Have noticed quite a few forum posts at SS have been reporting slower sales in recent times.

Are we to expect this as SS grows bigger with more competition among contributors or is it a reflection of the current global economy?

When they put their prices up, sales fall a bit.  I remember April last year was a bad month for me.  Hopefully things will improve when they give us our raise.

A drop of alreay 18 % for this month is not a slight drop...:-)

I hope the raise compensated for the drop in donwloads.

Patrick H.

I have noticed a drop of about 30% since christmas which is quite scarry!

It took almost a year, but I finally had a BME last month and will likely beat it this month.  Just normal ebbs and flows.

Yes...you can expect sales to slow as the database continues to grow and photos get older.  A good rule of thumb to maintain decent sales is to find a niche and specialize in specific subjects.

30-45% drop in sales for me. uploading as before. 

I haven't noticed any drop at SS, but then I have been uploading like crazy the past couple of months so that may be the reason.

Quote from: Karimala on April 28, 2008, 14:13
... Just normal ebbs and flows ...

Yes, that's just what I always remind myself when I'm thinking that sales are dropping; "normal ebbs and flows". Being a bit sad, I always keep an Excel spreadsheet up-to-date with monthly sales at each site. The totals are all over the place but the linear regression line is (fortunately), steadfastly on an upward trend. Once I see this trend reversed, then I'll start to worry!

Quote from: lisafx on April 28, 2008, 15:56
I haven't noticed any drop at SS, but then I have been uploading like crazy the past couple of months so that may be the reason.

One might think that with a pile of new uploads, the fact that you don't see strong growth is actually a decline of sorts. There were some threads  on the SS forums saying that they found it hard to grow their SS income even as they kept uploading.

Relatively speaking, IS and FT are having a good month (for me) and SS is having an OK one (although one or two more extended license sales might even things up!)

Quote from: jsnover on April 28, 2008, 17:03

Quote from: lisafx on April 28, 2008, 15:56
I haven't noticed any drop at SS, but then I have been uploading like crazy the past couple of months so that may be the reason.

One might think that with a pile of new uploads, the fact that you don't see strong growth is actually a decline of sorts. There were some threads  on the SS forums saying that they found it hard to grow their SS income even as they kept uploading.

Well I am on track for BME by a couple hundred dollars there so I would consider that growth. 

And it is common knowledge you have to keep uploading to shutterstock or sales fall off.

Another reason SS incomes may not be growing much for those who aren't uploading a lot is because they haven't yet put the new royalties in place. 

My sales at IS, for example,  declined over most of the past year, but because of higher prices income stayed level. (although this month I am finally seeing some growth there, and attribute it mostly to meeting my UL limits every week for the past couple months)

I haven't noticed any particular slow down.may be not a BME but doing well so far.

I'm 13.5% over 2007 ytd, but my portfolio there has grown much more than that.

I've noticed quite a lot of complaints from new-ish contributors - pretty natural that sales drop off after the initial upload bonus wears off.

Personally I'll probably end the month + or - 30 DLs on last month, but then I uploaded about 30 more files last month, and it was my BME...

Quote from: lisafx on April 28, 2008, 17:21

Well I am on track for BME by a couple hundred dollars there so I would consider that growth... 

...My sales at IS, for example,  declined over most of the past year, but because of higher prices income stayed level. (although this month I am finally seeing some growth there, and attribute it mostly to meeting my UL limits every week for the past couple months)

Thank you for saying this Lisa.  I cannot say enough about Shutterstock.  Sales are fantastic, EL's are fantastic.  There is no comparison in my portfolio between SS and IS.  The gap widens every month.

no drop for me... march just missed being BME and I'm pleased so far with April.  =tom

Almost triple my BME this month  so no... no slowdown for me.  I dunno why tho.

Mine are down 50% this month. But I have submitted only 10 files and had 7 rejected.

A very slow month at SS for me. IS is ahead by more than 30% for the month, with a much smaller portfolio.

Sales have slowed down there so much, I barely check my account anymore. I just don't have time to constantly feed the beast. OTOH, I'm having my third in a row BME at IS after being there for over three  years.

It slow for me also for April mostly. I uploaded about 12 to 18 I don't remember exactly, but they wasn't seem to be popular. It was some every day signs on white and even 3 picture on white of a Ford T that I was expecting to do better than 2 or 3 downloads.

Most of the time my signs on white were selling much more than that but maybe it wasn't the right subject choice... I changed my username, maybe it messed up the things? Do the buyers have a bookmark where they put some photographers in?

Yes! Vonkara - buyers can bookmark you at SS.

BTW, how to you manage to change your username?
They have a form to dot his but it never seems to work!

very slow tooo

i raise my portfolio +15% for April

and i have - 20% downloads.

Quote from: takestock on April 29, 2008, 20:30
Yes! Vonkara - buyers can bookmark you at SS.

BTW, how to you manage to change your username?
They have a form to dot his but it never seems to work!

It taken 1 or 2 days before the change was viewable in the search. And the old one was giving 0 after these 2 days. I just changed it in the profile page if I remember

Just for fun let see what Alexa have to say about SS
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/Shutterstock.com

I suggest you to put the graph one one year (6 month by default)

It seem that on one year SS have taken a small drop

So experiences are obviously varying from contributor to contributor, but after nearly a year of leading the earnings table for me, this month SS is in 3rd place (behind IS and FT).