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Author Topic: Pond5 sales  (Read 32048 times)

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StockDaebak

« on: October 23, 2019, 08:36 »
+7
Anyone still getting sales at Pond5?, even low low race to the bottom sales?.  This sadly looks like a videoblocks scenario playing out and I hope I am wrong but since that new guy came in and they made all the changes in 2019 it's not been good at all.

Less and less and less, October 23 here and my Pond5 sales are at $0 for the month, SS at $1805.  This tells me content is still selling, not as good as in past years obviously but it's still selling.

Unfortunate because Pond5 was the best and most decent agency to deal with until this year with they made a 360 degree turn and started to look like they where competing for how many dirty tricks they could slip past us starting with capping the search price results.


« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2019, 09:45 »
+4
Similar here.
Until spring 2019 Pond5 video sales were on par with Shutterstock, sometimes even exceeding it.
In the last couple of months it yields less than 1/5 of my SS sales.

angelawaye

  • Eat, Sleep, Keyword. Repeat

« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2019, 10:01 »
+3
I was making about $80 - $100 a month, now nothing. Everything is going down for me. Tears!

csm

« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2019, 10:02 »
+3
Almost 2000 clips, and quite proud of my work.
Sales increasing every month then not one sale since July. There just seems no reason why I haven't sold anything since then.
Ss best quarter so far.
Dont know whats going on, but it does seem odd.
Never had sales completely dry up in 20 years doing stock.
This is not what I had planned.
I had high hopes for P5, and now starting to wonder if I will ever see any sales again.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2019, 10:11 by csm »

« Reply #4 on: October 23, 2019, 11:04 »
+2
Anyone still getting sales at Pond5?, even low low race to the bottom sales?.  This sadly looks like a videoblocks scenario playing out and I hope I am wrong but since that new guy came in and they made all the changes in 2019 it's not been good at all.

Less and less and less, October 23 here and my Pond5 sales are at $0 for the month, SS at $1805.  This tells me content is still selling, not as good as in past years obviously but it's still selling.

Unfortunate because Pond5 was the best and most decent agency to deal with until this year with they made a 360 degree turn and started to look like they where competing for how many dirty tricks they could slip past us starting with capping the search price results.
Yes still selling last month, this month

StockDaebak

« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2019, 11:16 »
0

Yes still selling last month, this month
[/quote]

Good to hear, what price range are you selling your clips in ?,  I was shocked to see that HotelFoxtrot appears to be selling all her clips at $59 now.

StockDaebak

« Reply #6 on: October 23, 2019, 11:30 »
0
Almost 2000 clips, and quite proud of my work.
Sales increasing every month then not one sale since July. There just seems no reason why I haven't sold anything since then.
Ss best quarter so far.
Dont know whats going on, but it does seem odd.
Never had sales completely dry up in 20 years doing stock.
This is not what I had planned.
I had high hopes for P5, and now starting to wonder if I will ever see any sales again.

Oh wow so if you have 20 years on then you've been through a couple of recessions as well as the 2008 recession so you'd know if something is suspiciously off at one site.  For me and many others it was around April 2019, just off a cliff like that all while SS was slow but steady.

One thing they mentioned in the last town hall is how they see where buyers are coming from and direct them accordingly, if a buyer comes from a Google search I guess they are deemed a low budget customer vs an enterprise customer who logs into their account or whatever but this is yet another indication that the are using a lot of technology and trackers.

We saw that with the search price cap, no one saw that one all spring and summer long including those who went all in exclusive and never had a chance of their clips being seen.   I too thought the folks in the forms where mistaken because I looked and saw no cap, then I went to a different computer and browser and there was a $50 or $80 cap.

Perhaps they are following the path of storyblocks and winding down the marketplace and then will eventually close it and just go with their collections and membership content.   Storyblocks sales mysteriously went off a cliff just like pond5 and no one could figure out how customers just all of a sudden stopped buying from them.

I am still uploading to Pond5 but first I upload to SS as I still get sales there for video.
















