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Agency Based Discussion => iStockPhoto.com => Topic started by: sharply_done on May 30, 2007, 08:52

Title: June Sales Slump?
Post by: sharply_done on May 30, 2007, 08:52

My iStockRoyalties spreadsheet (http://wavelength.babbage.tv/istockroyalties/) is forecasting a 12% sales drop for next month. Am I the only one?

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: dbvirago on May 30, 2007, 09:01

I hope not. May rocked. I will continue with my 15% increase projection til proven otherwise.

I have read several threads about summer slowdowns, however. I was just getting going good last June, so my #s aren't relevant. The only down month I have had was December and it was slight.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: Karimala on May 30, 2007, 09:05

Mine is predicting a "best month ever" in June after a 21% slump this month from my previous BME in February (May has been my lowest month this year).  If it's accurate, I should see a 28% increase over May.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: dbvirago on May 30, 2007, 09:19

Just shows there is no conistency. I should finish about 20% over April. But I like your BME in June.

Guess I'm more worried about August. I know of lot of people in Europe take off that month. What are your experiences there?

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: marcopolo on June 05, 2007, 17:12

If every other day in June ends up like today is for me, that will be a 95% sales drop over March. that means my June sales will be about 5% of my March sales.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: vicu on June 05, 2007, 22:59

We are only in the second full business day of the month. Fridays are typically slower during vacation-heavy months, so I don't count those as typical indicators.

May showed a definite slowdown for me, but so far (with these very very limited stats) June is on the way to being more like what I've become accustomed to.

However, I think it's way too early to be drawing any kind of conclusions. ;)

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: marcopolo on June 05, 2007, 23:44

The reason I am apprehensive about it is because everytime so far there has been a dramatic drop in sales it was also the beginning of a trend, not just a fluke occurence.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: fotografer on June 06, 2007, 01:51

They changed the best match on the 4th, which has worked in my favour this time.  Lots of best sellers that virtually stopped selling since the last best match change have started selling again. :)  Also make sure that you have disambiguated because all files that haven't been went to the back of the search from the 4th.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: sharpshot on June 06, 2007, 02:22

My average downloads peaked in mid March at around 16 a day.  I am now down to an average of 8 downloads a day.  Hope the new change works better than the last one.  I had 15 downloads yesterday, so that is an improvement on recent weeks.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: vicu on June 06, 2007, 05:35

You're right... I hadn't put it together with the long overdue crackdown on the non-disambiguated files. All those hours of work that I did months ago finally seem worth it.  ;D

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: Opla on June 06, 2007, 08:14

Well, something has changed...
Searching for "container ship" in best match yields an image of a truck.
And it hasn't even got "container ship" in the key-word list!
Any thoughts?

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: vicu on June 06, 2007, 11:39

Quote from: Opla on June 06, 2007, 08:14

Well, something has changed...
Searching for "container ship" in best match yields an image of a truck.
And it hasn't even got "container ship" in the key-word list!
Any thoughts?

The file uses the keyword: freighter
If you click on the "report inaccurate keywords" link, you'll see that "freighter" is mapping to: Container Ship (Industrial Ship)

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: Read_My_Rights on June 06, 2007, 16:00

DLs are highly variable lately but no new records in sight ???

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: marcopolo on June 06, 2007, 20:52

well, today was a little better, but nowhere near where I expected to be last March, much less last summer.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: hatman12 on June 06, 2007, 21:25

I am not convinced about a summer slow period, but we'll see.  This chart is interesting:

http://www.pbase.com/hatman/image/80110148 (http://www.pbase.com/hatman/image/80110148)

You can see that in terms of page views last summer saw a drop in activity, but the previous summer went through the roof.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: sharply_done on June 07, 2007, 11:06

June is looking to be a good month at IS for me, but my SS sales are taking a beating - my SS sales are down so much that IS is outperforming SS by 15%! Nuts.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: ichiro17 on June 07, 2007, 12:48

$3.00?  yup $3.00!  thats how much i've made in 7 days there, which is well below the $100 i made last month there.  What . is going on?

 Stupid tinkering with the system all the time

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: Read_My_Rights on June 07, 2007, 15:58

massive preference for exclusives. IMHO

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: hatman12 on June 07, 2007, 16:19

Yes - I've just done a search and on the first page, using Best Match, nearly every picture was by an Exclusive.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: fotografer on June 07, 2007, 16:29

I'm not exclusive and my dowloads have rocketed since this best match change.  Previous best sellers that lost out in the reshuffle a couple of months ago are back up and selling and coming up in first page searches so I don't think that exclusiveness has much to do with it.  It seems to me to be more based on dowloads/month.

Title: Re: June Sales Slump?
Post by: hatman12 on June 07, 2007, 16:44

Well that's good to hear FG because I'm not exclusive and I'd like my sales to continue to rise!