Author Topic: DT subs model (Read 23936 times)

Travelling-light · « **Reply #25 on:** March 17, 2008, 14:44 »

Quote from: lisafx on March 17, 2008, 11:59

I am really surprised to hear anyone wanting out of DT because of subscription sales. They make up such a tiny portion of the overall earnings on the site, at least from my experience. My per sale average there has been consistently over $1/DL since November and goes up a bit each month.

Personally I think they are one of the most contributor friendly sites. You really can't blame them for not wanting their forums littered with dozens of threads rehashing the same issue. It has been discussed to death.

Lisa, I don't think everyone has the same experience as you with DT subs. It's true that subs make a tiny portion of earnings, but they are a growing percentage of actual sales.

Until I took some action to stop the rot, subs were 30% of our downloads. Some groups of photos seem to sell as subs more often than others. Some files sell in maximum size more often than others.

Since I've stopped uploading to DT, we are selling many more large files on IS, and I don't think it's a coincidence.

Maybe DT should think up a scheme which distributes the loss of income more fairly between contributors.

Linda

lisafx · « **Reply #26 on:** March 17, 2008, 14:56 »

I doubt there is any way for DT to control who gets more subscription sales and who gets more per image sales. That seems like luck of the draw to me.

Interesting to hear that L & XL's on istock increased when you stopped uploading to DT. That would suggest that Dreamstime is one of the heaviest beneficiaries of istock's disgruntled buyers. That alone would make me hesitant to drop them.

Not criticizing yours or anyone else's decision, just sharing my own thought process.

Pixart · « **Reply #27 on:** March 17, 2008, 15:08 »

Even I'm getting more large and XL sales at Istock this year. I wouldn't read too much in that.

I'm getting good sales again this week at DT, but then I'll be off for 2 weeks. Sheesh, I've sold more files on BS this month than DT but earned less - even considering subs ($1.235 per sale at DT, $.74 at BS). Although, this week seems to be my turn on DT's search rotation. (I never noticed this rotation thing they have going until, I think it was Hatman, had mentioned it last year.)

Travelling-light · « **Reply #28 on:** March 17, 2008, 15:37 »

Quote from: lisafx on March 17, 2008, 14:56

I doubt there is any way for DT to control who gets more subscription sales and who gets more per image sales. That seems like luck of the draw to me.

Interesting to hear that L & XL's on istock increased when you stopped uploading to DT. That would suggest that Dreamstime is one of the heaviest beneficiaries of istock's disgruntled buyers. That alone would make me hesitant to drop them.

Not criticizing yours or anyone else's decision, just sharing my own thought process.

Well, if DT can't think of a way to fix it, I guess the unlucky ones will go away

Linda

AAC6D63 · « **Reply #29 on:** March 17, 2008, 15:49 »

Do the subscription sites (Shutterstock & Dreamstime ??) allow contributors to opt out of their subscription schemes?

vonkara · « **Reply #30 on:** March 17, 2008, 15:55 »

Quote from: Pixart on March 17, 2008, 15:08

Even I'm getting more large and XL sales at Istock this year. I wouldn't read too much in that.

Although, this week seems to be my turn on DT's search rotation.

The rotation suck. Every search engine would have to work like IS (whit files performance). I have pictures that sold at DT that I wasn't completely remember to have taken. While at others agencies my files that sell are the ones I was expecting to sell except for BS. The DT search engine seem to advantage any files in a random setting. Choosing is best files like 123RF does is also a good thing

Quote from: AAC6D63 on March 17, 2008, 15:49

Do the subscription sites (Shutterstock & Dreamstime ??) allow contributors to opt out of their subscription schemes?

No

fotografer · « **Reply #31 on:** March 17, 2008, 15:58 »

Quote from: AAC6D63 on March 17, 2008, 15:49

Do the subscription sites (Shutterstock & Dreamstime ??) allow contributors to opt out of their subscription schemes?

SS is only a subscription site so if you could opt out you would be opting out of all sales and Dt don't allow you to opt out.

hatman12 · « **Reply #32 on:** March 17, 2008, 16:00 »

Quote from: Pixart on March 17, 2008, 15:08

(I never noticed this rotation thing they have going until, I think it was Hatman, had mentioned it last year.)

