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Author Topic: Shocking Fotolia Earnings Drop  (Read 25306 times)

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« Reply #25 on: December 14, 2012, 11:40 »
-1
I was really looking forward to the bump, now I'm terrified!

I wonder if they are targeting Emeralds who have boosted their prices?

So was I when I turned Emerald earlier this year. Unfortunately it didn't happen. My sales seemed to reduce more than the boost from the price/royalty increase. Month-on-year I'm now generally about 20% worse off than I was before I turned Emerald. Good eh?


Microbius

« Reply #26 on: December 14, 2012, 11:48 »
0
oh poop, I might not adjust my prices when I pass the mark, maybe the search now buries more expensive files or the buyers have become more price sensitive?

« Reply #27 on: December 14, 2012, 12:07 »
0
oh poop, I might not adjust my prices when I pass the mark, maybe the search now buries more expensive files or the buyers have become more price sensitive?

Definitely not the latter.  My sales immediately doubled when I raised prices, then FT started making noise about Emeralds selling their work cheaper on other sites and they would have to do something about it.  Lo and behold, my sales started falling.   I don't think buyers decided at that particular point that my pics were too expensive and stopped buying them... my sales fell in half fairly quickly.  (And all of a sudden this week, they seemed to have cut in half yet again.)


« Reply #28 on: December 14, 2012, 12:09 »
-1
oh poop, I might not adjust my prices when I pass the mark, maybe the search now buries more expensive files or the buyers have become more price sensitive?

Although I asked for all my images to be priced at 2 credits, because of FT's rule that images must have had a certain number of sales within the last 6 months (5?) to qualify for the higher price, only about one third of my portfolio is actually at 2 credits. I've got plenty of images with 150+ sales but are still priced at 1 credit.

I think FT rotates images within their default sort-order so even best-selling images can 'disappear' for a few months meaning that they then lose the higher price.

« Reply #29 on: December 14, 2012, 13:49 »
0
oh poop, I might not adjust my prices when I pass the mark, maybe the search now buries more expensive files or the buyers have become more price sensitive?

Definitely not the latter.  My sales immediately doubled when I raised prices, then FT started making noise about Emeralds selling their work cheaper on other sites and they would have to do something about it.  Lo and behold, my sales started falling.   I don't think buyers decided at that particular point that my pics were too expensive and stopped buying them... my sales fell in half fairly quickly.  (And all of a sudden this week, they seemed to have cut in half yet again.)
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the price difference.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2012, 13:56 by fotografer »

« Reply #30 on: December 14, 2012, 13:58 »
-1
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.

« Reply #31 on: December 14, 2012, 14:07 »
0
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.
I guess so but when I doubled all my prices at FT I almost doubled my earnings and earnt more there than I have ever made at any other site.

velocicarpo

« Reply #32 on: December 14, 2012, 14:07 »
0
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.

Dude, are you getting paid by SS? Just asking.... :-)

« Reply #33 on: December 14, 2012, 14:20 »
-1
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.
I guess so but when I doubled all my prices at FT I almost doubled my earnings and earnt more there than I have ever made at any other site.

I wish that had happened to me!

« Reply #34 on: December 14, 2012, 14:22 »
-1
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.

Dude, are you getting paid by SS? Just asking.... :-)

Yes indeed, SS pay me lots of money every month and the amount keeps going up. That's why I like them very much. Do they not pay you?

velocicarpo

« Reply #35 on: December 14, 2012, 14:36 »
0
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.

Dude, are you getting paid by SS? Just asking.... :-)

Yes indeed, SS pay me lots of money every month and the amount keeps going up. That's why I like them very much. Do they not pay you?

So, then let me ask more directly: Does SS pay you for expressing a very one sided point of view n favour of them in every and any thread?

« Reply #36 on: December 14, 2012, 15:48 »
0
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.
I guess so but when I doubled all my prices at FT I almost doubled my earnings and earnt more there than I have ever made at any other site.
Yes, that was exactly what happened to me.  For a while, FT was my #1 site, even topping SS.  For now, they're in 2nd place, but if the drops continue, I can see them falling behind DT, BigStock and 123 before long.

« Reply #37 on: December 14, 2012, 18:58 »
0
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.
I guess so but when I doubled all my prices at FT I almost doubled my earnings and earnt more there than I have ever made at any other site.

I wish that had happened to me!
And I wish that it had stayed that way instead of dropping to a fraction of that virtually over night due to a best match shift. !!

« Reply #38 on: December 14, 2012, 19:32 »
0
Yes exactly the same happened with me and I believe that Lisa said the same happened to her.  I also see no drops in images selling when images hit level 4 and 5 on DT so the buyers really don't seem to mind the difference.

The customers that remain at DT & FT are clearly less price-sensitive. All the others are probably now at SS. From FT's various actions, in limiting our ability to increase prices, it seems obvious to me that they know many buyers are indeed price-concious. It goes some way to explain SS's remarkable success too.
I guess so but when I doubled all my prices at FT I almost doubled my earnings and earnt more there than I have ever made at any other site.

