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Author Topic: Buyers Bailing on Istock  (Read 387897 times)

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lisafx

« Reply #775 on: January 11, 2011, 18:48 »
0

When I hear that they have forbidden all purchases occurring within 5 minutes for all customers, or shutting out all new customer registrations, it kinda sounds like they're just phoning it in and trying to do the absolute minimum to block the fraudulent transactions without sufficient regard for maintaining their normal revenue stream.

Perhaps that is because all the IT money was going into rolling out the new Photos.com?   It appears Istock is being treated like the black sheep of the Getty Family. 


RT


« Reply #776 on: January 11, 2011, 18:57 »
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Perhaps that is because all the IT money was going into rolling out the new Photos.com?   It appears Istock is being treated like the black sheep of the Getty Family. 

I just read about the relaunch of photos.com today and had the exact same thought as you, I too think that maybe iStockphoto is at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to the importance of having the site run correctly, and in true tradition they relaunch a site selling all the photos for next to nothing at no doubt huge profits for them.

As you wrote earlier, I thank god I'm not exclusive at Istock.

« Reply #777 on: January 11, 2011, 19:14 »
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Which would make Getty the stupidest corporation in the world, since iStock was their cash cow. It appears that not only has the cash cow been milked dry, but now it is a downer cow flailing on the slaughterhouse floor.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2011, 23:04 by caspixel »

« Reply #778 on: January 11, 2011, 20:29 »
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Which would make Getty the stupidest corporation in the world, since iStock was their cash cow. It appears that not only has the cash cow been milked dry, but now it is a downer cow on the slaughterhouse floor.

Actually I see this statement a lot and wonder where people get this information from? I always imagined that istock was a pretty small part of their overall revenue (and why it does not get much priority) - I seem to recall this from financial statments a few years ago ... anybody know these days what proportion of getty's revenue IS is responsible for?

« Reply #779 on: January 11, 2011, 21:33 »
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Which would make Getty the stupidest corporation in the world, since iStock was their cash cow. It appears that not only has the cash cow been milked dry, but now it is a downer cow on the slaughterhouse floor.

Actually I see this statement a lot and wonder where people get this information from? I always imagined that istock was a pretty small part of their overall revenue (and why it does not get much priority) - I seem to recall this from financial statments a few years ago ... anybody know these days what proportion of getty's revenue IS is responsible for?

--------------------------
Getty is private at the moment, so nobody outside of getty/istock knows that answer.  I think Istock is a big and very profitable part of getty.  I think I recall Kelly saying a while back that they were paying out something like $1.8 million a week to contributors in royalties with the expectation that they would brake $2 million in the not too distant future.  I can't find the link to the article/thread, so my memory is likely off on the numbers but the principal remains the same.

So to figure out Istock's gross I'll pick an average percentage that Istock pays out to contributors per sale.  I'll guess say 30% (obviously its now far less with today's cuts, but not sure what that will look like going forward)  So $1.8/.30 = $6 million for gross sales per week.  $6 million x 52 weeks = $312 million a year in gross sales.  Royalties are in the neighborhood of $94 million.  Royalties aside their other costs low with salaries for say 250 employees, payments to 150 independent contractors for inspections, lots of marketing, lots and lots of bandwidth used, and lots and lots of storage.  I can't imagine that Istock is spending $100 million a year on all that other stuff, so Istock is generating maybe $150 to $200 million a year in cash that Getty gets to use.  You can alter the basic assumptions significantly and Istock is still throwing off a huge amount of cash every week for getty to use.  

Now if you drop that average percentage payout from 30% to say 25% percent Istock picks up a whole lot of cash without selling a single additional image.  
« Last Edit: January 11, 2011, 21:35 by Sadstock »

« Reply #780 on: January 11, 2011, 22:18 »
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I agree with Sadstock.  Without access to company records (since they are no longer privately traded) there is no way to know for certain.  But it is important to differentiate between revenue and profitability.  Getty's traditional businesses were generating far more revenue than iStock, but they were also bleeding cash.  iStock was the portion of the business which was making money.  Obviously unsustainable.

« Reply #781 on: January 11, 2011, 23:32 »
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I agree with Sadstock.  Without access to company records (since they are no longer privately traded) there is no way to know for certain.  But it is important to differentiate between revenue and profitability.  Getty's traditional businesses were generating far more revenue than iStock, but they were also bleeding cash.  iStock was the portion of the business which was making money.  Obviously unsustainable.

Maybe that's the key ... instead of cutting fat to make the other divisions profitable, they were hoping that IS would pay the bills.  But they found that although IS was very profitable, it would not be capable of carrying the other money-losing businesses on its back unless they lowered commissions and raised prices ... maybe that's what they meant by "sustainable".

