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Author Topic: Sales have tanked big time  (Read 180507 times)

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« Reply #150 on: October 01, 2011, 03:23 »
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I had a BME. 123RF BME and wait for it......a BME on IS, up 50% in revenue from the previous BME there which was sometime last year.......weird business this. Also BME on DT but FT also waaayyyy down for me.
Quite happy, given that I'm a hobbyist and have a tiny port compared to you guys.


XPTO

« Reply #151 on: October 01, 2011, 03:38 »
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The day's not over, but at iStock, my September is 30% below August in $$ and that's never happened before - it's always been a matter of how much it was up, some years more than others. SS is up but not enough to compensate (although it's pretty close to SS beating out IS's monthly $$ total)

Exactly the same here.  September is usually one of my best months, but this year, at Istock it is way down from August.  Not sure if it is best match games, the massive influx of other content, or the departure of yet more buyers (to SS where I am having a BME).

And yeah, seriously, 2k images with the kind of production value Sean's talking about are a big achievement and there should be some monetary gain to make it worthwhile.  That said, I have seen an overall drop in $ to reward me for my 1k or so images.

I also had a drop of about 30% regarding August which is quite strange. And a drop of 20% comparing to September last year. This is getting somewhat similar to the crash of 2008.

With all the rumors about a recession in the US and the pending catastrophe in the Euro-Zone i'm getting a bit worried. It seems we're up to another difficult time.

« Reply #152 on: October 01, 2011, 05:10 »
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August was freakily good for me, September is back where May, June and July were in terms of earnings and sales.
Compared with last September (which was a bad month for me) the earnings are UP by about 10% and the sales down about 5%.
If it wasn't for the way things tailed off in the last 10 days I would say some sort of stability was setting in but last week's earnings don't look like a good omen for October.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #153 on: October 01, 2011, 05:20 »
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Must say with the latest IS-best match, give it six months and we will have to do business in the low-tier.
Over the past couple of months, best match has hardly lasted six hours at a time, so no need for you to fret.

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #154 on: October 01, 2011, 07:12 »
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I hope the 4th quarter picks up because Q3 was weaker than normal.

PaulieWalnuts

  • We Have Exciting News For You
« Reply #155 on: October 01, 2011, 07:15 »
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Disappointingly, no growth in $$$ here from last year.  Almost exactly the same, despite another 2000 uploads.  Downloads down by 25%.

.

That's kinda scary that you had to add around 25% to your portfolio just to tread water for earnings. But that seems consistent with what other people with larger ports are reporting.

lagereek

« Reply #156 on: October 01, 2011, 07:45 »
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Must say with the latest IS-best match, give it six months and we will have to do business in the low-tier.
Over the past couple of months, best match has hardly lasted six hours at a time, so no need for you to fret.

Frank Sinatra.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2011, 10:51 by lagereek »

« Reply #157 on: October 02, 2011, 21:53 »
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2000, oh boy.  I uploaded 14 to IS today and it took half the afternoon.  Likely could have sent 50 to 6 other sites in the same amount of time.   If their upload isn't slow enough, I had to go back to photoshop and stitch so many variations of releases together.  2000 sounds like quite an accomplishment of patience!

don't you use Deepmeta?  it's a lifesaver and stitches the releases together for you.

« Reply #158 on: October 03, 2011, 04:57 »
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User EdStock, joined april 2011 and already 60880 files. What more can i say :(

Phadrea

    This user is banned.
« Reply #159 on: October 03, 2011, 13:15 »
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October is looking even bleaker. Not a single download today. That's a first. Is there some kind of public holiday in the US today ?

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #160 on: October 03, 2011, 13:38 »
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October is looking even bleaker. Not a single download today. That's a first. Is there some kind of public holiday in the US today ?
I don't think so, but I've only got 2, which is grim.

« Reply #161 on: October 03, 2011, 13:58 »
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October is looking even bleaker. Not a single download today. That's a first. Is there some kind of public holiday in the US today ?

next Monday is Columbus Day in the U.S.  some people have the day off, but it's not as widely "celebrated" (by a day off) as the other big U.S. Holidays. 

« Reply #162 on: October 03, 2011, 14:37 »
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don't you use Deepmeta?  it's a lifesaver and stitches the releases together for you.

