Author Topic: What is happening to iStock, is it the end? (Read 52624 times)

ShadySue · « **Reply #200 on:** October 12, 2013, 09:21 »

According to DM, I've had 96 views since Monday.
Long gone are the days when I could easily get that number of sales M-F, mind you these were my glory days: Oct - Dec 2008.
Nightmare sales last fortnight, other than one goodish day (relative to the rest). Too many weekdays with 0, 1 or 2 dls.
You just know that when an exclusive BD is reporting non-holiday weekdays with 2 or 3 sales, the rest of us are doomed.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #201 on:** October 12, 2013, 09:51 »

Interesting factoid: "Yuri" is showing "greater than 25,000 sales" on 78,000 images since the new identity was created in April. I'm rather surprised to see that one of his top business images is selling in the 10cr-55cr price bracket.

I don't know if they are still showing the downloads in jumps of 1,000 the way they used to (i.e. more than 25k also means less than 26k), if they are it suggests that he is selling around 5k a month, which would mean averaging considerably less than one sale per file per year. That's surely way below his long-term average just at iStock, let alone replacing the thousands a day he reportedly sold on SS plus the other sites he's pulled out of.

I wonder if he is still happy about the deal he struck.

But if sales have collapsed for Mamamaart and Yuri, where has the money gone? Is it still in the Getty group or is it leaking out elsewhere? And how come the iStock exclusive figure is still so high in the poll results? It's all rather confusing.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #202 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:14 »

you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead

SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year

so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #203 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:30 »

My point is that regardless of whether he has one or two accounts, a huge portfolio from an acknowledged industry leader simply isn't generating a significant number of sales on iS. If all was well at iStock I would expect a portfolio of that size and quality to pull in hundreds of thousands of sales a year and, apparently, it no longer can.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #204 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:33 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 12, 2013, 10:30

My point is that regardless of whether he has one or two accounts, a huge portfolio from an acknowledged industry leader simply isn't generating a significant number of sales on iS. If all was well at iStock I would expect a portfolio of that size and quality to pull in hundreds of thousands of sales a year and, apparently, it no longer can.

indeed! anyway I am not worried with iStock/Yuri's lack of sales

tickstock · « **Reply #205 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:33 »

Ron · « **Reply #206 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:40 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on October 12, 2013, 10:14

you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead

SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year

so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $

I would gnaw of a limb for 100k a month

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #207 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:41 »

Quote from: Ron on October 12, 2013, 10:40

Quote from: luissantos84 on October 12, 2013, 10:14
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead

SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year

so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
I would gnaw of a limb for 100k a month

Don't forget your 100 employees!

luissantos84 · « **Reply #208 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:41 »

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on October 12, 2013, 10:41

Quote from: Ron on October 12, 2013, 10:40
Quote from: luissantos84 on October 12, 2013, 10:14
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead

SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year

so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
I would gnaw of a limb for 100k a month

Don't forget your 100 employees!

yep!

ShadySue · « **Reply #209 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:43 »

Maybe iStock drives buyers to his other site, where IIRC the prices are cheaper and bigger-budget clients can have personalised image editing.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #210 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:47 »

Quote from: ShadySue on October 12, 2013, 10:43

Maybe iStock drives buyers to his other site, where IIRC the prices are cheaper and bigger-budget clients can have personalised image editing.

It would be a very bad thing for iStock if that was happening.

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #211 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:50 »

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on October 12, 2013, 10:41

Quote from: Ron on October 12, 2013, 10:40
Quote from: luissantos84 on October 12, 2013, 10:14
you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead

SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year

so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $
I would gnaw of a limb for 100k a month

Don't forget your 100 employees!