« Reply #7 on: October 23, 2019, 13:18 »
+2

Yes still selling last month, this month

Good to hear, what price range are you selling your clips in ?,  I was shocked to see that HotelFoxtrot appears to be selling all her clips at $59 now.
[/quote]

Last one sold is $139 

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #8 on: October 24, 2019, 04:31 »
+3

Yes still selling last month, this month

Good to hear, what price range are you selling your clips in ?,  I was shocked to see that HotelFoxtrot appears to be selling all her clips at $59 now.
[/quote]

why shocked?= video is the next dead thing...or people believe to live all life earning a lot per video sales, with a couple thousand video?
everybody is shooting video, bigger producer from eastern europe are moving their production towards video...soon there will be the same saturation and the same price for video as was photo. milk till it last is my suggestion don't hope to earn the same, if not producing thousand and thousand of video per year....and the fact that a super company like hotel is struggling, they make a site where they give all collection for penny if i remember correctly, and move all new production to cheaper drone content should tell those who believe video will be immune from the downward trend. no it's not immune and price soon will collapse to a bunch of dollar per download.

georgep7

« Reply #9 on: October 24, 2019, 05:51 »
0
Not sure on that but a generic "yep I sell / nope no-sales" don't help.

I can report no sales without defining a small port or sky high price range or low quality content.

so what? Just adding negativity? or opposite, adding optimism while those that sell have better workflow, established rating and better content?

 ???

« Reply #10 on: October 24, 2019, 11:58 »
+3
why shocked?= video is the next dead thing...or people believe to live all life earning a lot per video sales, with a couple thousand video?
everybody is shooting video, bigger producer from eastern europe are moving their production towards video...soon there will be the same saturation and the same price for video as was photo. milk till it last is my suggestion don't hope to earn the same, if not producing thousand and thousand of video per year....and the fact that a super company like hotel is struggling, they make a site where they give all collection for penny if i remember correctly, and move all new production to cheaper drone content should tell those who believe video will be immune from the downward trend. no it's not immune and price soon will collapse to a bunch of dollar per download.

Only funeral homes will stay forever.
As i said on another thread, if you want to survive in this business, you need high quality work, and to be prepared to adapt to the changes of the market.
BTW i love your positive attitude  ;D

« Reply #11 on: October 24, 2019, 13:35 »
+1
why shocked?= video is the next dead thing...or people believe to live all life earning a lot per video sales, with a couple thousand video?
everybody is shooting video, bigger producer from eastern europe are moving their production towards video...soon there will be the same saturation and the same price for video as was photo. milk till it last is my suggestion don't hope to earn the same, if not producing thousand and thousand of video per year....and the fact that a super company like hotel is struggling, they make a site where they give all collection for penny if i remember correctly, and move all new production to cheaper drone content should tell those who believe video will be immune from the downward trend. no it's not immune and price soon will collapse to a bunch of dollar per download.

Only funeral homes will stay forever.
As i said on another thread, if you want to survive in this business, you need high quality work, and to be prepared to adapt to the changes of the market.
BTW i love your positive attitude  ;D
''Only funeral homes will stay forever.''

Not sure about that with todays pricing.

« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2019, 13:48 »
0
Not sure about that with todays pricing.

Yes, pricing isn't low, but i don't see alternatives. Here in Italy you cannot bury your dear in the garden, so you
have to follow the law :)

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #13 on: October 24, 2019, 16:44 »
+1
Not sure about that with todays pricing.

Yes, pricing isn't low, but i don't see alternatives. Here in Italy you cannot bury your dear in the garden, so you
have to follow the law :)

sure you can survive especially in some years...i suggest to prepare an alternative...personaly stocks this year is only 15 20% of all my photo income...luckily assignment and personal work are still strong especially if you offer quality....if i should earn 6 7k euro per year doing stock, after all expenses and taxes paid good luck...actually how many can tell to earn near 10k euro per month selling stock? it's near 12000 dollar. sure you can live with 1500 euro even in a modern country, but considering the effort is it acceptable'

« Reply #14 on: October 25, 2019, 03:04 »
+2
i'm always searching for alternatives. But my main goal is to become better and better in what i like to do, 3d and motion design :) As i've already said, a talented artist will always find a job (hope i'm not wrong) :)

« Reply #15 on: October 25, 2019, 05:00 »
+3
Somehow the brainstrust at Pond5 blew it big time and should be held accountable. Heads should roll and answers given. Unfortunately they don't have to answer to us. In an ideal world it wouldn't be that way since they have absolutely nothing without our collective work.

