MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: fotoVoyager on July 11, 2012, 16:09
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My iStock sales have crashed catastrophically in the last few days, down to a third of usual levels.
Is anyone else experiencing this kind of dramatic downfall or is it just me?
I seem to be only occassionally selling older images, even right back to 2005, at the moment. What a waste of time the last 4000 uploads were for me if this continues.
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I don't think my sales are enough to have a crash anymore :) Perhaps they've persuaded more buyers to use Thinkstock?
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It's been a week or so, rather than the last couple of days, but sales volume is down and there are many more older files in the mix. As an example, of my last 20 sales, 13 of them are images uploaded prior to 2010 with 4 of those from 2005!
Some of the slowdown is the 4th July holiday and aftermath, but I think all these old files selling says there's been some sort of best match shift (again).
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Funny how best match shifts never, ever go in my favour.
You'd think that with a big body of work covering the last seven years it wouldn't matter whether the best match favours older files but it doesn't seem to work that way.
Brings the time when I have to stop doing iStock full time depressingly closer.
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I don't think my sales are enough to have a crash anymore
That sums up my sales there too. Bad has deteriorated to really, desperately bad. Been uploading, but very little of my new stuff is selling. And not that much of the old stuff either. Not really enough sales to gauge what they are doing.
I agree with JoAnn that 4th of July week was low, as expected, but I had hoped for some sort of rebound this week and it isn't happening.
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iStock without Thinkstock has become a speck of dust in my earnings this month. I'm finally at the point where I have more non-selling days than days with sales. Used to be I'd average about 20 per day.
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My sales are great :)
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My ISP sales for July 1 - 10 are almost exactly what they were for same period in 2011. Last few days nothing unusual... pretty decent actually.
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My sales have been very bad last week, too. It's even worse this week.
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One sale so far this month. This from a port that used to generate from one to three payouts a month. Not huge I know, but seriously this is just a tremendous falloff.
Also the summer months used to be my best ones with August always the top producing month.
I have dropped exclusivity, so that I can try to make a bit more on my existing images elsewhere.
I just cannot any longer muster any sort of enthusiasm to shoot for stock. :'(
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yep, slow month this month, after a couple of BME's. Hope its just the summer slump (wishful thinking..?)
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My iStock sales have crashed catastrophically in the last few days, down to a third of usual levels.
Yes, same for me only its been since the last week of June. Now I am routinely getting single digit download days on most weekdays, and that takes me back to 2008 since it was that bad, even though I have 2000 more files now.
Also, this may sound like paranoia, but I think Getty has found a way to turn off or completely depress the portfolios of segments of the contributor base in order to promote their chosen elite. For example, yesterday my last sale was around 2 in the afternoon and I didnt get another one till about noon today. Then I had about 8 in a three hour period. I am experiencing this type of activity quite often where its like my portfolio is turned off for big chunks of time and then the flood gate will open for a few hours and then get turned off again. I used to get downloads spread over the weekdays from about 10 in the morning till 10 at night. No more. I will get most of my downloads over a two or three hour chunk of time with big gaps in between.
Another thing, ever since they started experimenting with the so called "regional searches" about a year ago, I used to get a nice percentage of my sales overnight. Now those are almost non existent.
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My sales are great :)
As usual, wut's portfolio is exempt from any seasonal or any other fluctuations.
Can we finally say that summer has arrived now? I was waiting for a thread to announce it finally happened but for me this is the time now.
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why blaming algo and ranking changes ?
to me it's obvious that buyers are simply buying elsewhere and istock losing marketshare.
maybe it's also the last straw for some buyers who still had some credits left to spend, now they finished the credits and bye bye istock.
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I don't think my sales are enough to have a crash anymore
That sums up my sales there too. Bad has deteriorated to really, desperately bad. Been uploading, but very little of my new stuff is selling. And not that much of the old stuff either. Not really enough sales to gauge what they are doing.
I agree with JoAnn that 4th of July week was low, as expected, but I had hoped for some sort of rebound this week and it isn't happening.
Their search engine, is geared towards exclusives/vettas, etc. They have to, or they lose even more exclusives. In fact, the entire , IS, best match, their CV, etc, etc, is the worst and most naive search among all the agencies. A computer kid, in grammer school could have constructed something better.
Further more, TS, is their new dumping ground for independants and low cannister exclusives. Seems as if Getty really is toying around with IS.
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IS has now moved into third position, behind DT, for me. That's a first.
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Hoping its summer slow down to blame, we'll see what happens in Sept.
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Hoping its summer slow down to blame, we'll see what happens in Sept.
There does seem to be a slight slowdown elsewhere but that should not cause iStock to lose its position in the rankings. It's probably the fault of the search.