Emotionally and rationally the difficult thing for Yuri to do is let everyone go; sell of most of the equipment and get rid of the studio(s), etc and allow the money to build for as long as possible and call it a good run. It's seems obvious from where I sit.

alberto · « **Reply #212 on:** October 12, 2013, 10:56 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on October 12, 2013, 10:30

My point is that regardless of whether he has one or two accounts, a huge portfolio from an acknowledged industry leader simply isn't generating a significant number of sales on iS. If all was well at iStock I would expect a portfolio of that size and quality to pull in hundreds of thousands of sales a year and, apparently, it no longer can.

I pointed this some days ago, when through a link I saw that in the top download there aren't its files, nor in day, week or month section. But you may consider like luissantos wrote that he got some money after the agreement by GI. Also seems that he pointed more in RM licenses through GI, potentially more lucrative. Not to mention the files "exclusive" that aren't really exclusive. Maybe things are better for him and he recovered quickly the loss income from other agencies but this deal appear like a boomerang for GI. Seems like if some that would consider to go exclusive, before must contact GI and get special treatment or the usual rules aren't enough to go exclusive with more earnings.

loop · « **Reply #213 on:** October 12, 2013, 15:01 »

Judging by the number of files I have, and the number of files I sell monthly (even in this not very promising October) I cant't believe Yuri is jus selling 5.000 a month with a 70.000 highy commercial portfoilio. I would have 2x or 3x ratio over him, and my portfolio is not so commercial at all.

tickstock · « **Reply #214 on:** October 12, 2013, 15:04 »

gostwyck · « **Reply #215 on:** October 12, 2013, 15:29 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on October 12, 2013, 10:14

you are missing the other account and also the millions he must have got paid ahead

SS alone with 4k sales a day makes 120k sales, lets pretend he had 1$ RPD that is 120k a month or 1.44M a year

so yep 5k downloads at IS even at 20$ RPD its only 100k $

I'm pretty sure Yuri wasn't earning anything like as much as people assumed (or as much as he claimed either).

To drill down a bit further into the numbers, Yuri's father claimed Yuri was averaging 3-4k downloads per day on SS. I think it's safe to assume he meant weekdays not weekends when downloads (for me) are generally about 20% of weekdays.

Taking the mid-point would have Yuri generating 3500 sales per weekday and 700 on weekends or 18.9K per week. That makes 982K sales per year and, at a realistic 80c per download, would mean an income of $786K annually. Of course that doesn't take into account vacations and seasonal lows either but let's ignore that for easy numbers.

Most independent contributors report SS earnings to be 40-50% of their total. If that was also true for Yuri then his total microstock income, before exclusivity, was likely to be in the range of $1.5M - $2M, most probably at the lower end of that range if not below.

When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.

I very much doubt that Getty had to persuade Yuri with cash handouts to go exclusive. I think they just knew which buttons to press to appeal to his ego. You know the sort of thing "But Yuri, professionals deal with professionals."

luissantos84 · « **Reply #216 on:** October 12, 2013, 15:34 »

Quote from: gostwyck on October 12, 2013, 15:29

When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.

I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act

gostwyck · « **Reply #217 on:** October 12, 2013, 15:45 »

Quote from: luissantos84 on October 12, 2013, 15:34

Quote from: gostwyck on October 12, 2013, 15:29
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.

I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act

To be honest I'm slightly sceptical about the accuracy of 3-4K downloads per day too! His sales ratio, compared to mine, would have to be double on SS what is actually is on DT. Both of us stopped uploading to DT for a couple of years too so we both had much larger portfolios on SS.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #218 on:** October 12, 2013, 16:01 »

Quote from: gostwyck on October 12, 2013, 15:45

Quote from: luissantos84 on October 12, 2013, 15:34
Quote from: gostwyck on October 12, 2013, 15:29
When Yuri brags about his income in the various interviews, being "way ahead of $5M and now heading towards $10M", I believe he is actually referring to total earnings since he started microstock. Funnily enough if he was earning about $1.5M annually before he went exclusive then I would absolutely expect his total earnings to be above $5M and below $10M.

