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Author Topic: down the toilet  (Read 79565 times)

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« on: January 11, 2017, 19:33 »
+18
i have a portfolio of 3700 images and consistent revenue for the last 3 years.  In December my sales dropped to a low that I haven't seen in 4 years..down by 30%.  I chalked it up to holiday season but now 11 days into January I see no improvement, in fact, I'm its sunk even further.  My daily sales are about 50% down from my average daily sales for the last several years.  Has something changed in the algorithm or am i just having bad luck?


SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2017, 19:52 »
0
Could be a combination of algorithms, bad luck, people still ramping up from the Christmas holidays, and an increase in competition. Both in new contributors and new files. 

« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2017, 20:18 »
+5
I have a fairly stagnant portfolio on Shutterstock but it produced a fairly consistent income .... until November when it crashed. Sales still way, way down.

angelawaye

  • Eat, Sleep, Keyword. Repeat

« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2017, 21:15 »
+6
You are certainly not alone! It is so bad I have become numb from the shock.

« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2017, 22:40 »
0
I got my BDE yesterday or say it was the best of all time. Maybe they are still experimenting with the algorithm.
I also see that they have changed the preview style in download page.

« Reply #5 on: January 11, 2017, 22:50 »
+7
So far on pace to be the worst month in several years.  ODs, SODs and clip sales have almost completely dried up and subs volume is down about 40% from what it used to be.  Other sites are similarly slow.  Camva was picking up the slack for a while there (and was beating SS) but has slowed down a lot the past few months.  It isn't just you.

« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2017, 01:03 »
0
i have a portfolio of 3700 images and consistent revenue for the last 3 years.  In December my sales dropped to a low that I haven't seen in 4 years..down by 30%.  I chalked it up to holiday season but now 11 days into January I see no improvement, in fact, I'm its sunk even further.  My daily sales are about 50% down from my average daily sales for the last several years.  Has something changed in the algorithm or am i just having bad luck?

Me too. SS in Low Earners Tier now. On 123RF I have only 1/2 of my all images and sells AMAZING this year!!! Thank you 123RF :)

« Last Edit: January 12, 2017, 01:32 by Stockmaan »

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2017, 02:01 »
+5
The new image page design has killed my sales. At first I was happy to see that there were twice as many "similar images" and "same artist" selections at the bottom of the page, but then I realized that they're now showing images from my port that their algorithm considers "most popular"...with a lag of several weeks. So no matter which of my images you're looking at, you see my Christmas images at the bottom of the page, which were popular a month ago and nobody wants or needs in January.

Also, "similar images," until last year, used to show some similars within my own port, but now purposely excludes them, showing only images from other artists. Last year they introduced their awful similars algorithm that goes by pixels rather than keywords, which suppressed my sales...and this new change has suppressed them even further.

« Reply #8 on: January 12, 2017, 02:22 »
+2
I had a reasonably good start, made pay out on the 4th day, and now for 7 days in a row, I have not made over 8 dollar per day, never seen a run this bad, january has slow starts, but always pick up after the first weekend of the year. not this time, its really bad, if thousands of files cant generate more than 9 downloads per day. if they tweaked something, they tweaked it badly. if i am in some sort of test group, i hope the results make them realize this tweak needs to be reversed

« Reply #9 on: January 12, 2017, 02:46 »
+1
They used to be very consistent every month but now I get good months and really bad months.  January 2106 was grim and this January is just as bad.  Hopefully they will still have good months.  Luckily for me, they are no longer my best selling site and I am nowhere near as reliant on my income from them as I was last this time last year.

« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2017, 02:52 »
+1
since two days everything is back to normal...

« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2017, 04:12 »
+4
Yes, same here, 30-40% down 2016/2017 on SS in the first 10 days of January.

I'm curious to hear the conference call of Q4 2016 ... in Q3 there was the first down in download from 43,4 mln to 41,2 mln.

The flood of crappy and spamming images cover the good quality ones.

« Reply #12 on: January 12, 2017, 04:45 »
0
They used to be very consistent every month but now I get good months and really bad months.  January 2106  was grim and this January is just as bad.  Hopefully they will still have good months.  Luckily for me, they are no longer my best selling site and I am nowhere near as reliant on my income from them as I was last this time last year.

I will die happily before January 2106 :)
Happily if microstock increases and implement fair commission policy.

« Reply #13 on: January 12, 2017, 05:31 »
+1
I had a decent monthly income from Shutterstock for about 2 years although I didnt add many new images. This stable income tanked on the 22 November and never recovered since then. I guess it might have been algorithm change. I was about 40% down on number of DLs in December, the income was saved by a couple of huge SODs at the end of the year.... January so far is quite poor, still 30-40% drop on DLs and income. I dont think it will get better, probably worse.