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according to alexa...
1 month 0.245% -2.9% Change in Reach % over the trailing 1 month period
3 month 0.2564% -11.4% Change in Reach % over the trailing 3 month period
if you look at the graph on alexa, they seem to have hit their lowest point in two years (the only other point that comes close is the 2011 end of December period, which is usually terrible all round)
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also, not that this may mean much, but the last 5 reviews on alexa for IS (since sept 12 2010) are all 1 star, angry and wouldn't recommend to their friends.
You really hope IS takes some notice of these things, otherwise I can only see them dropping more positions like has happened for BaldricksTrousers.
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also, not that this may mean much, but the last 5 reviews on alexa for IS (since sept 12 2010) are all 1 star, angry and wouldn't recommend to their friends.
You really hope IS takes some notice of these things, otherwise I can only see them dropping more positions like has happened for BaldricksTrousers.
Ofcourse they wont take any notice, they dont have to, they just fall back on Getty, its NOT, IS anymore, its Getty and Getty I recon have got far more important things to sort out then a side-kick called IS, full of microstockers. They dont give a sh#t, lets face it.
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It has been a terrible month for me until yesterday when I got one of my best days for ages.
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My sales are great :)
As usual, wut's portfolio is exempt from any seasonal or any other fluctuations.
I'm pissing against the wind, without getting piss on myself ;)
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My sales are great :)
As usual, wut's portfolio is exempt from any seasonal or any other fluctuations.
I'm pissing against the wind, without getting piss on myself ;)
Thats because your pissing WITH the wind, not against it. Try the port side of the ship and see what happens.
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The whole month is a complete catastrophe.
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My sales are great :)
As usual, wut's portfolio is exempt from any seasonal or any other fluctuations.
I'm pissing against the wind, without getting piss on myself ;)
Thats because your pissing WITH the wind, not against it. Try the port side of the ship and see what happens.
I thought I was going against the odds (and somehow made it through), it certainly looks that way by reading this and many other threads in this forum ;)
It's all a joke of course, with my tiny port and numbers it really ain't that hard ;)
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The whole month is a complete catastrophe.
You saying that, as the biggest IS cheerleader MSG has ever had (besides SNP, but she's gone now anyway), it really makes me think even more about exclusivity, I mean in terms is it really worth it since sales and earnings easily get so volatile :-\
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In fact, the entire , IS, best match, their CV, etc, etc, is the worst and most naive search among all the agencies. A computer kid, in grammer school could have constructed something better.
Your evidence for calling that a 'fact' is ... ?
It's not perfect, but I still maintain that the worst problem for searches at any site is poor/spammny keywording by contributors.
At least at iStock, you're very unlikely to find a photo of the head 'office' of a political 'party' in a search for 'office party' (where 'head office' and 'political party' are legitimate keyword phrases) as happens elsewhere.
Of course, if the phrase you want isn't in the CV, you can sometimes be 'forced' to spam, which is the downside.
I so wish there was a CV at Alamy. Keywording at iStock is so much easier. There's no way of avoiding the 'office party' scenario at Alamy - and of course, I, like everyone else, have dozens of similar examples. It must drive the buyers nuts.
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A huge noticeable downturn for me as well :(
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Misery loves company.
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1st week -40%
2nd week +25%
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Add me to the list of having a big downwards turn on IS this week. Yesterday was down over 50% compared to the rest of this years weekday average, only July 4th was worse.
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The whole month is a complete catastrophe.
You saying that, as the biggest IS cheerleader MSG has ever had (besides SNP, but she's gone now anyway), it really makes me think even more about exclusivity, I mean in terms is it really worth it since sales and earnings easily get so volatile :-\
I do have some wishfull thinking that this is the known "summer slowdown" in effect, but yes, earnings are down 38% (adjusted to portfolio size) this month from my previous BME (03/12).
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The whole month is a complete catastrophe.
You saying that, as the biggest IS cheerleader MSG has ever had (besides SNP, but she's gone now anyway), it really makes me think even more about exclusivity, I mean in terms is it really worth it since sales and earnings easily get so volatile :-\
I do have some wishfull thinking that this is the known "summer slowdown" in effect, but yes, earnings are down 38% (adjusted to portfolio size) this month from my previous BME (03/12).
But it wasn't your first terrible month either, it was 2nd or 3rd in a row, if I remember correctly...That being said, June seemed like a bad month for most IS contributors, especially exclusives (looking at the monthly earnings thread over there)
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^^^
March was good
Apri was very bad
May was OK
June was bad
July (so far) is very very bad
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Spring was good with a few of my better months ever. June was about 5-10% worse than last year. July started terribly and may be my worst month ever since I became exclusive (2010) unless sales go up for the rest of the month. Really hope it's just a summer slowdown.
