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Author Topic: I stopped uploading new material to Videoblocks till I see upswing in sales.  (Read 16684 times)

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« on: May 02, 2018, 07:26 »
+3
It has been bad and I'm discouraged to upload/tag new material.


« Reply #1 on: May 02, 2018, 07:42 »
+2
You are not alone.

« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2018, 07:58 »
+1
no crap  :o

« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2018, 16:55 »
0
Yes. Aside from them building their subscription model, I noticed some people have portfolio sizes of 70,000+ clips, making it difficult to be 'discovered'.

angelawaye

  • Eat, Sleep, Keyword. Repeat

« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2018, 21:33 »
+4
Me too. LOVE P5. They treat me good...

« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2018, 23:02 »
0
Me too. LOVE P5. They treat me good...

Checked out your website, you have some nice photos! Question though - I thought pond5 was mainly video/focused on that with images as a side business... or do you sell videos there too?

Tyson Anderson

  • www.openrangestudios.com
« Reply #6 on: May 03, 2018, 00:08 »
+1
Still uploading but I'm in the same boat with sales.  None last month.  That's a first with Videoblocks.  Might have to do with the rebranding to Storyblocks.  They could've lost some SEO or something.

« Reply #7 on: May 03, 2018, 03:46 »
+1
For some reasons the other day I was browsing Storyblocks videos and only clips belonging to their membership thingy were showing.
There is a filter to view the ones in the marketplace, but it doesn't seem to be working.
In other words there is no way to visualise anything else but their stupid membership (unless I did it wrong).
That would explain the disaster in sales in the last couple of months.
And yes, I have the feeling that their re branding was an incredible exercise in self harm

« Reply #8 on: May 03, 2018, 05:17 »
+1
There is a filter to view the ones in the marketplace, but it doesn't seem to be working.
In other words there is no way to visualise anything else but their stupid membership (unless I did it wrong).
That would explain the disaster in sales in the last couple of months.
And yes, I have the feeling that their re branding was an incredible exercise in self harm

As far as I'm aware, there is only a filter to show Member Library items. This means you can view ALL clips (marketplace + membership) or just the membership items.

For a common word like "sunset" you will just see membership items because there are so many matches, unless you sort by "Most Recent" or "Undiscovered".

Search for "switzerland beach" and you will mostly see marketplace clips, because there aren't many (or any) in the membership library.

Naturally, they will always push membership content first. There is no point in hiding that to show marketplace clips only.

---

I don't know if the rebranding ACTUALLY hurt their sales, probably not that much, but the fact that their membership library is now much, much bigger makes marketplace sales less likely for every day that goes by.

If I can get 5 HD downloads for $1.65 each (their basic plan), it seems very expensive to buy one clip for $49.

If you go to an all-you-can-eat buffet and pay $40, you probably don't think it makes sense to pay $100 for an extra higher quality item...  ;)
« Last Edit: May 03, 2018, 05:28 by increasingdifficulty »

angelawaye

  • Eat, Sleep, Keyword. Repeat

« Reply #9 on: May 03, 2018, 09:08 »
0
Me too. LOVE P5. They treat me good...

Checked out your website, you have some nice photos! Question though - I thought pond5 was mainly video/focused on that with images as a side business... or do you sell videos there too?

I do video as well :) Only video sells there unfortunately.

« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2018, 13:53 »
+3
... have stopped with uploading.. they want new files and contributors, but mine will be on hold ...  after some time, they count to buy files from you for their MS program... in long term, it`s suicidal practice for all of us... but always there will be people who will give them files for few bucks...

« Reply #11 on: May 12, 2018, 10:00 »
+2
... have stopped with uploading.. they want new files and contributors, but mine will be on hold ...  after some time, they count to buy files from you for their MS program... in long term, it`s suicidal practice for all of us... but always there will be people who will give them files for few bucks...

You always make much more money in a long run if you keep your clips (assets) rather than selling them for pennies to others who try to profit a lot from them.  So, DON'T SELL YOUR CLIPS OUTRIGHT!!

« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2018, 10:22 »
+1
Exactly.

If the all-you-can-eat buffet across the street suddenly offers the same quality and variety as the expensive la carte, it makes the choice easy.

Especially if you can feed yourself every day for a year at the buffet place for the price of two meals at the la carte place...

« Reply #13 on: May 18, 2018, 22:52 »
0
Still uploading but I'm in the same boat with sales.  None last month.  That's a first with Videoblocks.  Might have to do with the rebranding to Storyblocks.  They could've lost some SEO or something.

Could be that but sales seem to have been trending down for about 12 months now. For me they're about 25% of what they were for the 12 months before that.

« Reply #14 on: May 19, 2018, 06:10 »
+1
There is a filter to view the ones in the marketplace, but it doesn't seem to be working.
In other words there is no way to visualise anything else but their stupid membership (unless I did it wrong).
That would explain the disaster in sales in the last couple of months.
And yes, I have the feeling that their re branding was an incredible exercise in self harm

As far as I'm aware, there is only a filter to show Member Library items. This means you can view ALL clips (marketplace + membership) or just the membership items.



Yes, this is exactly why sales have stopped for us.

By default, the customer used to be presented with the filter showing ALL items.  At some point last year (look at your sales and you'll see when) they made "membership items" the default, so marketplace became invisible unless the customer switched it back. 

The moment this happened, my sales dropped around 95%. 

They have admitted they did this and explained that they're always looking for ways to "improve the customer experience."

« Reply #15 on: May 19, 2018, 06:19 »
0
Yes, this is exactly why sales have stopped for us.

By default, the customer used to be presented with the filter showing ALL items.  At some point last year (look at your sales and you'll see when) they made "membership items" the default, so marketplace became invisible unless the customer switched it back. 

The moment this happened, my sales dropped around 95%. 

They have admitted they did this and explained that they're always looking for ways to "improve the customer experience."

Yes, but their goal has always been to push their membership library, for obvious reasons. They had a brilliant and unique idea to offer 100% for marketplace items so that most of us stock sellers just couldn't say no to uploading to their library.

Then it was very easy for them to just drop an e-mail and offer a small buyout fee for a part of our portfolios. They had access to all the download and search data which made it very easy to pinpoint the clips that were most likely to draw in, and keep, the customers.

Since the clips were already uploaded (again, brilliant strategy), it was a very easy "yes" for many. No extra work, just a "yes", and some $$$ in the bank. Voila - their membership library could now grow very easily and quickly, and the marketplace section was not as important anymore.

It's not like this was a secret.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2018, 06:33 by increasingdifficulty »

« Reply #16 on: May 19, 2018, 06:50 »
+1
Yes, it's clear WHY they did it.  It's always been their business model.

BUT people still show up here asking how and why their sales suddenly stopped.  The why has always been known. The how is that one day last year they flipped a switch to hide the marketplace collection, making our work invisible unless the customer flipped the switch back to the old default.

« Reply #17 on: May 19, 2018, 06:54 »
0
Yes, it's clear WHY they did it.  It's always been their business model.

BUT people still show up here asking how and why their sales suddenly stopped.  The why has always been known. The how is that one day last year they flipped a switch to hide the marketplace collection, making our work invisible unless the customer flipped the switch back to the old default.

Yes, absolutely, fully agree with you. Just wanted to clarify some things.

The switch in combination with a now much bigger membership library results in very few people feeling the need to flip the switch back.

And furthermore, what does decreasing marketplace sales do to the sellers? Naturally, it makes it more likely that they will now say "yes" to a buyout... And so on, until the membership library is good enough to outcompete the rest.

« Reply #18 on: May 19, 2018, 07:37 »
+1
Yes, it's clear WHY they did it.  It's always been their business model.

BUT people still show up here asking how and why their sales suddenly stopped.  The why has always been known. The how is that one day last year they flipped a switch to hide the marketplace collection, making our work invisible unless the customer flipped the switch back to the old default.