« Reply #16 on: October 25, 2019, 10:41 »
0
i'm always searching for alternatives. But my main goal is to become better and better in what i like to do, 3d and motion design :) As i've already said, a talented artist will always find a job (hope i'm not wrong) :)

I totally agree with you and that's been my experience of creatives in my 15 years at Adobe.  You're not wrong. If you're honest about always trying to improve and don't get stuck in one style (very easy to do in motion design), then you'll always be in demand.  Stick with it and hopefully Stock is a part of your revenue stream.

Cheers,
Dennis

« Reply #17 on: October 25, 2019, 12:16 »
+1
I totally agree with you and that's been my experience of creatives in my 15 years at Adobe.  You're not wrong. If you're honest about always trying to improve and don't get stuck in one style (very easy to do in motion design), then you'll always be in demand.  Stick with it and hopefully Stock is a part of your revenue stream.

Cheers,
Dennis

Hi Dennis,
your words are like a RedBull for me! Pure energy! :)
And yes, i like to explore different styles, 2d flat design, isometric, realistic 3d... and always trying new ways
to communicate concepts and ideas.
I especially love After Effects, such a powerful tool, and with plugins like Stardust, Plexus, Element3d (to name a few)...
Well, the sky is the limit!
Thanks for your kind words!

StockDaebak

« Reply #18 on: October 25, 2019, 20:22 »
+2
Found a smoking gun! I am (expletive deleted) furious.   The sneaky hidden price cap is very much alive and set to $50.   

Turns out their analytic software appears detect your IP/machine ID/browser and where you came from and profile you accordingly and serve up content at a certain price point. I believe they kind of eluded to this in the town hall actually.

So I just went searching for my content and using my normal browser and machine but NOT logged in I found my clips and others and all looked good.

Went to a different computer, different IP and browser and came to pond5 VIA GOOGLE and I did the Google search for this stock footage just as a customer would and pond5, SS and others came up on the front page, all looked good until I clicked on Pond5 and saw the price slider set at $50 and only a fraction of the clips showing up.

This could be why we are losing a large number of eyeballs on our clips.  Are they assuming customers that come through search engines are no to low budget customers?, sure isn't the case for any product that's for sure, we use Google to get a wide variety to choose from and then go clicking on the products and stores and see what's there.


So try thing folks,  use a browser you don't normally use, go in via google for the stock you are looking for and then  click on pond5 and see if the price slider is set and capping the search results and prices.


I don't know why they would filter and profile customers like this, using Google is not an indicator of financial status.




StockDaebak

« Reply #19 on: October 25, 2019, 20:47 »
+2
Just redid the test five times, went to Google, then once in Google I typed in a subject matter and stock footage and google served up several offerings such as pond5, SS and I clicked on pond and a $50 price slider cap was in effect and the selection was rather poor obviously.

I think we ourselves underestimate how much traffic Google generates.  We are losing a lot of eyeballs as long as this cap remains in place in any form.

georgep7

« Reply #20 on: October 26, 2019, 06:30 »
0
Just redid the test five times, went to Google, then once in Google I typed in a subject matter and stock footage and google served up several offerings such as pond5, SS and I clicked on pond and a $50 price slider cap was in effect and the selection was rather poor obviously.

I think we ourselves underestimate how much traffic Google generates.  We are losing a lot of eyeballs as long as this cap remains in place in any form.

In native language, we havbe this phrase "i saw a tree and missed the forest!" :P
While running those tests havn't you noticed the "find similar to this clip at $25"
big yellow font Upper left in items pages?

Also the "25 and under" tab in frontpage slider?

StockDaebak

« Reply #21 on: October 26, 2019, 08:27 »
+4
Just redid the test five times, went to Google, then once in Google I typed in a subject matter and stock footage and google served up several offerings such as pond5, SS and I clicked on pond and a $50 price slider cap was in effect and the selection was rather poor obviously.