I couldn't find the original, infamous "unsustainable" quote just now when I looked for it ... does anyone else have it, or do they remember, was the wording used to justify the changes specifically that "istockphoto" was not sustainable, or did they use an undefined term like "it is not sustainable" which could either mean istockphoto or the parent company?

« Reply #782 on: January 12, 2011, 00:35 »
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I couldn't find the original, infamous "unsustainable" quote just now when I looked for it ... does anyone else have it, or do they remember, was the wording used to justify the changes specifically that "istockphoto" was not sustainable, or did they use an undefined term like "it is not sustainable" which could either mean istockphoto or the parent company?


-------------------------
Here is the link and the quote.  For what its worth, this particular post in its entirety from Kelly is probably the most damning, offensive, and disingenuous forum post any Istock admin has ever made.  This post made clear to me that I had no future as an Istock exclusive.

"Since roughly 2005 we've been aware of a basic problem with how our business works. As the company grows, the overall percentage we pay out to contributing artists increases. In the most basic terms that means that iStock becomes less profitable with increased success. As a business model, its simply unsustainable: businesses should get more profitable as they grow. This is a long-term problem that needs to be addressed."

and also

"According to our projections 76% of Exclusive contributors will either retain their current royalty rate or move up."

which might even be true if you count all the base level contributors most of whom have never earned enough to cash out.  However if you narrowed that list to gold and diamond contributors, I think it would be more than 76% would drop a level or more.  

Another that really pissed of a lot of people was the promise to "hopefully start a back-and-forth dialog to help everyone understand exactly whats happening and why" which never happened.    

It also contains the info from Kelly about how much they pay out a week

"we expect to see our total royalty payout increase by more than 30% next year, from $1.7-million per week to well over $2-million per week. Make no mistake, the total amount of money iStock contributors are making is going up."

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=252322
« Last Edit: January 12, 2011, 00:37 by Sadstock »

RacePhoto

« Reply #783 on: January 12, 2011, 02:50 »
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Which would make Getty the stupidest corporation in the world, since iStock was their cash cow. It appears that not only has the cash cow been milked dry, but now it is a downer cow flailing on the slaughterhouse floor.

And a nice visual analogy.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2011, 02:54 by RacePhoto »

« Reply #784 on: January 12, 2011, 05:07 »
0
Which would make Getty the stupidest corporation in the world, since iStock was their cash cow. It appears that not only has the cash cow been milked dry, but now it is a downer cow on the slaughterhouse floor.

Actually I see this statement a lot and wonder where people get this information from? I always imagined that istock was a pretty small part of their overall revenue (and why it does not get much priority) - I seem to recall this from financial statments a few years ago ... anybody know these days what proportion of getty's revenue IS is responsible for?

--------------------------
Getty is private at the moment, so nobody outside of getty/istock knows that answer.  I think Istock is a big and very profitable part of getty.  I think I recall Kelly saying a while back that they were paying out something like $1.8 million a week to contributors in royalties with the expectation that they would brake $2 million in the not too distant future.  I can't find the link to the article/thread, so my memory is likely off on the numbers but the principal remains the same.

So to figure out Istock's gross I'll pick an average percentage that Istock pays out to contributors per sale.  I'll guess say 30% (obviously its now far less with today's cuts, but not sure what that will look like going forward)  So $1.8/.30 = $6 million for gross sales per week.  $6 million x 52 weeks = $312 million a year in gross sales.  Royalties are in the neighborhood of $94 million.  Royalties aside their other costs low with salaries for say 250 employees, payments to 150 independent contractors for inspections, lots of marketing, lots and lots of bandwidth used, and lots and lots of storage.  I can't imagine that Istock is spending $100 million a year on all that other stuff, so Istock is generating maybe $150 to $200 million a year in cash that Getty gets to use.  You can alter the basic assumptions significantly and Istock is still throwing off a huge amount of cash every week for getty to use.  

Now if you drop that average percentage payout from 30% to say 25% percent Istock picks up a whole lot of cash without selling a single additional image.  

If your numbers are even close to being right $50 million dollar purchase was a good deal.

lisafx

« Reply #785 on: January 12, 2011, 10:37 »
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Great detective work Sadstock.  Thanks for posting that.  Memory tends to fade.  I had forgotten exactly how ridiculous KT's assertions were. 

« Reply #786 on: January 12, 2011, 11:01 »
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Great detective work Sadstock.  Thanks for posting that.  Memory tends to fade.  I had forgotten exactly how ridiculous KT's assertions were. 

yeah, thanks.. just when I was making progress on my therapy to forget that crap.  better call my shrink now...

« Reply #787 on: January 12, 2011, 11:15 »
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For what its worth, this particular post in its entirety from Kelly is probably the most damning, offensive, and disingenuous forum post any Istock admin has ever made.  This post made clear to me that I had no future as an Istock exclusive.