I was thinking about the same thing while writing my post here today, as always Yuri playing the show-off act

To be honest I'm slightly sceptical about the accuracy of 3-4K downloads per day too! His sales ratio, compared to mine, would have to be double on SS what is actually is on DT. Both of us stopped uploading to DT for a couple of years too so we both had much larger portfolios on SS.

I know a Spanish contributor getting around 500 downloads per weekday at SS with a 35k portfolio, mostly people as well

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #219 on:** October 12, 2013, 16:38 »

Quote from: tickstock on October 12, 2013, 15:04

Quote from: loop on October 12, 2013, 15:01
Judging by the number of files I have, and the number of files I sell monthly (even in this not very promising October) I cant't believe Yuri is jus selling 5.000 a month with a 70.000 highy commercial portfoilio. I would have 2x or 3x ratio over him, and my portfolio is not so commercial at all.
It looks like he added 65,000 of those 78,000 since the end of jun. And 20,000 of those files are only 1 month old.

Good points. I'd assumed they'd put all the images up at the start. It makes a lot more sense that these haven't been online for all that time.

tickstock · « **Reply #220 on:** October 12, 2013, 16:48 »

sharpshot · « **Reply #221 on:** October 12, 2013, 17:07 »

Quote from: gostwyck on October 12, 2013, 15:29

...I very much doubt that Getty had to persuade Yuri with cash handouts to go exclusive. I think they just knew which buttons to press to appeal to his ego. You know the sort of thing "But Yuri, professionals deal with professionals."

They have effectively given him a big cash handout by allowing him to carry on selling on other sites while being "exclusive". So they obviously had to do a lot more than just appeal to his ego.

luissantos84 · « **Reply #222 on:** October 12, 2013, 17:24 »

Quote from: sharpshot on October 12, 2013, 17:07

Quote from: gostwyck on October 12, 2013, 15:29
...I very much doubt that Getty had to persuade Yuri with cash handouts to go exclusive. I think they just knew which buttons to press to appeal to his ego. You know the sort of thing "But Yuri, professionals deal with professionals."
They have effectively given him a big cash handout by allowing him to carry on selling on other sites while being "exclusive". So they obviously had to do a lot more than just appeal to his ego.

it is amazing, 5 months after and he still has portfolio at DT and MP

ShadySue · « **Reply #223 on:** October 12, 2013, 17:36 »

Quote from: sharpshot on October 12, 2013, 17:07

Quote from: gostwyck on October 12, 2013, 15:29
...I very much doubt that Getty had to persuade Yuri with cash handouts to go exclusive. I think they just knew which buttons to press to appeal to his ego. You know the sort of thing "But Yuri, professionals deal with professionals."
They have effectively given him a big cash handout by allowing him to carry on selling on other sites while being "exclusive". So they obviously had to do a lot more than just appeal to his ego.

Maybe they took a Dragon's Den/Shark Tank share in his other site. He did hint once on here that it is a Getty Partner so eligible for the 'only on iStock' label on iS, though at the same time skirting the issue of his images on other sites. (82100 still on Mostphotos, 35,107 on DT, 45,702 on Superstock; 61,239 RF on Alamy as of this moment). Seems he had a very low risk exclusivity deal. He is now off Pixmac which erodes my theory that iS redefined 'exclusivity' for him as to mean "not at SS". Also seems like he wasn't allowed to add more to his other ports since mid July.

Added: Oops, Luis, your checking was faster!

luissantos84 · « **Reply #224 on:** October 12, 2013, 17:38 »

it gets even better, I would be quite upset if I was exclusive...

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Author Topic: What is happening to iStock, is it the end? (Read 52624 times)

ShadySue

BaldricksTrousers

luissantos84

BaldricksTrousers

luissantos84

tickstock

Ron

Sean Locke Photography

luissantos84

ShadySue

BaldricksTrousers

PeterChigmaroff

alberto

loop

tickstock

gostwyck

luissantos84

gostwyck

luissantos84

BaldricksTrousers

tickstock

sharpshot

luissantos84

ShadySue

luissantos84

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