Yes, absolutely, fully agree with you. Just wanted to clarify some things.

The switch in combination with a now much bigger membership library results in very few people feeling the need to flip the switch back.

And furthermore, what does decreasing marketplace sales do to the sellers? Naturally, it makes it more likely that they will now say "yes" to a buyout... And so on, until the membership library is good enough to outcompete the rest.
I perfectly agree.
But even worse is the fact that something very similar is happening at Pond 5 with their membership program, which was much amplified only a couple of month ago.
Last year only the contributors left out of the membership were squeezed out, as the participating members were pushed up in the search rankings, but now everyone is complaining of very poor sales in their forum.
They did it in a very clever way: even the members who did not want to participate had no choice, as they knew that they would have been squeezed out of the search engine

« Reply #19 on: May 19, 2018, 10:50 »
0
What exactly are you referring to/which program to participate in?

Yes - I had been hearing (reading) great things about how pond5 was so great, so signed up - spent hours and hours uploading videos (several thousand) - and a month or so later, jsut 0 sales...

Yes, it's clear WHY they did it.  It's always been their business model.

BUT people still show up here asking how and why their sales suddenly stopped.  The why has always been known. The how is that one day last year they flipped a switch to hide the marketplace collection, making our work invisible unless the customer flipped the switch back to the old default.

Yes, absolutely, fully agree with you. Just wanted to clarify some things.

The switch in combination with a now much bigger membership library results in very few people feeling the need to flip the switch back.

And furthermore, what does decreasing marketplace sales do to the sellers? Naturally, it makes it more likely that they will now say "yes" to a buyout... And so on, until the membership library is good enough to outcompete the rest.
I perfectly agree.
But even worse is the fact that something very similar is happening at Pond 5 with their membership program, which was much amplified only a couple of month ago.
Last year only the contributors left out of the membership were squeezed out, as the participating members were pushed up in the search rankings, but now everyone is complaining of very poor sales in their forum.
They did it in a very clever way: even the members who did not want to participate had no choice, as they knew that they would have been squeezed out of the search engine

« Reply #20 on: May 20, 2018, 02:57 »
0
What exactly are you referring to/which program to participate in?

Yes - I had been hearing (reading) great things about how pond5 was so great, so signed up - spent hours and hours uploading videos (several thousand) - and a month or so later, jsut 0 sales...

Yes, it's clear WHY they did it.  It's always been their business model.

BUT people still show up here asking how and why their sales suddenly stopped.  The why has always been known. The how is that one day last year they flipped a switch to hide the marketplace collection, making our work invisible unless the customer flipped the switch back to the old default.

Yes, absolutely, fully agree with you. Just wanted to clarify some things.

The switch in combination with a now much bigger membership library results in very few people feeling the need to flip the switch back.

And furthermore, what does decreasing marketplace sales do to the sellers? Naturally, it makes it more likely that they will now say "yes" to a buyout... And so on, until the membership library is good enough to outcompete the rest.
I perfectly agree.
But even worse is the fact that something very similar is happening at Pond 5 with their membership program, which was much amplified only a couple of month ago.
Last year only the contributors left out of the membership were squeezed out, as the participating members were pushed up in the search rankings, but now everyone is complaining of very poor sales in their forum.
They did it in a very clever way: even the members who did not want to participate had no choice, as they knew that they would have been squeezed out of the search engine
Pond 5 have a membership program, an all you can eat buffet similar to the one in Storyblock.
But it is much more dangerous as the quality of the footage is much higher.
This membership thingy, a sort of dollar store, has been progressively cannibalising sales more and more

« Reply #21 on: May 20, 2018, 02:58 »
+2
nobody makes any sales on VB/SBs

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #22 on: May 21, 2018, 21:51 »
0
I do.

« Reply #23 on: May 21, 2018, 22:16 »
0

SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #24 on: May 21, 2018, 22:23 »
+1
Here you go. I uploaded about 100 clips in the first month or two I was there, then a gradual increase to 250 today.


 

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