Author Topic: Can this really be true..? (Read 11515 times)

hatman12 · « **on:** April 23, 2007, 17:06 »

I only added FT to my list of agencies three or so weeks ago, encouraged by talk amongst the forum members here of an improvement in sales, exposure etc.

In my first three weeks I'm starting to generate sales, reaching a total of 25 downloads so far. Early days, but progress.

In the first few days I commented on the 'ranking' numbers and asked for a few comments here. As a complete newbie I was shown as position 13,500 with few images and hardly any downloads.

However now I appear to be at position 7800 with a total of 25 sales. Can it really be the case that by selling 25 images I am already ahead of 6000 other contributing photographers? Surely that cannot be right. Can it?

I know that 20% of the contributors probably make 80% of the sales, but if these ranking numbers are correct it appears that FT must only have a very small number of photographers selling a decent number of images.

I am happy to be there as they appear to be able to sell my stuff and the trend is upwards, but clearly they have a long long way to go and need to eliminate some of these thousands of photographers with images that appear not to sell.

madelaide · « **Reply #1 on:** April 23, 2007, 19:30 »

I don't know if this ranking depends on the site (USA, UK, France, etc) or if it's global.

Regards,
Adelaide

michaeldb · « **Reply #2 on:** April 23, 2007, 20:24 »

I just took a look and I am rank 1904 with "Sold photos Pay" = 202. I wonder how many submitters they have.

madelaide · « **Reply #3 on:** April 23, 2007, 21:47 »

I am 1219 with 278 sales, about 10 of which were EL. I'm in FT USA, if this make a difference. It would be interesting to know the numbers of people from other FTs to see if the ranking is global or per site.

Regards,
Adelaide

sharpshot · « **Reply #4 on:** April 24, 2007, 00:52 »

I am in the UK and I am ranked 980 after only 380 sales.

My guess from other peoples numbers is that this applies to the entire fotolia site. There are not many photographers making lots of sales but those at the top of the rankings must be selling huge numbers.

fintastique · « **Reply #5 on:** April 24, 2007, 02:20 »

I checked my affilates at FT and of the 15 happy snappers 9 probably aren't very happy as they have 0 or maybe one sale. I think some newbies upload only a few photos and give up or maybe don't keyword their images well enough so they are lost.

currently 1217 sales ranked 321 based in the UK I actually had an e-mail from the FT marketing person asking me if wanted to be interviewed by Readers Digest UK regarding making money online.

Unfortunately I was out so I didn't see the e-mail until hours later. I replied but obviously so did many others eager for the publicity probably hours earlier

snem · « **Reply #6 on:** April 24, 2007, 05:26 »

Rank 2036 with 141 sales... I don't believe country matter.
Regards

Mellimage · « **Reply #7 on:** April 24, 2007, 05:53 »

Snem, then something else must play in, possibly credits.

I have 144 sales, but my ranking is 2088.

In the seven day ranking credits also play a role, so why not in overall ranking?

stokfoto · « **Reply #8 on:** April 24, 2007, 06:12 »

my all time ranking is somewhere about 200( sometimes it can go as high as 150 )with more then 1000sales.as you know EL sales has impact on getting higher ranking,may be not latley but in the past I had quite many EL sales
OH BTW my 7day ranking reached it'a bottom level as a result of slow sales of this month so I am almost in 750th place:(

StockManiac · « **Reply #9 on:** April 24, 2007, 06:38 »

According to FT (in a newsletter they sent out on 12/21/06), they sell 10,000 images/day.

I'm starting to wonder if that is a lie as well as all of the other statistics that they claim! That turns out to be 3.6 million images/year.

How can they sell that many images, if a top 1000 artist has only sold a few hundred images since they have been joined???

Are they keeping the profits to some of their downloads?

snem · « **Reply #10 on:** April 24, 2007, 08:54 »

Mellimage, maybe EL sales matter, or the date of joining. But I don't believe in that Fotolia keeps separated statitistics for countries.
Regards

mattb · « **Reply #11 on:** April 24, 2007, 12:08 »

I think it must be credits. I'm at 1909 with 149 downloads. I had two EL in one week last month and that shot me up pretty good in the week ranking. I can't imagine that the all time rank would be done differently then the week ranking.

hatman12 · « **Reply #12 on:** April 24, 2007, 13:23 »

Well, based on the numbers in this thread, FT certainly aren't selling 10,000 images per day; in fact it might be only one tenth of that.

The problem is that once a business or businessman is prepared to mislead (3 million online images for instance) they get used to doing it and will mislead on other things as well. One lie leads to another etc.

I recently looked at FT's forums and was astonished to see that any mention of sales and/or volume is banned, and this is listed in the 'rules' of the forums. The controllers will immediately edit or delete any post that mentions sales, and also any post that mentions a competitor agency.