And for I.  I cancelled my exclusivity after reading the KT post.  Prior to that I planned on being exclusive for many, many years.

« Reply #788 on: January 12, 2011, 11:17 »
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Bruce was the smart guy ever. Took the money and jump off when realized that boat would sink.

Long live to Bruce Livingstone.

« Reply #789 on: January 12, 2011, 11:30 »
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For what its worth, this particular post in its entirety from Kelly is probably the most damning, offensive, and disingenuous forum post any Istock admin has ever made.  This post made clear to me that I had no future as an Istock exclusive.


And for I.  I cancelled my exclusivity after reading the KT post.  Prior to that I planned on being exclusive for many, many years.

His posts, especially the last one about exceeding expectations (while the site deteriorates, buyers leave, contributors are screwed over and all credibility goes up in flames), was downright offensive.  That and his "what I think you meant to say" post chastising people who showed concern over the site failure.  Is he that clueless?  Does he really not look at anything except his own paycheck? 

lisafx

« Reply #790 on: January 12, 2011, 11:55 »
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His posts, especially the last one about exceeding expectations (while the site deteriorates, buyers leave, contributors are screwed over and all credibility goes up in flames), was downright offensive.  That and his "what I think you meant to say" post chastising people who showed concern over the site failure.  Is he that clueless?  Does he really not look at anything except his own paycheck? 

Apparently so. 

rubyroo

« Reply #791 on: January 12, 2011, 12:52 »
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It all sounds a bit like the Margaret Thatcher model - where an assistant allegedly ensures you don't read any negative press about yourself.

« Reply #792 on: January 12, 2011, 13:03 »
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i think its really sad whats going on at istock. with all these new collections, they have raised prices, and reduced commission percentages. Now theres talk about vectors having their own vetta like collections as well as editorial. All these new collections will just push further down the "main" collection that is there. This will surely annoy buyers on budgets since they will spend longer time searching and some will leave and never look back.

« Reply #793 on: January 12, 2011, 14:51 »
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And here's another future Dreamstime customer posting of his problems at IS...

I posted in the keywords forum that they should be sending out e-mails with apologies and some suggested workaround for known problems to buyers to help get them through this mess. The response was that the forum thread with faceted search bugs was already there!

Aargh! I am so frustrated at the lackadaisical attitude about everything! Where is the professionalism or sense of urgency - or even compassion for the frustrated buyers?
« Last Edit: January 12, 2011, 17:00 by jsnover »

« Reply #794 on: January 12, 2011, 15:10 »
0
^
This just reinforces by suspicion that their programing has been outsourced to India.
Time zone considerations and other factors are making it impossible to react to these failures in a timely
fashion.

ETA: sorry about the formatting, that's what happens when I post from my iPhone.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2011, 15:12 by nosaya »

« Reply #795 on: January 12, 2011, 15:17 »
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wow. the other microstock sites must be woo-yaying with each iStock Epic Fail of the day (or is that "of the hour?")

« Reply #796 on: January 12, 2011, 15:22 »
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deleted, duplicate, see post below
« Last Edit: January 12, 2011, 15:25 by cclapper »

« Reply #797 on: January 12, 2011, 15:23 »
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And here's another future Dreamstime customer posting of his problems at IS...

I posted in the keywords forum that they should be sending out e-mails with apologies and some suggested workaround for known problems to buyers to help get them through this mess. The response was that the forum thread with faceted search bugs was already there!

Aargh! I am so frustrated at the lackadaisical attitude about everything! Where is the professionalism or sense of urgency - or even compassion for the frustrated buyers?


JoAnn, your "The response" link is taking me to an IS permalink page. ??

nosaya, even if IT has been outsourced...some of these issues are WEEKS old...I'm sure time zones don't account for that. Today, I'm kind of jumping on the bandwagon theory of a sale is in progress, Getty/IS will be exclusives only and indies will be shuffled off to photos.com. But I reserve the right to change my mind based on the latest developments.  :)

« Reply #798 on: January 12, 2011, 15:30 »
0
^
This just reinforces by suspicion that their programing has been outsourced to India.
Time zone considerations and other factors are making it impossible to react to these failures in a timely
fashion.

Apart from the condescending insult to Indians what makes you think that anyway? The in-house developers have always cocked-up everything they've ever tried to do. At least they are consistent I suppose. It just looks like their mistakes are now being compounded by the number of changes they are trying to perform without sorting existing errors first. They're in over their heads.

« Reply #799 on: January 12, 2011, 16:11 »
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Where is the professionalism or sense of urgency - or even compassion for the frustrated buyers?

When did they *ever* have compassion for the buyers? That is nothing new. It was always an "if you don't like it, leave. And don't let the door hit you in the ass" attitude there. More and more buyers seem to be taking them up on it now though.


 

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