I wish that had happened to me!
And I wish that it had stayed that way instead of dropping to a fraction of that virtually over night due to a best match shift. !!


FT was never #1 for me, but it was certainly a strong #2 behind IS and ahead of SS.  Now it's sunk to a distant #4.  The way it's going, FT for me will soon fall behind Depositphotos, 123RF and  BigStock.  Similarly for me, the change was sudden and happened some months after I became Emerald and increased my prices.

« Reply #39 on: December 14, 2012, 20:01 »
0
are we witnessing a turmoil in the industry.

It appears to be drastic like an implosion.
Major players are collapsing, and the moons in orbit cannot perform, they are also going down.
What is happening.
Have we come to the end of the line and is everything being restructured.


« Reply #40 on: December 14, 2012, 20:29 »
+1
:
« Last Edit: December 15, 2012, 09:02 by gostwyck »

« Reply #41 on: December 15, 2012, 07:29 »
+1
are we witnessing a turmoil in the industry.

It appears to be drastic like an implosion.
Major players are collapsing, and the moons in orbit cannot perform, they are also going down.
What is happening.
Have we come to the end of the line and is everything being restructured.
It's only my earnings with SS that have kept me interested in microstock.  If they started playing around with the search or cutting commissions, I would have to move on to something else.  It doesn't feel comfortable relying so much on one site.  I think a lot of non-exclusives are probably relying heavily on SS and we're not much better off than exclusives.

I concentrated on building up my non-microstock portfolio with alamy this year but that's not worked out.  Earnings are too low and now they're cutting commissions.  I'm going to have to come up with a plan c for next year.

lisafx

« Reply #42 on: December 15, 2012, 10:46 »
0
oh poop, I might not adjust my prices when I pass the mark, maybe the search now buries more expensive files or the buyers have become more price sensitive?

Whether or not you adjust your prices is irrelevant.  It is the fact that your royalty percentage goes up that will get you dropped out of the searches.  Once you hit emerald you are too expensive.  Has nothing to do with customer resistance to your prices. 

Microbius

« Reply #43 on: December 15, 2012, 11:40 »
+1
I think I might cry, talk about a looming fiscal cliff.
How immoral can you get. What's more a disincentive to success then saying "sell more with us and we'll destroy you".
It's exactly the reverse of how canister levels should work.
Have they ever commented on this?

« Reply #44 on: December 15, 2012, 11:49 »
+1
I think I might cry, talk about a looming fiscal cliff.
How immoral can you get. What's more a disincentive to success then saying "sell more with us and we'll destroy you".
It's exactly the reverse of how canister levels should work.
Have they ever commented on this?
I don't think so but it happened to too many of us for it to just be a coincidence.  My earnings there are a quarter to a third what they were in the first year after turning emerald. It was like overnight the dls got turned off.  Images that had sold thousands of times virtually stopped selling at all.

« Reply #45 on: December 15, 2012, 12:55 »
0
It is a coincidence because many of us didn't turn emerald but still had the huge earnings slump.  They don't seem to discriminate by canister levels, anyone can see their earnings decimated.

« Reply #46 on: December 15, 2012, 13:43 »
0
+1
I have not reached Emerald(not really that close either) and my earnings have dropped from ~$250 per month to less than $100


It is a coincidence because many of us didn't turn emerald but still had the huge earnings slump.  They don't seem to discriminate by canister levels, anyone can see their earnings decimated.

Poncke

« Reply #47 on: December 15, 2012, 13:44 »
0
It is a coincidence because many of us didn't turn emerald but still had the huge earnings slump.  They don't seem to discriminate by canister levels, anyone can see their earnings decimated.
My sales went up as sudden as yours dropped. From 1 pay out every 3 months to a pay out every month.

lisafx

« Reply #48 on: December 15, 2012, 13:50 »
0
It is a coincidence because many of us didn't turn emerald but still had the huge earnings slump.  They don't seem to discriminate by canister levels, anyone can see their earnings decimated.

The fact that others see their incomes fall and rise with the best match changes doesn't in any way mean that the emerald drop isn't real.  The emerald drop is the one constant.  Kind of like the Istock exclusive bump, only in reverse. 

« Reply #49 on: December 15, 2012, 14:18 »
0
It is a coincidence because many of us didn't turn emerald but still had the huge earnings slump.  They don't seem to discriminate by canister levels, anyone can see their earnings decimated.

The fact that others see their incomes fall and rise with the best match changes doesn't in any way mean that the emerald drop isn't real.  The emerald drop is the one constant.  Kind of like the Istock exclusive bump, only in reverse.
If everyone saw their sales drop when they reached the emerald level, they wouldn't go down in the rankings.  Emeralds here have said that they have fallen in the rankings, so they're being replaced by other emeralds that I presume are doing better.  So I'm still not convinced by the emerald drop theory.

I'm sure someone from FT will come here and explain it all to us :)


 

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