea though, about the kind of boost IS could provide me If I was exclusive! It could make a difference.

But go ahead, drop the crown, the less exclusives in front of me, the better I will sell 

Seriously though, I don't think exclusivity is a good idea since you are not provided with a signed promise to keep your sales up.

The only way I would go exclusive would be if I signed a legal individual protection for my sales with the site. Otherwise what's the point in giving up the freedom.

The best thing about exclusivity is not money but the better protection of your copyrights since the image can only be purchased through one site.

My sales were crushed last Autumn but I had a BME last month, so I like the new best match so far. 

I wont be happy with istock until I can see long term steady earnings growth.  That happens on several of the other sites and is a big motivation to keep uploading.

Yeah, there really is no up side if istock decides to alienate their exclusives.  As it stands now, exclusives have been happy at istock with their perks and the rest of us have benefited from not having to compete with them on other sites. 

If that apple cart is upset it will be a very different industry once the dust settles....

best match 2.0 has been good to me - not great, but I've had a very respectable couple of weeks (the multimedia charts say I'm up 9% but I'd been in double digit negatives for a while so this is better than it looks).

I'd love to think it's good keywording, but I doubt there's anything more than the luck of the draw. However it does mean that sales haven't tanked across the board (which would be worse news for the longer term outlook of the business). Perhaps it's just reduced the advantage the hot sellers have previously had (that self reinforcing thing that what gets noticed and sells quickly just sells and sells)?

But I agree that having the big name exclusives everywhere else certainly isn't going to increase the overall pool of buyers, and thus has to depress the sales figures for others already at the other sites.

I have to ask: Apart from complaining, what are you doing about it?

I don't think it's a very good idea to upload when the best match isn't working for you - you'll just end up with pages and pages of unsold images. Keep making images, but bank them until they have better earning ability.

Also, you knew best match 2.0 was coming - did you do anything to prepare for it? If not, then now's the time.

sharply_done,
How does one prepare for a new best match even before it is alive? What data would this preparation be based on?

Think about it.
The answers are very obvious.

From this thread: http://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/april-2009-earnings-breakdown/ it seems like the BME's outweigh the non-BME's.  Of course, most of the posts are useless, as they just illustrate a random distribution between the sites, which gives no information at all.