MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: Julied83 on August 15, 2014, 06:33
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I know the month is not over yet, but can we discuss about the first 2 weeks ?
I never had so low sales since years. I know it was summer breakdown but it was not supposed to be in july as usual ?
How are sales for you ?
I almost sell nothing and I used to sell a lot in august before. I keep on uploading new stuff better and sales goes low. 3 sales per day is now what I got instead of 15-20. Looks like week-end every day.
Tell me about you ? I'm I the only one getting anxious day after day ?
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It looks pretty awful but my figures don't seem to be much different from last year, except this time I don't have a very large EL. I'm about 30% down on last month, but it is August and it's always a slow month.
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My results are like the Coriolis effect on a flushing toilet. I barely scraped by with $200 Istock sales last month and a measly $130 in PP. I was in the $400-$500 per month combined total and am now at the $300 a month total. This month is exactly the same. Half way through I am at $100 with 2600 images. The commission cut is just killing us. Volume wise the sales are there, revenue wise it blows bad wind.
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Last week was actually just about OK, although an EL helped considerably with that.
This week. Five sales so far. Summer slowdown doesn't explain that!
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Pretty much as usual for summer here, down but fairly consistently down. I'm always amazed how consistent it is, week on week, like my sales are controlled somehow. I haven't uploaded for months now, doesn't seem to make any difference.
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with my sales I might as well close up shop and hike the mountains for the entire summer!
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I've had about 1/2 of the sales I had through the first half of last August, and well under 1/2 in terms of earnings.
But it's a bit better than I saw during the first half of July, FWIW.
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Things are incredibly bad for me this month. Exclusive with close to 5000 images. 0 sales Monday, second week day in two weeks with 0 sales, half way through the sales day today 0 sales. Used the easily clear $100 most week days, now $50 is a good day.
I can't sustain this, not sure how I can afford to quit exclusivity, but I'm not seeing any other option at the moment.
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Things are incredibly bad for me this month. Exclusive with close to 5000 images. 0 sales Monday, second week day in two weeks with 0 sales, half way through the sales day today 0 sales. Used the easily clear $100 most week days, now $50 is a good day.
I can't sustain this, not sure how I can afford to quit exclusivity, but I'm not seeing any other option at the moment.
I was never doing quite as well as you, but I used to do OK. I do know that we're not alone in this. You only have to read the sales threads at iStock, and to look at other people's sales on new material. I'm in the same situation though. Where do I go from here?
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Sales, what sales??
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My best weekdays now looking like my worst weekends look two years ago.
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My best weekdays now looking like my worst weekends look two years ago.
i added this in the ss thread on low august. i think it's across the board, the goose is cut.
Aesop Fable
A man has a very special goose. Every day the goose would lay a golden egg, which made the couple very rich. "Just think," said the man's wife, "If we could cut up this goose and take out all the golden eggs inside the goose, we could be richer much faster , and not have to wait for the goose to lay her egg every day."
* sub sales = golden egg*
alas, no eggs inside >:(
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All our downloads am belong to Nchant. ;)
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I'd agree start to August is terrible, worst in 8 years I've been on Istock including the first year when I had 100 images.
Northern Hemisphere Summer + More Images + Less Customers = Less Sales.
Bad Management + Poor Website Performance = Less Sales
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I'd agree start to August is terrible, worst in 8 years I've been on Istock including the first year when I had 100 images.
Northern Hemisphere Summer + More Images + Less Customers = Less Sales.
Bad Management + Poor Website Performance = Less Sales
or as ShadySue points out even though in jest, redirecting sales to lower paid newbies.
looking the same with the other thread here on ss sales as well; all claiming BME
as already pointed out ... with a small portfolio and new account, it is always BME .
and why not? the first shot of opium is always free, and it is all that's needed to get u hooked , isn't it? but that's ok, time to move on,
there are new alternatives that look viable.
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The whole year has been terrible but I've also noticed an extra downturn during August. I thought they've changed the best match to my disadvantage, but apparently I'm not the only one with bad sales... If sales keep going down at this rate I'll have to leave exclusivity this fall.
Maybe the major customers are switching to subscription... that could be the reason for the faster downturn in sales.
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4 (!!!) downloads yesterday with over 9,000 images in my portfolio... This is an all time low - never happened before. Makes me wonder if their sales reporting is broken - in this case one can hope. But if it's just how sales are going to be from now on - scary and sad.
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4 (!!!) downloads yesterday with over 9,000 images in my portfolio... This is an all time low - never happened before. Makes me wonder if their sales reporting is broken - in this case one can hope. But if it's just how sales are going to be from now on - scary and sad.
I don't think it's broken... it seems to be the same for quite a few people. I used to get at least 30+ downloads a day but now I'm down to 4-15.
The entire business is dying in the gigantic tsunami of content that's drowning us all. If this wasn't my only income I would have left this business a year ago... and in a few months I'll probably be forced to leave it when I can't pay my bills any longer. Depressing.
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In march/april I was selling 5 images a month with 250 files. I have doubled the port and now selling 2 images a month. This is most likely the effect of the new IS subscriptions. The PP is still doing ok and overall earnings are increasing, but people used on getting credit sales will be heavily affected.
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I think Monkey man is right and many sales are now going to subs. Too bad cuz subs are so cheaper than credits and only reported at end of month.
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This week just past (I do stats on Sunday night) I got under 1/3 of the dls and $$s of the corresponding week last year. 1/4 of the dls and c1/6th of the $$ of the corresponding week in 2012.
Can't sink much further, or I'll be in negative equity.
