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Author Topic: Is your September down?  (Read 24125 times)

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ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #25 on: September 19, 2012, 11:41 »
+1
Dreadful August, but September is down, down, deeper & down.
 >:(


lisafx

« Reply #26 on: September 19, 2012, 12:21 »
0
I am really grateful to Oxman for starting this thread.  Normally September is a nice jump after the slow summer months.  Somehow knowing that it isn't just me is a bit of a relief. 

« Reply #27 on: September 19, 2012, 16:49 »
0
I'm having an unbelievably bad week at IS.  FT is outselling them 10 to 1. 

dbvirago

« Reply #28 on: September 19, 2012, 17:54 »
0
Two of my top 10 images are in my top 10 due to sales at Istock. For years, they competed with DT for the #2 spot. Since January, every month has been worse than the month before descending to a total in August of about 10% of my BME. In September, I have sold exactly 3 images for a total of $3.86, which is worse than my 1st month there back in March of 2006.

They have become irrelevant to me.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #29 on: September 19, 2012, 18:40 »
0
I really must complain on here more often.
I got a good EL on an E+file after I'd written the above, though it's my ONLY sale of the day.

« Reply #30 on: September 19, 2012, 19:23 »
0
This month SS is trouncing IS (SS is 45% more than IS - almost 1.5x even given one EL from IS). But the last two days at IS have been really good - good in comparison to terrible, not all time good.

I noticed there were old files in the mix - looking at my last 20 sales, I have every year from 2004 to 2012 represented in the sales. Perhaps people with only newer files are getting hit by some best match change?

« Reply #31 on: September 19, 2012, 23:40 »
0
This month SS is trouncing IS (SS is 45% more than IS - almost 1.5x even given one EL from IS). But the last two days at IS have been really good - good in comparison to terrible, not all time good.

I noticed there were old files in the mix - looking at my last 20 sales, I have every year from 2004 to 2012 represented in the sales. Perhaps people with only newer files are getting hit by some best match change?

-----------------------------------------------
My last twenty have a good age distribution 2006 to 2012, so I don't think its a new file thing.

« Reply #32 on: September 20, 2012, 01:29 »
0
August was terrible...so far September has only been approaching average.

« Reply #33 on: September 20, 2012, 02:39 »
0
I doubt very much this has got anything to do with recession or the global financial troubles. Its not as if we are selling cars or houses but just pictures that anybody can afford.
Now is the time when corporate designers, advertising agencies, companies in general start planning for profiles, annuals and all sorts of promos.
Right now business should be booming, its not so something is wrong in our gebit.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #34 on: September 20, 2012, 04:25 »
0
This month SS is trouncing IS (SS is 45% more than IS - almost 1.5x even given one EL from IS). But the last two days at IS have been really good - good in comparison to terrible, not all time good.

I noticed there were old files in the mix - looking at my last 20 sales, I have every year from 2004 to 2012 represented in the sales. Perhaps people with only newer files are getting hit by some best match change?

The best match isn't uniformly the same and hasn't been for a while now.
Some BMs have at least the top two or three lines identical to 'new', and others have a strong bias towards high-sellers.
Hard to establish if there's any pattern which is which, compounded by the apparent 'geographical bias' of searches.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #35 on: September 20, 2012, 04:34 »
0
I wonder if the IT wallahs are on strike. Over two weeks and not only has even the stuff they deliberately disabled to get the Cash Sales started (zoom and lightbox)[1] not been reinstated, but many more bugs have been reported (I've noticed a lot of search bugs, not on their list, but of course I can't post them) and they seem to have made NO headway in sorting any of them.

Unless they confound us all and get the whole thing working perfectly in one fell swoop.

[1] Best quote on that:
"It's like me buying a freezer and finding out that my stereo no longer works"

« Reply #36 on: September 20, 2012, 04:55 »
0
September is terrible, accross the board not only limited to Istock.
I started in 2007 with an even mix of submission across the years.

« Reply #37 on: September 20, 2012, 08:11 »
0
projected earnings for September:

SS (down 40%)
IS (down 5%)
FT (down 10%)
123RF (down 37%)
DT (down 38%)

looks like a terrible month, no ELs or big sales so far, August had 23 week days, September only 20

lisafx

« Reply #38 on: September 20, 2012, 09:11 »
0
I'm having an unbelievably bad week at IS. .

Ditto. 

Sept. started out slow for me across the board, but the other sites are picking up nicely this week and Istock is getting worse and worse. 

Seeing as it seems to be happening to others too, I suspect it is still the fallout from the lingering IT problems.  If this isn't some secret plan to send buyers to TS, it is one royal F/up. 

« Reply #39 on: September 20, 2012, 09:20 »
0
projected earnings for September:

SS (down 40%)
IS (down 5%)
FT (down 10%)
123RF (down 37%)
DT (down 38%)

looks like a terrible month, no ELs or big sales so far, August had 23 week days, September only 20

Do you add EL's when calculating months total? Excluding EL's in your earnings % might give a better picture. At least that's how I keep track of site performances. So far only IS is down for me.

