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Agency Based Discussion => Adobe Stock => Topic started by: Velvia on January 28, 2008, 10:18

Title: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Velvia on January 28, 2008, 10:18
Anybody else experiencing slow sales lately at Fotolia?
My last sale was at the beginning of this month. I`m starting to wonder...

 :-\
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: CCK on January 28, 2008, 10:28
8 downloads, total of 13 credits from a portfolio of 63 images.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: stokfoto on January 28, 2008, 10:57
it is actually performing well for me and jan is my BME there.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Peter on January 28, 2008, 12:51
BME on fotolia for me also.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: vphoto on January 28, 2008, 13:30
BME for me too
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: madelaide on January 28, 2008, 15:32
Lately?  No, for me it's the same as last month, 5th earner.  It used to be much better though, my best earner in a couple of months.

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: fotografer on January 28, 2008, 16:11
Not Bme  because of a slow start but last 2 weeks have  been great.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: sharpshot on January 28, 2008, 16:16
BME for me too.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: jsnover on January 28, 2008, 17:32
This is been a good January - in part because of several extended license sales. Right now Fotolia and SS are neck and neck for most $$ this month.

It's not a BME there, but for January, that'd be quite a surprise.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: epixx on January 29, 2008, 00:48
I have a BME there as well   ;D
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: PaulieWalnuts on January 29, 2008, 00:53
BME, 3rd place earner out of 11 sites, and 7% of total sales.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: madelaide on January 29, 2008, 15:52
I feel bad!  Despite a mild increase in sales in the past days, it's still performing much lower than in the past.
Overall rank 1242
7 days rank 2083

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: nickp37 on January 29, 2008, 16:03
... it's still performing much lower than in the past.
Overall rank 1242
7 days rank 2083

You got me beat!
Overall rank 1939
7 days rank 3025

They used to be my 2nd best site after SS (months ago). I had one decent week this month, but it's dropped off again since.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: takestock on January 29, 2008, 16:12
Been a good January for me also on FT

3rd in my top earning site and moving closer.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: LadyBlueEyes on January 29, 2008, 18:15
Fotolia is my worst site - even behind Featurepics and SnapVillage!!!!  I've not been with them very long - but I'm really disappointed.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: XeniaII on January 29, 2008, 18:25
Overall rank 96
7 days rank 124

Fotolia works .... the january is better than december because i have no christmas pics *g

I have 263 downloads on fotolia this month ... i think thats ok. November and october were better ... thats right

regards yvonne
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: vonkara on January 29, 2008, 18:37
Wow... I just have one sale yesterday and a medium one!!! That push me up to the sky whit an overall rank of: 8195 and a seven day of 3910 :D :D Nothing more to say sorry
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: XeniaII on January 29, 2008, 18:38
lol :-) but i have more than 5.000 pics online... thats the way it works
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: andresr on January 29, 2008, 19:33
Fotolia has been the most stable and probably best site for me in the past few months.
Overall Rank: 2
7 days rank : 2
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: XeniaII on January 29, 2008, 19:53
yes thats my opion tooo andre .. fotolia works
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: erwinova on January 29, 2008, 22:11
Fotolia is number one for me.

Seem Yuri Arcur happy with fotolia too, read here:
http://www.fotolia.com/forum/?thems=106996
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Phil on January 30, 2008, 01:03
Fotolia has been the most stable and probably best site for me in the past few months.
Overall Rank: 2
7 days rank : 2

if you hit the top do you go back to bottom and start again?
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: CCK on January 30, 2008, 04:36
Almost everbody beats me:
Overall rank 12825
7 days rank 3004
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Peter on January 30, 2008, 06:48
Overall rank     409
7 days rank    84
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: MicrostockExp on January 30, 2008, 09:21
Overall rank: 2046
7 days rank: 572 my best so far ;D
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Elenathewise on January 30, 2008, 09:47
Fotolia is doing really great for the past few months... At this point, it's number 1 earner for January. Go Fotolia Go!!!:) 

Overall rank     12
7 days rank    9

Climbing up slowly...;-)
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: .shock on January 30, 2008, 12:30
for me, FL is only and the best. With V2 sales are exploded...

