Am I alone in wondering what on earth has happened to sales at FT this month? Nearly half way through August my sales are projected to be 30% down from July and yet my 'Absolute Ranking' remains resolutely fixed suggesting that I am doing no better or worse than my peers.

Strangely, the downturn on my spreadsheet graph is mirrored almost exactly by a corresponding rise in my earnings at SS and also a bit of a bump at DT. It is as if a sizeable chunk of buyers have migrated en masse from FT to SS. I can't think of any particular reason for this as I'm not aware of FT doing anything to upset their customers or a 'special offer' at SS. Is anybody else finding the same?

Whole microstock market has the same problem....

No!  I find FT to be one of the few maintaining a good level. What I cant understand is, Ive got 12000 dls and yet they dont give me the Gold ( 10000) strange actually.

Glad you started the thread, Gostwyck.  I am seeing the same thing.  Sales down by 30-40% over what they had been in July.  Although my weekly rank has dipped some.  Overall rank staying steady though.

Unfortunately in my case I see no corresponding bump at SS or DT.  Don't know what's going on at FT.  Maybe search engine change? 

Glad you started the thread, Gostwyck.  I am seeing the same thing.  Sales down by 30-40% over what they had been in July.  Although my weekly rank has dipped some.  Overall rank staying steady though.

Unfortunately in my case I see no corresponding bump at SS or DT.  Don't know what's going on at FT.  Maybe search engine change? 

I'd imagine that a search engine change, if it favoured some over others, would also produce a change in rankings too so that would be unlikely to be it.

It occurs to me that for FT to have grown so quickly and consistently over the last few years that they must have been marketing it extremely hard, probably at considerable cost. Maybe they've cut back on the marketing at least temporarily during the summer? Most of Europe disappears on vacation during August and, with that being an important market for FT, marketing might not be so cost effective.

My bump at SS is probably down to a few ELs and a rash of PPD sales last week (someone bought 26 full-size PPD's all on one subject in a few minutes the other day).

Quite the opposite for me. I already have more sales than in July and almost as much as I had in June.
Only thing that worries me is that the majority of sales is subs or XS now. My RPD is down to the lowest level since August 2007.

(although my observations are not based on a port comparable to some of the others here, so statistical relevance is close to zero...)

I don't know about the other sites but the August slow down has been consistent for me.

I guess that Gostwyck was right about the European holiday habits. Blue collars, people with small kinds tend to take holidays in July. The white collars tend to take holidays end July-half August, partly to avoid the crowd. I guess buyers are in this latter segment.

Trust me, the biggest crowd is from 15th july to 15 august. And prices are doubled in that period

Correct because that's when the people with deeper pockets travel, at least in continental Europe. It might still linger a bit next week though.

I must be lucky: Starting punctually August 1st, I've been "back to normal" with Fotolia, with a very constant number of sales on every weekday. And I wasn't hit too bad by the summer slump in June/July anyway. Also, since the same date, exactly 20 % of every day's sales there are Christmas images, I've been waiting for the Christmas season since January.

My Fotolio looks to be running in 20% ahead of last year and about equal to July. DT was weak early in the month but has picked up sharply - hard to predict where that is going, between 10% down and 10% up I suppose (August last year and this July were pretty much identical there). Shutterstock seems to be coming in equal to July and maybe 10% up on last year despite fewer ELs, so actual sales numbers are probably higher. iS had a bad first week, picked up a little in the second week but the last few days have been the worst for ages, returning half what SS and DT are producing, probably going to end up about 35% down on last August. 

It has its ups and downs.  My rank lately has been falling, but I uploaded a couple 100 too.  FO is nicely in 3rd place now, ahead of DT.