I think we ourselves underestimate how much traffic Google generates.  We are losing a lot of eyeballs as long as this cap remains in place in any form.

In native language, we havbe this phrase "i saw a tree and missed the forest!" :P
While running those tests havn't you noticed the "find similar to this clip at $25"
big yellow font Upper left in items pages?

Also the "25 and under" tab in frontpage slider?

And they said in the town hall that this isn't a race to the bottom, maybe they are correct as they are not racing to the bottom but have won it and in the process many contributors will lose their businesses.

The also admitted they are constantly testing and experimenting, well if they or their new content director knew anything about business operations they would do the testing with a control group of clips that they own and see what the results are and not ours and at out expense.

I've noticed in 2019, since their hire the new director of content that not only has the company gone 360 degrees but they have become so arrogant and non-responsive to contributors, it was mentioned in their forums as well and some people thought maybe the company was under new ownership but apparently not.

Lesson learned here:  Business is business, no matter how nice a company seems to work for or work through don't get too comfortable or relaxed because it could all change tomorrow, a different manager could come in and everything becomes not so nice and the other lesson is NEVER put all eggs in one basket of course, some did that by joining the exclusive program and they are paying a big price.

Really sad to see the best company and my most profitable earner simply go away, it went down or me much like videoblocks, great sales then a sharp drop and a slow slide lower and lower and then a bit of a bounce one month and now $0 finished, two months ZERO sales.

All while sales still happening on SS and another site.

georgep7

« Reply #22 on: October 26, 2019, 15:44 »
0
Perhaps they lost control while targeted to retail, youtubers facebook bulk tiny ads and similar.
Refer above. There is a client for every price tag.
They might advertise membership or under $25 but who knows? Maybe another test that will fail.

Low pricing didn't worked for me, raised everything back to normal and a little more up.
Exclusivity is commitment and has to be payed.
Hope that buyers will notice the [E] option among all those "buy low" big signs! :P

I still do have hopes for P5. They seem to play ball in two fields, retail and corporate including this new "enterprise" category. I do believe that they lost clients from pricing and it is hard to get them back.

As for Googling back when submitted to AS SS and P5 it was more than rare to see my item from P5 even c/p the title! SS and sometimes Fotolia through AS ruled the results. A hard game on Google results.
I can blame them for low sales but all the odds are that i still produce random, common mediocre stuff. TBH i am still not serious or commited to stock.  ::)
« Last Edit: October 26, 2019, 15:52 by George_ »

StockDaebak

« Reply #23 on: October 26, 2019, 19:52 »
+1
Perhaps they lost control while targeted to retail, youtubers facebook bulk tiny ads and similar.
Refer above. There is a client for every price tag.
They might advertise membership or under $25 but who knows? Maybe another test that will fail.

Low pricing didn't worked for me, raised everything back to normal and a little more up.
Exclusivity is commitment and has to be payed.
Hope that buyers will notice the [E] option among all those "buy low" big signs! :P

Exclusive means nothing, it's not exclusive, 10 competing buyers can buy the same clip for use in their work so it's not exclusive, exclusive is when no one else has it and can use it.

As much as they say they are stewards of the marketplace (self appointed) and they cannot allow us to price higher than on other sites and that there is no race to the bottom their actions speak otherwise, they think we are stupid and don't see the price cap on search results between $50 and $80 at times?, the best price guarantee?, the $25 collection, the 20-30% discounts to all buyers?,  they have become all about the lowest prices and nothing but.

That and these collections boxes don't contain the best clips and that many. What that they did starting in April 2019 did not work.

In the town hall they tried to say the reason our sales are so low and that no one person can basically do this anymore is due to their explosive growth, ok so if that was true they why are sales happening at Shutterstock?, they too have explosive growth.

I am still uploading there only because it's easy and I have the bandwidth but maybe eventually I will get it through my thick skull that it's over just like it was with videoblocks.  It's not just me, I read their forums too and there are some really big names who rarely post when things are down and they have been speaking their mind.

This is not good, not many places left to sell the product.

vectorblazer

« Reply #24 on: October 27, 2019, 03:43 »
+3
Envato Elements is taking us all out of business.
Believe it or not, it has already happened.


 

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