Yeah, this week and next are my 'turn' to have bouyant sales.

The rotation thing is being adjusted now and again to take into account the growing number of contributors (which presumably is growing faster than the customer base); I reckon the current rotation is two and a half weeks at the bottom of the pile and one and a half weeks at the top.

hatman12 · « **Reply #33 on:** March 17, 2008, 16:02 »

BTW, BigStock operates a similar rotation scheme which appears to be one week on and one week off at present.

hatman12 · « **Reply #34 on:** March 17, 2008, 16:03 »

To be fair to DT and BigStock I think all they are trying to do is to operate a 'fair' arrangement so that all contributors get a reasonable chance for sales.

lisafx · « **Reply #35 on:** March 17, 2008, 16:15 »

Very interesting. I will keep my eyes open for this pattern. Guess I am not that observant

fullvalue · « **Reply #36 on:** April 06, 2008, 10:40 »

In light of Istock's sub announcment perhaps it's time to bring this to the front again. Seems Istock figured out a way of doing even better than we suggested here. Here's hoping that Dreamstime makes some changes to their Subscription model.

DanP68 · « **Reply #37 on:** April 14, 2008, 20:39 »

I hope they do too, and I predict they will. Achilles cares about contributors, and shares a very generous 50% or more of every credit sale.

My feeling is they were waiting and watching to see what Shutterstock was going to do. I don't see any agency admitting that they do this, but clearly the SS sub model is the only successful one in the business. A big raise from SS would probably push up sub prices at DT, and everywhere else.

However the iStock plan is so different than what we envisioned. Hopefully DT, 123RF, and StockXpert will come up with something similar.

epixx · « **Reply #38 on:** April 15, 2008, 22:34 »

Since January, my profit per sale at DT has gone down every month. Now, it's down to $0.82, which is the lowest since December 2006, and down from $1.49 in August 2007. Is volume going up? No, but the subscription sales are increasing at the cost of credit sales.

This is a very disappointing development, and while DT in my case was fighting for the second spot with IS until recently, it looks like they will soon be overtaken by FT as well as StockXpert.

What to me looked like one of the very best microstock agencies, is apparently being teared down by the greed of the owners. Very sad indeed.

DanP68 · « **Reply #39 on:** April 17, 2008, 06:57 »

It's weird how it is different for each contributor. I trust your numbers more than mine, because of the larger sample.

However my Earnings per DL are increasing every month, and my overall sales are increasing too. On the other hand, Fotolia is a solid seller for me but far, far below DT in 4th place.

Lizard · « **Reply #40 on:** April 24, 2008, 23:11 »

Just few facts from my point of view

In last 20 sales I had two that were not a subscription.

n this month sub sales have outnumbered regular ones for at least 4 times for me.

I had way more regular sales before sub came , so I think that proves that subs model its puling nice part of the regular buyers.

epixx · « **Reply #41 on:** April 25, 2008, 02:58 »

Quote from: Lizard on April 24, 2008, 23:11

I had way more regular sales before sub came , so I think that proves that subs model its puling nice part of the regular buyers.

Same here, and still they haven't even had subscriptions for 6 months. This doesn't look good for the future.

The contrast to StockXpert is interesting. I opted out of subs there from day one, and my sales are soaring.

fotografer · « **Reply #42 on:** April 25, 2008, 03:18 »

Quote from: epixx on April 25, 2008, 02:58

The contrast to StockXpert is interesting. I opted out of subs there from day one, and my sales are soaring.

I opted in and my earnings are soaring, double last month which was a 2nd BME. So I think that it says more about the site doing well than whether we are opted in or not.

madelaide · « **Reply #43 on:** April 25, 2008, 18:32 »

Quote from: Lizard on April 24, 2008, 23:11

In last 20 sales I had two that were not a subscription.

Gladly my figures are different. Of my latest 24, only 3 were subs.

Normally subs are about 15-20% of dlds in DT for me. It used to be like that in StockXpert, then subs grew too much and I opted out. I wished all sites allowed us to do that.

Regards,
Adelaide

PrecariousPosition · « **Reply #44 on:** May 18, 2008, 00:38 »

Well I won't pretend to know very much about this. But I do have a question.

