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Microstock Photography Forum - General => General Photography Discussion => Topic started by: pixel8 on January 04, 2015, 21:19
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Last year was my First year in Stock Photography and during the Holidays I freaked out because my sales dropped from Dec 23 till Jan 10th. This year It has followed that same pattern although I was hopeful it would pick back up faster to normal speed. Does anyone else have a down turn in sales during this time period and if so when do you typically see your sales go back to normal?
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I've been at this for nearly 7 nears now, and I can tell you from my experience that this holiday season has been abysmal compared to previous years. And the new year is starting out very slow. For instance the post-New Year weekend this year is down about 40% for me compared to last, even though my port is now 25% larger.
I would expect things to get closer to normal by mid week. Of course, that's the New Normal, which I expect to be down a depressing amount from last year.
If you've only been at this a year or two, you're probably still growing your port at a rate that beats the overall growth of the agencies, so you should still see decent growth over last year. You'll hit the dreaded Wall when you can no longer grow your port by 35% a year, which is, roughly, the rate the big agencies are growing each year. At that point you're losing ground to the competition, on average, and you'll start seeing year-over-year declines.
Some will say you can beat this by finding niches, or beating your competition on quality, etc. I can tell you, however, that I'm a high volume seller with a good number of HCV pics in many niches, with quality that has improved year over year, and there's little you or I can do to beat the Wall. The problem is, when you're successful, the copycats WILL find you and they'll bury your stuff faster than you can create it.
Hope I didn't discourage you too much. Best of luck in the New Year!
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Starting tomorrow (January 5th) all the buyers will report to work and buy like crazy... ;)
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The Christmas break is always slow and January takes a while to get cranked up, but this year iStock has been incredibly slow and DT is not performing very well so it has been a particularly poor time. I was lucky last year with some big SS sales, this year I've had the same sort of sales volume there but have been out of luck with ELs and SODs. All in all, I'm looking forward to getting past the seasonal slump.
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I've been at this for nearly 7 nears now, and I can tell you from my experience that this holiday season has been abysmal compared to previous years. And the new year is starting out very slow. For instance the post-New Year weekend this year is down about 40% for me compared to last, even though my port is now 25% larger.
I would expect things to get closer to normal by mid week. Of course, that's the New Normal, which I expect to be down a depressing amount from last year.
If you've only been at this a year or two, you're probably still growing your port at a rate that beats the overall growth of the agencies, so you should still see decent growth over last year. You'll hit the dreaded Wall when you can no longer grow your port by 35% a year, which is, roughly, the rate the big agencies are growing each year. At that point you're losing ground to the competition, on average, and you'll start seeing year-over-year declines.
Some will say you can beat this by finding niches, or beating your competition on quality, etc. I can tell you, however, that I'm a high volume seller with a good number of HCV pics in many niches, with quality that has improved year over year, and there's little you or I can do to beat the Wall.
This is my experience as well.
The true nature of the giant pyramid scheme that is stock is now revealing itself. It didn't start out that way, nor does it need to be arranged like that, but the agencies have embraced that model and we're stuck with it until its' inevitable collapse.
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Last year was my First year in Stock Photography and during the Holidays I freaked out because my sales dropped from Dec 23 till Jan 10th. This year It has followed that same pattern although I was hopeful it would pick back up faster to normal speed. Does anyone else have a down turn in sales during this time period and if so when do you typically see your sales go back to normal?
After Jan 10th sales will go back to normal. By then people will go back to work after Xmas holidays. :)