Currently I'm on
Overall rank 53
7 days rank 25
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Elnur on January 30, 2008, 13:22
Climbing up 2-5 places a week

Overall rank     144
7 days rank    54
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Smithore on January 31, 2008, 04:45
Quote
for me, FL is only and the best. With V2 sales are exploded...
Yes, I see you have many greats pictures at Fotolia, I just can imagine that it could be if you
upload at Istock and Shutterstock!!!
Fotolia is the best for you because you have pictures only here!!
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: madelaide on January 31, 2008, 15:33
I saw a slight improvement in my sales this week, and that got me three steps up in FT's ladder of fortune....  :D

Some amazing performaces here.  Congrats, people!

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: ZMB on February 01, 2008, 06:03
My rank is 5522 so I am not doing so well at the moment. I don't have many images on there but I am hoping to get more on which may help my ranking.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: leaf on February 01, 2008, 07:07
Climbing up 2-5 places a week

Overall rank     144
7 days rank    54

dahhh.. you are hot on my tail  >:( :( :)

Overall rank     87
7 days rank    130
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: hd on February 15, 2008, 11:42
So....I'm a little late to realizing the extent of the search issues with fotolia. Due to pretty slow sales there, I just don't give them that much of my time.

I read a little while ago about the "first 7 keywords' issue - basically that the first 7 are the only ones that count. I kicked myself for somehow missing the info and have gone back little, by little, and worked on re-ordering the keywords.

This morning I visit their forums for the first time and read that just editing those keywords will do nothing to improve search results. I think they want me to contact support to have them manually re-index each image! Does anyone know if this is true?

At this point it feels like it might be more worthwhile to clear out all 685 files in my account and start over....maybe...or maybe not.

I know I'm late showing up to the fotolia keyword party...so I apologize if I'm beating a dead subject here. I just don't know whether or not to call this a loss and move on or...what.

Have others done the re-ordering/re-indexing? Did you see sales improve at all?
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Pixart on February 15, 2008, 12:00
Have others done the re-ordering/re-indexing? Did you see sales improve at all?

Yes, I did.  My sales went down by at least 50%.  So something happened.  It wasn't favourable.  I did it just as they were emerging from that V2 fiasco.  Maybe there was trouble then that affected me.  Numbers are slowly beginning to increase again, but at the same rate as my port growth.  My individual sales in January were still short of last year, but my port is double in size and the quality has vastly improved.  (BUT - so has every other contributor - so who knows?)

I just can't believe that for some they are #1 earner!!!
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: ParisEye on February 15, 2008, 12:19
I must be missing something there ! I am a beginner at Fotolia with only 8 photos but on the last three I had a keyword problem (in fact I had a problem on the first one too as they don't accept double key word, so my "trafalgar square" went lost, if you want to see my picture you have to search through "london fountain").

They are photogs of Annecy, a french town. Unfortunately, "Annecy" doesn't appear in the keyword. I had put it as the first one but it disappeared (three times). I asked Fotolia, the answer was that their machine was only using the first nine words (not 7, then) so if it was not in the nine, it was not recorded (that was not the case as I just said) and furthermore, their "artistic management" decided wich words to use in order to avoid spam. I can understand that, but I don't understand that the name of the town (the only cause for a buyer to look at it in 90% of the cases) will be dropped at this occasion. And as for correcting these keywords, the answer was "no, that's impossible".

Of course, I would like to be able to correct the keywords and make sure that the nine remaining will be accurate.

So, my question is : how do you do it ?
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: madelaide on February 15, 2008, 16:07
Given the past bad months I had in FT, March is looking good.  So far I've earned 84% than January (in half the time) and 30% more than in December (which was my worst month in the past six).  The new prices are helping this result.

Now, searches are still a problem in FT.  I've sent an email to the lady from FT BR with whom I had some contact when they started here.  The problems at first seemed to be the translation, but problems exist in all languages.

Just try a search for "rio de janeiro", with or without quotation marks.  Without, you get images with Rio indeed - some are not, but I've noticed they are spammed (like an image of the Iguassu Falls with keywords Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo).  With, you get images of Paris and San Diego.  Apparently, the search returns anything with "de". Pure absurd.  In any case, my images don't appear in the first case, and in the second I also don't find them in the first 10 pages.  Also a search for "sugarloaf" doesn't return anything, and "sugar loaf" return only bread images.  I wonder how people find my images there...