Just looked at their website, looks like a great application.  Thanks Jamirae

« Reply #163 on: October 04, 2011, 20:26 »
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Not only does DeepMeta speed up your uploads, it also allows you to add similar thumbnails below each image.... thus a great cross selling tool.

« Reply #164 on: October 05, 2011, 07:49 »
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Don't do uploads to Istock anymore. Have deleted part of the images that sell well at other websites and have a still a lot to delete. Just saw that I sold an image for 8 (!) cents.

« Reply #165 on: October 05, 2011, 14:25 »
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30% drop with a 26% increase in portfolio size year over year.   It seems to echo many of the disappointing results here.

The RC downgrade did enough damage but these lower sales are just spilling more water on top of an already drenched bonfire.

My guess is that price increases + tons of customers going to the competition is whats making this cocktail. 

My fear is that now they might lower contributor cuts even more to make up for the revenue loss this probably caused "Considering lower sales for most high end contributors reporting".  They did it heavily once and we all know capitalism loves to double dip.

« Reply #166 on: October 05, 2011, 14:46 »
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These last days, sales aren't bad, but very uneven.

« Reply #167 on: October 07, 2011, 10:26 »
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Quite the opposite here - very even, but bad.

« Reply #168 on: October 07, 2011, 10:37 »
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My downloads are terrible for this time of the year. I will stop doing video and focus only on photography for at least two months. This is the most important tme of the year, i usually make 50% of my yearly turnover in these months. But October is so bad, that I worry about dropping another level.

Since the video contributors are also reporting much lower sales and video is not oversubscribed, there must be a lot of customers leaving. istock should lower the RC demands at the end of the year, at least to reflect the loss of buyers. This is something the contributor has no control over.

I can do something about new files and competition. But I am completely helpless if the agency encourages customers to buy elsewhere.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #169 on: October 07, 2011, 10:49 »
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Since the video contributors are also reporting much lower sales and video is not oversubscribed, there must be a lot of customers leaving. istock should lower the RC demands at the end of the year, at least to reflect the loss of buyers. This is something the contributor has no control over.
I can do something about new files and competition. But I am completely helpless if the agency encourages customers to buy elsewhere.
Remember that they don't want us to reach our targets. Then they'd have to pay us more.

« Reply #170 on: October 07, 2011, 11:09 »
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^^^That might be true but it seems crazy to want your contributors to have less sales and buyers go elsewhere.  I hope they soon revise their business plan, cutting commissions and demoralising contributors looks like it has a fatal flaw.

« Reply #171 on: October 07, 2011, 11:20 »
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When I logged in this morning I was presented with a window asking if I wanted to take a survey when I left the site. I said yes, checked my overnight sales (that didn't take as long as it should have :)), and closed the tab.

The survey's first screen asked about content iStock had in 4 categories, asking me if it Definitely Offers, Doesn't Offer or Not sure. Music, Fonts, Photographs, Vector Illustrations.

Second screen asked a buying question. I don't use content for my work and am just browsing, I use content for work and have never bought from iStock, I use content and have bought in the past.

Third and final screen was for Comments - how could they better serve me. I said they could better serve me by recognizing the possibility of a contributor when putting surveys together :)

It'd be interesting to know what the other questions were for those who answered that they used or bought stock for work. The fact that there is a survey at all seems to suggest that either they've decided to become really customer focused all of a sudden (but problems in the help forum suggest that's not the case) or that they're trying to figure out why they're losing business.

How many surveys will it take to convince them that the changes to the site in the last year have driven away buyers?

fujiko

« Reply #172 on: October 07, 2011, 11:28 »
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Surveys are only a way to be able to say "We asked" before an announcement and will not in any way influence the content of the announcement.

ShadySue

  • There is a crack in everything
« Reply #173 on: October 07, 2011, 11:35 »
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Sadly, the imposition of the new contributor agreement before the previous survey could have been analysed suggests it's all very token.
I just logged out an logged in and didn't get asked to do a survey,so maybe only a sample are being asked. In any case, my only comment would be 'where are the October sales?'
« Last Edit: October 07, 2011, 11:36 by ShadySue »

« Reply #174 on: October 07, 2011, 14:03 »
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is there any others that have a crap sales day today on IS ? seems that americans are sleeping :(


 

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