If you are already selling the same high-res images on SS for next to nothing, then why the concern over selling the photo on DT under a subscription?

I'm probably missing something important here...

sharply_done · « **Reply #45 on:** May 18, 2008, 00:47 »

Quote from: PrecariousPosition on May 18, 2008, 00:38

...
I'm probably missing something important here...

Yes, you are.

madelaide disagrees with the philosophy of subscription models, and thus refuses to use SS. As far as I am aware, she stands alone in putting her money where her mouth is, so to speak. There are many others on this forum who, though they also disagree with subscriptions, continue to license their imagery on SS.

jsnover · « **Reply #46 on:** May 18, 2008, 01:07 »

I think there's another angle to the issue of subscriptions at sites that are primarily per-image models. They have all the disadvantages of subscriptions - low commission per sale - and none of the advantages - higher sales volume.

I don't have (or at least haven't before had) any philosophical objections to subscriptions as long as the site produced a good monthly return - Shutterstock generally has done that. All the SS wannabes - DT, StockXpert and 123rf - have not been able to generate any reasonable volume of subscription sales. They all talk about these "extra" subscription sales, but that's not what I've seen.

For reasons I can only guess at (perhaps a tweak in the default search results) DT is having a great month for me after over a year of sad sack results. The number of subscription sales is very small. Who knows if this will continue, but it's certainly a welcome change.

When you look at the monthly performance of an essentially similar portfolio over multiple sites, you get a sense for which sites can consistently generate sales. If they can do that, I don't much care what their model is; it works.

epixx · « **Reply #47 on:** May 18, 2008, 01:28 »

Quote from: sharply_done on May 18, 2008, 00:47

Quote from: PrecariousPosition on May 18, 2008, 00:38
...
I'm probably missing something important here...

Yes, you are.

madelaide disagrees with the philosophy of subscription models, and thus refuses to use SS. As far as I am aware, she stands alone in putting her money where her mouth is, so to speak. There are many others on this forum who, though they also disagree with subscriptions, continue to license their imagery on SS.

I have a big question mark placed at SS as well. Even with a 50% bigger portfolio than last year, better photos and the recent rise, my sales there are stagnant. Add to that the fact that sales decrease further if I don't upload at least once per week, it becomes quite clear that SS is not a long term investment.

Subscription sales represent a diminishing share of my stock earnings, and it's only a question of time before I leave all agencies where it's not possible to opt out, SSS included. It may take a year, or even two, but this is developing faster than what I thought just a few months ago.

PrecariousPosition · « **Reply #48 on:** May 18, 2008, 03:27 »

Hmm interesting. Thanks for taking the time to explain that for me

While I'm a stock newbie I do know a bit about economics. It sounds to me like the subscription market share is shifting around and becoming distributed a little more evenly. If that is correct then I'd imagine it will level out eventually, leaving some sites (SS) a little less profitable and others (DT, 123RF, StockXpert) a little more.

Unless there is a massive photog revolt I can't see the subscription model going away as it's obviously in demand from the purchasers (and why wouldn't it be).

Microbius · « **Reply #49 on:** May 18, 2008, 03:36 »

I've said it on another thread and I'll say it again. No matter how low a commission percentage you get on a (at least partly) non subscription site at least their interests are directly tied up with yours.
On Shutterstock the better you do as far as downloads go the worse they do. If they could offer the entirety of their new uploads for the month in one file for the subscription fee, they'd be more than happy to do it and we'd have to split the 38c between us.
This is business and as long as this perverse relationship continues (ie. they do not at least offer the option of per sale downloads) they will have no reason to, and therefore will not, value any individual submitters. They will only care about the overall size of the collection, and ensuring that there are a few good images there. Great for them, sucks for us!-- take the pay rise......

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Author Topic: DT subs model (Read 23936 times)

Travelling-light

lisafx

Pixart

Travelling-light

AAC6D63

vonkara

fotografer

hatman12

hatman12

hatman12

lisafx

fullvalue

DanP68

epixx

DanP68

Lizard

epixx

fotografer

madelaide

PrecariousPosition

sharply_done

jsnover

epixx

PrecariousPosition

Microbius

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