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IS has now moved into third position, behind DT, for me. That's a first.
Completely different order of magnitude from you but DT with 420 images is in 5th place so far this month, IS with 28 images is 2nd behind SS
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So far at Istock for July I feel like I am running the Kentucky derby on the back of a mule.
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IS has now moved into third position, behind DT, for me. That's a first.
Completely different order of magnitude from you but DT with 420 images is in 5th place so far this month, IS with 28 images is 2nd behind SS
Sorry, I'm not trying to be offensive, but if you only have 28 images on Istock, your stats are pretty much meaningless in any discussion of sales trends on that site. However, they do say a lot about your portfolio on DT, if DT is your 5th place earner with 420 images and IStock still comes in second with only 28.
Like I said, not trying to be offensive, when I had only 28 images on Istock, I don't think I even had any monthly earnings. Of course, I was way past 28 by my second month there. You really can't see any trends until you have at least 300-500 images, IMO.
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IS has now moved into third position, behind DT, for me. That's a first.
Completely different order of magnitude from you but DT with 420 images is in 5th place so far this month, IS with 28 images is 2nd behind SS
Sorry, I'm not trying to be offensive, but if you only have 28 images on Istock, your stats are pretty much meaningless in any discussion of sales trends on that site. However, they do say a lot about your portfolio on DT, if DT is your 5th place earner with 420 images and IStock still comes in second with only 28.
Like I said, not trying to be offensive, when I had only 28 images on Istock, I don't think I even had any monthly earnings. Of course, I was way past 28 by my second month there. You really can't see any trends until you have at least 300-500 images, IMO.
When someone says “I’m not trying to be offensive” it usually means “look, I can be offensive without even trying” :-D
I’m sure that my humble efforts are totally insignificant compared to your (invisible) but, undoubtedly, huge port, replete with wonderfully creative and highly commercial images. Having said that, your conclusion is utter nonsense logically. Comparing MY performance at IS against MY performance at DT says nothing good, bad or indifferent about MY work – only about relative performance on the sites.
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No, they are correct. You can't see any trend at IS with 28 images. You might as well not be submitting there, and just picking up random nickels from the street.
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Comparing MY performance at IS against MY performance at DT says nothing good, bad or indifferent about MY work – only about relative performance on the sites.
Not if you've got 420 files on DT and 28 images on iStock.
There's a micro-hater on the Alamy forum who is constantly on about his poor sales on iStock compared to Alamy. Hmmm, unless he has two accounts at iStock, he has less than 20 files on iStock and thousands on Alamy, so it's hard to take his 'relative performance on sites' seriously, and yours is just a less extreme case. NB, I'm making NO judgement on your photos, just your arithmetical conclusion.
It's also why it's difficult to make any statistical sense out of the monthly comparison thread figures, if we don't know:
1. If the number of files across the sites are broadly comparable (they'll never be the same given the vagaries of inspection across the sites, and it's far more difficult to build up your portfolio at iStock because of the tight upload limit for indies and newbies).
2. If the files have been up for comparable lengths of time, to get into lightboxes etc.
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Port on DT, SS, FT is similar (some I haven't bothered uploading on all sites). DT normally would be about 30 - 40% of SS and ahead of FT. FT is maintaining position relative to SS but DT has fallen off a cliff. Actually, small port notwithstanding, relative positions are usually in line with the poll results. Participants in this forum come in all shapes and sizes with ports consisting of a few images to a few hundred to many thousands and the polls represent this spectrum. Comparison with other contributors would say something about the images, comparing the same port across sites says something about the sites.
For me, IS is a total abberation and nothing to do with number of images (the perceived wisdom is that a tiny port can't get any traction so one would expect poorer rather than better relative performance). The difference is that (rightly or wrongly) IS has very different acceptance criteria for this stuff than the other big sites which just means less competition.
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Glad to at least see I'm not the only one, July has been pathetic. I wont even make half of what I made in March.
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Can somebody enlighten mine pathological animosity/hatred why I hate my fabulous agriculture stock (iStock who treated contributors like Live Stock)
8 cent for photo??? what fakain is this all about???
Only what they they deserve from time to time is only Puke
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7 month in a row where IS is my lowest earner of the 7 sites I submit to. And for the 4th time this year, heading for a new 6 year low.
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7 month in a row where IS is my lowest earner of the 7 sites I submit to. And for the 4th time this year, heading for a new 6 year low.
What's the size of your port at IS, compared to other sites?
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IS has now moved into third position, behind DT, for me. That's a first.
Same here! SS and DT, way above IS, first time as well.