« Reply #40 on: September 20, 2012, 09:25 »
0
projected earnings for September:

SS (down 40%)
IS (down 5%)
FT (down 10%)
123RF (down 37%)
DT (down 38%)

looks like a terrible month, no ELs or big sales so far, August had 23 week days, September only 20

Do you add EL's when calculating months total? Excluding EL's in your earnings % might give a better picture. At least that's how I keep track of site performances. So far only IS is down for me.

I agree but I always have ELs/SODs, if I dont think of them, SS will be 20% down

« Reply #41 on: September 20, 2012, 09:30 »
0
Terrible month here as well.

rubyroo

« Reply #42 on: September 20, 2012, 09:53 »
0
Sales are fine, but rejections are inexplicably and hugely increased at iStock.  The current pattern doesn't fit my usual experience at all, and I'm wondering if there's been a change in acceptance criteria.  Anyone else seeing this?

It's annoying that I can't see what's actually sold in a number of cases.  Presumably these are the new-fangled credit card sales.  Some nice numbers coming in, so it would be good to see what I'm being paid for.

Sorry to hear others are having a bad month.  For some reason I'm often out of kilter with everyone else... at times when most here are reporting a great month, I'm in a slump.  No idea why.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2012, 12:14 by rubyroo »

« Reply #43 on: September 20, 2012, 09:53 »
0
iStock is doing well on the Footage side for me this month. Last month was a train wreck!!!!

« Reply #44 on: September 20, 2012, 09:54 »
0
I doubt very much this has got anything to do with recession or the global financial troubles. Its not as if we are selling cars or houses but just pictures that anybody can afford.
Now is the time when corporate designers, advertising agencies, companies in general start planning for profiles, annuals and all sorts of promos.
Right now business should be booming, its not so something is wrong in our gebit.

From my experience, companies are planning budgets for marketing in early September and projects soon follow. I am hoping that is what is going on. Also, it appears IS is tweaking search these days. If we are all seeing low sales, they have to see it too. Hopefully things will get better soon.

« Reply #45 on: September 20, 2012, 11:45 »
0
I am also way down. At this rate, I'd guess I'll make about 2/3 what a normal September would bring.

JoEr

« Reply #46 on: September 20, 2012, 17:23 »
+2
September will probably be one of my worst months since I became exclusive in 2010.

I hope I'm just a little paranoid but I really get the feeling that iStock is in big BIG trouble... the site is slow, lots of bugs, many contributors complaining about sales decreasing. Many glitches and bugs take several months to fix. The PNG and logo projects were cancelled. They don't perform major site updates on weekends, which is pretty much standard procedure for any serious e-business.

To me it feels like a company with a very poor organization and/or lots of incompetent people. Or it could also be the signs of a company that is in the process of being shut down, but I find that hard to believe.

But the situation really reminds me of my time at an Ericsson cellphone factory many years ago. We were not informed that the factory was being shut down and that the production would move abroad. But you could tell that something was going on for several months before it actually closed. Machines were not fixed properly, organization was bad, the production rate was really low at times and nobody really seemed to care. But again, I don't see why Getty would close iStock.

« Reply #47 on: September 20, 2012, 18:08 »
0
^^^ It is undoubtedly the case that IS has fewer resources than it had in the past by virtue of them 'letting go' about 30 staff several months ago. I know some functions were withdrawn to Getty HQ but it is reasonable to assume that falling revenues were mainly responsible. In contrast, expanding businesses (like SS for example), tend to be recruiting non-stop.

I monitor a few portfolios, as well as my own, and I know that the fall in sales compared to a year or two ago is extraordinary. The multiple price increases, erroding of commissions via the RC system and the latest exchange-rate sleight-of-hand for cash sales will all help to prop up their profitability ... but only for so long. They might disguise the effect but not the cause. I reckon Istock are seriously f**ked in the longer term. Within 5 years they will be largely irrelevant.

traveler1116

« Reply #48 on: September 20, 2012, 19:18 »
0
I'm curious since a lot of people are saying IS is losing sooo many buyers and about to become irrelevant have your sales elsewhere gone up a lot?  People still need images even if they don't buy from IS so I would expect to see huge gains on other sites if that was true.

« Reply #49 on: September 20, 2012, 20:31 »
0
I'm curious since a lot of people are saying IS is losing sooo many buyers and about to become irrelevant have your sales elsewhere gone up a lot?  People still need images even if they don't buy from IS so I would expect to see huge gains on other sites if that was true.
Some people in this forum have been wishing the fall of Istock for a long time.  Everytime sales are down for some, they start talking about how buyers and suppliers are leaving in droves, and how iStock will fall soon.   



 

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