With the new year I made the decision to happily earn, say, 10% or 15% less in total, and have a clean conscience and a little less stress and anger in my life.

So I started to kick some low sellers and "bad behaviour" Agencies.
I am NOT talking about newcomer Agencies, which deserve IMHO a chance to grow over one or two years.

However, next on my list is Dreamstime. It is not a low earner. It is supposed to be one of the big four.
But I earn with them only roughly 10% of what I have on shutterstock. They are a huge disappointment amongst the long time MS-comnpanies around there.

A commission of 0.16 $ or something for a commercial image license does not make sense for me. I don`t care about their Promos and percentages. My total income with them had been flat and disappointing. Plus: they still insist on categories, making the upload process uselessly more time consuming.

Looking at my last 20 sales I have 8 credit sales (of which 2 level 0, none exclusive) and 12 subscriptions. The credit sales were in total 40 with a total revenue of 10.72$ = 0.268% assuming 1 credit = 1$. Especially a level 0 TIFF sale at 11 credits (15 credits level 1) bringing a whopping 2.38$ in the piggy bank felt a bit weird.

In general my income on DT peaked end 2008 then slowly started to go down till now (accelerating) despite regular uploads. The impact of the commission reduction from 50% to 30$ a couple of years ago has taken full impact and a credit isn't a dollar because of the volume packs, discounts, partner sites, referrals. I figure DT stands with its back against the wall since all vested sites reduced commissions and people still seem to upload there.

Well maybe I am using the wrong metric but I really only care about average return per download and DT is my best site at $1.48 ahead of IS at $1.26 and SS at $0.48.

Don't much care if I sell a few at very low amounts if they are made up for by a few at much higher amounts.  DT seems to satisfy this requirement better than anywhere else.

fred

Right, if you have the same downloads per day (or per month, or year) on al this sites. But if you have on DT 3 times higher return per download, and 10 times lower downloads per month as on SS, where you earned more?

Here's what I just don't understand...

Why do credit sales and subscription sales come in distinct waves?

On Thursday, I got virtually all credit sales totaling about $60 in commissions for me.

On Friday, I got virtually all subscription sales -- around the same number of downloads -- but my total take was about $15.

What is happening that causes all credit sales to be reported at once, then all sub sales?  Is there a best match shift every few days that moves high priced images up and then down, up and down, in a cycle?  Maybe that would suppress my high-priced images from selling to credit customers on certain days.

Anyone else experience this?

My guess is that subscription sales come in waves because of the way designers work. They work in spurts - when a new job comes in, when a job is due, when a job is to be reviewed and different layouts have to be presented, when a deadline looms, after the job's first review and the client asks for more ideas (I'm talking both print and web designs), when the monthly newsletter or enewsletter is produced� Many of those scenarios work on cycles tied to time frames - end of week, month, year.

Pair that up with the nearing of the end of a subscription and the buyer wanting to get everything they might need in the future before the subscription expires may cause a flurry of subscription sales. If your portfolio contains images that any one buyer thinks is connected to their industry/customers/clients they may purchase many from you on the same day/week.

This makes some sense, but there is more going on.

The scenario you describe may explain the actions of an individual designer.  But I'm experiencing entire days with nothing but subscription sales then days with almost entirely credit sales.  For your theory to hold up, it would have to mean 5 to 10 designers buy nothing but sub images, then 5 to 10 designers buy nothing but credit images, then back and forth.

Anyone else have an explanation?

Quote from: cuppacoffee on January 28, 2012, 10:22

My guess is that subscription sales come in waves because of the way designers work. They work in spurts - when a new job comes in, when a job is due, when a job is to be reviewed and different layouts have to be presented, when a deadline looms, after the job's first review and the client asks for more ideas (I'm talking both print and web designs), when the monthly newsletter or enewsletter is produced� Many of those scenarios work on cycles tied to time frames - end of week, month, year.

Pair that up with the nearing of the end of a subscription and the buyer wanting to get everything they might need in the future before the subscription expires may cause a flurry of subscription sales. If your portfolio contains images that any one buyer thinks is connected to their industry/customers/clients they may purchase many from you on the same day/week.

This makes some sense, but there is more going on.

The scenario you describe may explain the actions of an individual designer.  But I'm experiencing entire days with nothing but subscription sales then days with almost entirely credit sales.  For your theory to hold up, it would have to mean 5 to 10 designers buy nothing but sub images, then 5 to 10 designers buy nothing but credit images, then back and forth.

Anyone else have an explanation?

Can't offer an explanation but have noticed that the trend is cyclical.  It goes No Sales; Nice Credit Sales; bunch of Subscription Sales; then a series of Level Zero Credit Sales.  I am currently in the Level Zero Credit Sales Cycle.   

Quote from: stockmarketer on January 28, 2012, 10:28

Quote from: cuppacoffee on January 28, 2012, 10:22

My guess is that subscription sales come in waves because of the way designers work. They work in spurts - when a new job comes in, when a job is due, when a job is to be reviewed and different layouts have to be presented, when a deadline looms, after the job's first review and the client asks for more ideas (I'm talking both print and web designs), when the monthly newsletter or enewsletter is produced� Many of those scenarios work on cycles tied to time frames - end of week, month, year.

Pair that up with the nearing of the end of a subscription and the buyer wanting to get everything they might need in the future before the subscription expires may cause a flurry of subscription sales. If your portfolio contains images that any one buyer thinks is connected to their industry/customers/clients they may purchase many from you on the same day/week.

This makes some sense, but there is more going on.

The scenario you describe may explain the actions of an individual designer.  But I'm experiencing entire days with nothing but subscription sales then days with almost entirely credit sales.  For your theory to hold up, it would have to mean 5 to 10 designers buy nothing but sub images, then 5 to 10 designers buy nothing but credit images, then back and forth.

Anyone else have an explanation?

Can't offer an explanation but have noticed that the trend is cyclical.  It goes No Sales; Nice Credit Sales; bunch of Subscription Sales; then a series of Level Zero Credit Sales.  I am currently in the Level Zero Credit Sales Cycle.   

Yep...I've noticed the same thing.  Catch a wave of tons of credit sales, and then they sudden stop while a wave of subscription sales come in.

This was posted by Achilles:

We're constantly looking into the search placement, relevancy and sorting options. Things change weekly or monthly, even if sometimes you don't really see much difference.
Each update will decrease sales for some contributors and improve them for others.

This one may favor older images is true, but it also favors more users than relevancy sorting. The sort by download option includes more contributors in the first pages than the relevancy. Lots of times more contributors. And yes, others' earnings may be affected.

Every change is temporary as long as this is in a constant update. We try to give everyone a fair chance in front of the buyers. This time it was the turn of already popular images.

I think, these ''weekly or monthly'' manipulations with search engine is reason for cyclic waves in sales results!

I cannot recognize that pattern.
I get many downloads in the 1-4 dollars range and some even 7 dollars.
I had one 20 cent, last month, and I agree thats a bit low.

i wished they would sell more though.