BTW, look how spammed is this image:
http://www.fotolia.com/id/2331179
(http://static-p4.fotolia.com/jpg/00/02/33/11/110_F_2331179_bmscr6h5Cix3ogQSLNOQngZSUMOPnB.jpg)
america bahia beach blue brasil brazil brazilian capoeira carnaval carnival cloud dance de falls fantasia girl height helicopter high holiday iguacu iguazu janeiro jesus lady loaf mountain ocean performance performer pond rio rock salvador sao paulo sky south statue sugar sun sunset swim swiming travel turtle view walk walking water wave

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Read_My_Rights on February 15, 2008, 16:17
I am done with FT. 600 pictures no sales. When my 6 month are up at DT I am going IS exclusive. The worst outfit of all the micros.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Kngkyle on February 15, 2008, 16:19
I am done with FT. 600 pictures no sales. When my 6 month are up at DT I am going IS exclusive. The worst outfit of all the micros.

I have a hard time believing that...
Sales are picking up quite a bit for me lately. I get about 2-3 sales per day with 310 files.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: vphoto on February 15, 2008, 16:21
sales are better for me too.

Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Mellimage on February 15, 2008, 16:32
For me three. FT is one of my top earners.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: sharpshot on February 15, 2008, 17:45
I am done with FT. 600 pictures no sales. When my 6 month are up at DT I am going IS exclusive. The worst outfit of all the micros.

I have a hard time believing that...
Sales are picking up quite a bit for me lately. I get about 2-3 sales per day with 310 files.

Me too.  My sales have doubled there since October and I haven't uploaded much.  They are catching up with istock.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Read_My_Rights on February 15, 2008, 17:46
592 pictures, 7 sales in January, 2 so far this month. I am not relabeling my keywords or uploading new pictures with no guarantee for improvements.
Just for comparisson sake IS 142 DL in January with 250 pics.
Nuf said.
The good news is the low cash out price - I do not have to wait to reach it.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: PaulieWalnuts on February 15, 2008, 17:57
FT is now my 2nd place earner, has passed SS, and is showing some nice growth. Due to my day job I haven't been able to upload much and SS earnings dropped like a rock.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: mwp1969 on February 15, 2008, 18:37
Almost everbody beats me:
Overall rank 12825
7 days rank 3004


CCK this should make you smile  ;D

My rank:
Overall rank 22453
7 days rank 5471
based on only 32 images  (BME there for January)


Mark
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: leaf on February 15, 2008, 18:45
speaking of fotolia i might want to remind those who haven't done it that fotolia very happily changes all your extended licenses to a given price.

I had lots of extended licenses listed at 10 credits from before when that was the max?? or i am not sure why.

Anyhow i asked them to change all my files to the max amount of 100 credits - and they did it within a day.

In the last week I have had 2 extended license sales. Makes me glad I changed the pricing when i did.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: mwp1969 on February 15, 2008, 18:48
speaking of fotolia i might want to remind those who haven't done it that fotolia very happily changes all your extended licenses to a given price.

I had lots of extended licenses listed at 10 credits from before when that was the max?? or i am not sure why.

Anyhow i asked them to change all my files to the max amount of 100 credits - and they did it within a day.

In the last week I have had 2 extended license sales. Makes me glad I changed the pricing when i did.

Do you send them an email to do this ?

Mark
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: hd on February 15, 2008, 19:35
Not that I'm asking for specifics, but without them it's very hard to compare sales between users. "Great sales" seems often quite subjective.

Using my own trends as a guide...my sales jumped 300% from 2006 to 2007. Fotolia is not responsible for much of that increase. Perhaps it's due to their poor programming or perhaps I don't shoot what the average Fotolia customer is looking for. I don't know the cause behind it, but I do have to take into consideration which sites give me the greatest return on investment, including my investment of time/effort.

and for what it's worth my fotolia stats are..
Overall rank: 1445
7 days rank: 2054
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: madelaide on February 15, 2008, 20:10
Anyhow i asked them to change all my files to the max amount of 100 credits - and they did it within a day.
They are normally responsive to that.