It forced me to finally go through with my plan B.. I joined Adobe :D I put around 300 of my better vectors there, earned some 120 euro in the first month. It is not even close to cover my loss from SS though :'( Lets see what 2017 brings us..

stockVid

« Reply #14 on: January 12, 2017, 06:26 »
+2
It's odd that everyone is talking about 40%.

So far this year I am also down 40% from last year.

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #15 on: January 12, 2017, 07:44 »
+3
it's the future of micro stock. nobody apart some very big agency could produce something to live on with it.
photography i a chepa commodity, buyer can find free photo everywhere , and everybody with a camera seems to contributing to a micro stock . if you have talent and portfolio go for macro and high quality. diversify doing many things or become a instagram hero. other way better find another job and stop complaining of poor sales.

« Reply #16 on: January 12, 2017, 07:50 »
+6
it's the future of micro stock. nobody apart some very big agency could produce something to live on with it.
photography i a chepa commodity, buyer can find free photo everywhere , and everybody with a camera seems to contributing to a micro stock . if you have talent and portfolio go for macro and high quality. diversify doing many things or become a instagram hero. other way better find another job and stop complaining of poor sales.

no, I'm not talking about a downward trend.  I'm talking about an unexplainable sudden drop-off at one particular site. sales elsewhere are business as usual. therefore your theory doesn't hold true to my original question.


« Reply #17 on: January 12, 2017, 08:20 »
+1
End of December and first 10-12 days of January have always been low for obvious reasons (christmas holidays, new years bank holidays, companies not working etc etc).  My sales were also quite low during this period but have now come back to normal levels. 

dpimborough

« Reply #18 on: January 12, 2017, 08:30 »
+1
I got my BDE yesterday or say it was the best of all time. Maybe they are still experimenting with the algorithm.
I also see that they have changed the preview style in download page.

One Swallow does not a summer make  ;D

« Reply #19 on: January 12, 2017, 09:19 »
0
The new image page design has killed my sales. At first I was happy to see that there were twice as many "similar images" and "same artist" selections at the bottom of the page, but then I realized that they're now showing images from my port that their algorithm considers "most popular"...with a lag of several weeks. So no matter which of my images you're looking at, you see my Christmas images at the bottom of the page, which were popular a month ago and nobody wants or needs in January.

Also, "similar images," until last year, used to show some similars within my own port, but now purposely excludes them, showing only images from other artists. Last year they introduced their awful similars algorithm that goes by pixels rather than keywords, which suppressed my sales...and this new change has suppressed them even further.

After I read this I thought I'd have a look at my own port's "Same Artist" and "Similar Images" and although I don't see what you're seeing, it appears to have lots of breakage/bugs/very strange behavior

1. I have several images (of the ones I checked) that have more than one of my own images in the "Similar Images" section. Some have all 8! At first I thought I got one slot (the first) in the "Similar Images" row if the image was popular enough, but I have some cases where there's only one of mine in the "Similar" section but it's not the first slot.

2. I have a few images that have no "Same Artist" section at all. One has only one in that section; another has only three. All 8 slots are used for the "Similar Images" section though. This isn't just a one off - if you search for that image again or in a different browser, you get the same result.

3. Thinking about a buyer, the notion of similar is just broken - I have some Kauai images and in the similars are things with something mountainous and something watery but many are from very cold places and lakes not oceans. I can't imagine a buyer looking at Hawaii/Kauai images  wanting Alberta, the Swiss Alps or a Fjord!!

« Last Edit: January 12, 2017, 11:52 by Jo Ann Snover »

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #20 on: January 12, 2017, 10:49 »
+2
Yeah, similars has been bad for a while. I think they fell in love with the amazing breakthrough tech of their brilliant "pixels" idea and can't admit it's a dismal failure. Going by keywords was much more likely to show buyers images that were relevant to their search.

Weird...I just checked one of my images and the old image page format seems to be back....with no similars. Buggy-doodle-do.

« Reply #21 on: January 12, 2017, 12:03 »
+2
The most ridicilous thing is, that under "Same artist" instead of showing similar files/subject it shows the most popular files for that user.

« Reply #22 on: January 12, 2017, 12:49 »
+7
The most ridicilous thing is, that under "Same artist" instead of showing similar files/subject it shows the most popular files for that user.


Not always. For yucks, I did some screen captures of some of my images with their same/similar choices. Even within the same series of images, you get some truly whacky divergence of what is shown. I've annotated the screen shots (click for full size)



Edited to add that as of this afternoon (Jan 12), I now see the new larger-but-more-useless display where the "Same artist" section is the same for every image in my portfolio instead of different for each image - first 8 of the most popular sort.

This is such a stupid, thoughtless, buyer-unfriendly change.

Tossers
« Last Edit: January 12, 2017, 18:13 by Jo Ann Snover »

« Reply #23 on: January 12, 2017, 12:57 »
+1
it's over, stock media is dead, everyone pack up your bags and go home.

« Reply #24 on: January 12, 2017, 13:34 »
+3
truly truly awful
as if Christmas continues
:(


 

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