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I have my buyer hat on this month and I've been running searches for illustrations and the Best Match is a complete disaster right now. I get the most ridiculous results such as large numbers of new, low quality similars by the same contributor all in a row. Lower quaity work by newer artists is being pushed to the front when I'm expecting and hoping to see higher quality material from established contributors (which seems to have been shoved down some black hole). From a buyer's perspective, wading through so much garbage is extremely frustrating and tonight I just gave up and went to another site and found what I was looking for.
I don't know if it's the same on the photo side, but on the illustration side I've never seen the search turn in such useless results. That could account for some lost sales. Or all of the lost sales. :P
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I have my buyer hat on this month and I've been running searches for illustrations and the Best Match is a complete disaster right now. I get the most ridiculous results such as large numbers of new, low quality similars by the same contributor all in a row. Lower quaity work by newer artists is being pushed to the front when I'm expecting and hoping to see higher quality material from established contributors (which seems to have been shoved down some black hole). From a buyer's perspective, wading through so much garbage is extremely frustrating and tonight I just gave up and went to another site and found what I was looking for.
I don't know if it's the same on the photo side, but on the illustration side I've never seen the search turn in such useless results. That could account for some lost sales. Or all of the lost sales. :P
I tend to agree - I've been subscribing to shutterstock now for the pretty much the whole year... it's just easier and less trouble with a come one come all price point... istock has gotten too complicated on that front... I didn't think subscriptions would suit my workflow but so far been pretty happy with the way Shutterstock is going work wise.
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Istock has been slowly dying for about 4 years ago now. I don't know why anyone is still surprised by this. It started when they announced the RC system in Sept 2010 with the resulting catastrophic loss of goodwill from contributors and customers alike.
As sales have decreased Istock have invariably reacted by increasing prices of images or credits or both ... which then leads to further losses of sales. Those actions did help to maintain revenue for a couple of years but eventually they hit the buffers and, about a year ago, got to the point where they could not raise prices any further. That was when they drastically reduced the prices of the Main collection. The loss of sales continued however as customers found better and cheaper sources of images (like SS for example).
Istock is not coming back ... ever. Exclusives are reporting month-on-year reductions of 30-40% and that pretty much tallies with my own experience as an independent contributor. Judging by my data, and the inexorable downward path of sales and revenue, Istock will become increasingly 'irrelevant' for most contributors with every month that passes.
It could be worse. You could have decided that "Professionals deal with professionals" and signed an exclusive deal with them.
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IStock IS a dISaster...
if it were not for the PP until I sell more canstockphoto or pond 5...
Worst % earning, worst upload sistem... worst web...
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It's like worst months after worst months after wo...... . . . . . .
My recent weekly stat looks like my daily stat in the good old days... Can't find a word to describe that feeling.
New files will basically "disappear" after 1 or 2 downloads, uploading is getting meaningless, so now I'm taking design projects again~
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not just iStock- DT is also very bad!
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New files will basically "disappear" after 1 or 2 downloads views
FTFY
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PP June/July -48% rev. Number of downloads roughly the same. I'm not dealing in large $ amounts to begin with do it is looking more and more like it's not worthwhile for me to bother uploading.
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PP June/July -48% rev. Number of downloads roughly the same. I'm not dealing in large $ amounts to begin with do it is looking more and more like it's not worthwhile for me to bother uploading.
sad ! 2 threads here, one on #1, and one on #2 ... both saying the same thing...
on a downward spiral for long timers. the only cheerteam being the ones with tiny ports calling out BME.
that, with dollar club, and dt in comatose .
i think it's pretty obvious there needs to have a new broom to sweep clean
n start a new idea bcos the old dogs r pretty much done its day.
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it is looking more and more like it's not worthwhile for me to bother uploading.
That's certainly true (for most of us, I don't mean you in particular!)
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Well all I can say is IS beats SS hands down for consistent sales. SS has flatlined this month and 2 days with no sales. That is a first for me.
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Good thing I am not the only one here who have bad sales in August. Bad thing, The numbers started dropping at the end of July and I hardly sell 3 images/a day. And that's on a good day. What is going on with iStock lately??? So frustrating! Almost daily I upload close to a dozen of images and and keep my head in the game but yeah...it's been a frustrating month for me as well.
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I only started uploading my vectors February this year, 513 accepted thus far, but this month I've had 2 payouts and half way towards my next.
It’s been tough going acceptance wise, only about 50%, but seems to be paying dividends at the moment.
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Well all I can say is IS beats SS hands down for consistent sales. SS has flatlined this month and 2 days with no sales. That is a first for me.
I can't say that from my experience. Shutterstock is at a minimum twice the revenue as IS. But, their sales pattern has gone all caddywhompus in the last three months. Without an occasional $75-$100 special sale commission I would be lower than a few years ago in terms of revenue. I already am lower in terms of # of DL's than in the last 3-4 years.
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My sales are so low today that I begin to wonder if IS are actually reporting sales correctly.
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My sales seem to have a cap, and that cap is reducing by the week.
(That's only a conspiracy theory, and I don't really believe it, but it's the effect. The cap may, or may not, be the price slider.)
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I am hanging on until September/October to see if things improve, otherwise the crown will be going. Not that I think they care.
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I am hanging on until September/October to see if things improve, otherwise the crown will be going. Not that I think they care.
Not only do I not think they care, I think it's what they want.
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My sales seem to have a cap, and that cap is reducing by the week.
(That's only a conspiracy theory, and I don't really believe it, but it's the effect. The cap may, or may not, be the price slider.)
I think mine have a dunce's cap, and have been sent to stand outside the classroom.
Or is it me who should have one?
Whatever, sales are absolutely dire.
Can't really see the point in exclusivity anymore either unless something amazing happens for us. 20% of zero is the same as 30%.