However, are you having problems setting your own EL licenses prices? I think it started after the new price scheme, now I can't edit prices, either upon uploading either after they're approved. 

Edit: Ouch!  All my images, even old ones, are showing only $17.50 in EL although they were set for the maximum!!

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: nickp37 on February 15, 2008, 22:53
Edit: Ouch!  All my images, even old ones, are showing only $17.50 in EL although they were set for the maximum!!

Same here. Did you email support? I should probably email them now, myself.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: PaulieWalnuts on February 15, 2008, 23:01
I thought that was kind of weird too. My images are all locked in at the standard prices.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: fotografer on February 16, 2008, 02:39
I've changed mine a couple of times now by using the 'contact support' link and each time it was done in a couple of hours.  Don't be afraid of putting them at the maximum allowed.  I always have and have carried on selling the same amount as when I had them at 10$.

speaking of fotolia i might want to remind those who haven't done it that fotolia very happily changes all your extended licenses to a given price.

I had lots of extended licenses listed at 10 credits from before when that was the max?? or i am not sure why.

Anyhow i asked them to change all my files to the max amount of 100 credits - and they did it within a day.

In the last week I have had 2 extended license sales. Makes me glad I changed the pricing when i did.

Do you send them an email to do this ?

Mark
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: ParisEye on February 16, 2008, 06:32
Another proof that buyers are not as "price sensitive" as some seem to think. When they find the picture they are looking for, they buy it.

Now it's up to everyone to charge 10$ 100$ or 10 cents...
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: maunger on February 16, 2008, 07:49
592 pictures, 7 sales in January, 2 so far this month. I am not relabeling my keywords or uploading new pictures with no guarantee for improvements.
Just for comparisson sake IS 142 DL in January with 250 pics.
Nuf said.
The good news is the low cash out price - I do not have to wait to reach it.

my sales are similar - i wonder why some people are selling much and others sell nothing at FT. FT has always been about dead last for me.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: graficallyminded on February 16, 2008, 10:54
FT beat even my SS sales last month, which was crazy - so no complaints here.

Overall rank     445
7 days rank    553

I wonder what would happen if I had actually been ordering my top 7 keywords at the beginning of the list, all this time?  I never even did that.  I have no intention of going back and reordering the words on 600 images.
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: madelaide on February 16, 2008, 12:08
I emailed support last night, so far it hasn't changed, but they're usually fast at this.

However, such a programming mistake is unforgivable in a big site.  It's like the IPTC data problem in another thread.  How can they have old errors again?  Are they mixing old and new codes?  Geez...

Regards,
Adelaide
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: vonkara on February 16, 2008, 13:58


I wonder what would happen if I had actually been ordering my top 7 keywords at the beginning of the list, all this time?  I never even did that.  I have no intention of going back and reordering the words on 600 images.
I did it on all my about 50 files at this time. I was having about 6 or 7 sales a month. Since this change barely nothing. My file whit most sales didn't sale anymore??

 I'm very angry to have made this keywords ordering change and don't understand why it's affected my sales like that. If all was stay like it was at the beginning. Fotolia was going to be barely my top seller close to SS and IS, because it was my best seller at the beginning while I was having barely nothing on others.

I still have a small folio, but this is the stranger thing that happen in my small experience in microstock and i do not know why. I still upload there but I don't reorder the keywords anymore. My newest files just have some downls lately. I just hope this bad dream will end. But who knows, maybe I just was lucky at my beginning??
Title: Re: Slow slow sales @ Fotolia
Post by: Read_My_Rights on February 16, 2008, 14:55
592 pictures, 7 sales in January, 2 so far this month. I am not relabeling my keywords or uploading new pictures with no guarantee for improvements.
Just for comparisson sake IS 142 DL in January with 250 pics.
Nuf said.
The good news is the low cash out price - I do not have to wait to reach it.

my sales are similar - i wonder why some people are selling much and others sell nothing at FT. FT has always been about dead last for me.

I can only speculate that for some reason my images are not beeing seen by the buyers and once you are an old-timer and do not sell reasonably - the search algorithm just drops your pictures to the end of the line. All the sellers claiming good results are already high up in the ranking. There must be some sort of threshold if you are above or have just started your pictures are beeing seen. If you are below you disappear into oblivion. Good riddance FT.