In my experience in life, if something is going well (lots of sales for instance) people want to shout about it, but if something is not going well they try to hide it, or start to tell lies.

Let's hope that all of these things are just early stage teething problems and that FT will start to become more honest and accurate.

CJPhoto · « **Reply #13 on:** April 24, 2007, 15:45 »

Ranking is based on money earned, not DL, so EL pay a huge part as do 3 credit sales.

hatman12 · « **Reply #14 on:** April 24, 2007, 20:43 »

Out of interest I clicked on the 'top sales today' list and looked at some of the images; many had only one or two total downloads, but I was surprised to find that some of the images in that list have no downloads at all. How an image can be a 'top sales today' image when it has had zero sales is beyond me, but there you are.

I am pleased I'm making sales at FT, but the company has a very dishonest feel about it, including the '400,000 photographers, designers etc' statement which is probably another misleading figure.

I reckon FT are selling no more than 100 images a day instead of the 10,000 announced in their last press release.

Would be nice if they would smarten things up a little; people aren't stupid and the buying community will be able to see straight through any misleading statements. There is tremendous growth potential in microstock, but any business that tries to mislead its customers and suppliers will lose trust and fail.

ianhlnd · « **Reply #15 on:** April 24, 2007, 21:45 »

I like FT, and I find their support service better than any on the net. In addition, while SS is bragging about adding .05 to your downloads, FT has always given .33 or above.

Don't worry about the ranking. Ranking is based on gross sales. One week 700 next week 8800, doesn't mean a whole lot. It's like base ball, you're only as good as your last time at bat.

hatman12 · « **Reply #16 on:** April 24, 2007, 22:06 »

Do you work for FT Ian? (serious question)

fotografer · « **Reply #17 on:** April 25, 2007, 00:24 »

Quote from: hatman12 on April 24, 2007, 20:43

I reckon FT are selling no more than 100 images a day instead of the 10,000 announced in their last press release.

I averaged nearly 12 a day last month (360 a month) with 400 on line so your reckoning is way off as I'm sure there are 100s of others that do the same or better than me.

sharpshot · « **Reply #18 on:** April 25, 2007, 01:04 »

I am sure they sell a lot more than 100 a day. I sell a few each day and there are 975 above me in the rankings. That makes me think that 10,000 sales a day is much closer to the mark.

None of us know how many the top photographers sell but I did read that it is Andresr's best selling site. That is all I need to know. I think the majority of sales will come from the top 50 photographers. Fotolia sells well if you have the right portfolio.

Mellimage · « **Reply #19 on:** April 25, 2007, 01:54 »

Quote from: hatman12 on April 24, 2007, 20:43

How an image can be a 'top sales today' image when it has had zero sales is beyond me, but there you are.

From what I gather they update these statitistics only once daily, so the sales you see with the bestsellers, are those they had previously, not including the sales the picture made that day.

hatman12 · « **Reply #20 on:** April 25, 2007, 06:44 »

Well, I am content to rely on the views of those who contribute to this board.

Sharpshot and fotographer, if you are able to obtain that number of downloads then I'll trust your judgement and stay with it.

cwwmbm · « **Reply #21 on:** April 25, 2007, 14:02 »

You gotta be joking. I'm at about 250-300 in 7 days ranking and I sell i average 8-10 pics per day. Top 2 photogs (Andres and Yuri) sells about 150 per day. I know that to be in top 1000 for the 7 days ranking you have to sell like 2-3 per day. Simple math - yes, they do sell 10,000 images per day.

hatman12 · « **Reply #22 on:** April 25, 2007, 15:44 »

Well that's good news - if it is possible to achieve 10 downloads per day at FT then that is a target worth aiming for.

Thansk for all your reassurances on this thread everyone.

Freezingpictures · « **Reply #23 on:** April 25, 2007, 16:57 »

I have got ten dls today, but that is not normal. There are days where I have no dls. It gives me the impression, that there are days when the search engine favors me and days when my images are burried under their mass of images.. I cannot validate that but thats how it seems.

cwwmbm · « **Reply #24 on:** April 25, 2007, 18:41 »

Quote from: hatman12 on April 25, 2007, 15:44

Well that's good news - if it is possible to achieve 10 downloads per day at FT then that is a target worth aiming for.

Thansk for all your reassurances on this thread everyone.

Yes, this is possible and not very hard to achieve in fact

I have about 700 images online on Fotolia but have to say that 90% of all downloads I get is from latest 200.

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Author Topic: Can this really be true..? (Read 11515 times)

hatman12

madelaide

michaeldb

madelaide

sharpshot

fintastique

snem

Mellimage

stokfoto

StockManiac

snem

mattb

hatman12

CJPhoto

hatman12

ianhlnd

hatman12

fotografer

sharpshot

Mellimage

hatman12

cwwmbm

hatman12

Freezingpictures

cwwmbm

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