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Author Topic: Pond5 Sales Reporting  (Read 21125 times)

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SquirrelPower

« Reply #25 on: April 14, 2016, 13:09 »
0
...or a dirty trick to delay 4-5 days of sales to the next payment, keeping a huge extra sum of $$$ to earn interest on for another month...

Oh I would be so happy if that's all it is, I''ll give them a month of interest in return for all my sales delivered on the 16th :)

I was a power selling there....I stress "was". 


« Reply #26 on: April 14, 2016, 14:25 »
0
Love it! They blame each other depts. Btw, P5 CTO is gone...so how about blaming HR for not replacing him to organize sales report.   ::)

Not good, these are small departments too not departments with hundred people, a "team" there is probably 2-3 people at most and answers should be immediate. Something tells me you are on to something, they are going around in circles blaming each other and occasionally giving the customer/supplier/us the middle finger.

Could not be all attitude directed at us though, could be intense unhappiness within the company, employees may not be happy, not like the new leadership for all we know and it's basically work to rule.  I have seen that before in a workplace, everyone just dumbed down, worked to rule and eventually the company went bankrupt but was bought by different owners.

As I said long ago, circus artists can NOT fit in corporate environment that is on now. If founders thought that getting $61mill is just that, they were dead wrong. Even them got replaced (although, let's not worry about their bank accts). You gotta perform or you OUT. And that's what they do now, new leadership is bringing new employees and it will take time to make ops smooth.
And guess who is gonna suffer most?   :-\
« Last Edit: April 14, 2016, 14:55 by KnowYourOnions »

SquirrelPower

« Reply #27 on: April 14, 2016, 16:25 »
0
Love it! They blame each other depts. Btw, P5 CTO is gone...so how about blaming HR for not replacing him to organize sales report.   ::)

Not good, these are small departments too not departments with hundred people, a "team" there is probably 2-3 people at most and answers should be immediate. Something tells me you are on to something, they are going around in circles blaming each other and occasionally giving the customer/supplier/us the middle finger.

Could not be all attitude directed at us though, could be intense unhappiness within the company, employees may not be happy, not like the new leadership for all we know and it's basically work to rule.  I have seen that before in a workplace, everyone just dumbed down, worked to rule and eventually the company went bankrupt but was bought by different owners.

As I said long ago, circus artists can NOT fit in corporate environment that is on now. If founders thought that getting $61mill is just that, they were dead wrong. Even them got replaced (although, let's not worry about their bank accts). You gotta perform or you OUT. And that's what they do now, new leadership is bringing new employees and it will take time to make ops smooth.
And guess who is gonna suffer most?   :-\

You nailed it on that one!  like any startup, the day you take delivery of VC funding is the day the party is over and you start working for not the customers but the investors and VC's will bleed the company dry, they aren't in it for the long haul and to make a family business out of it and that's just the way it works.   

There may also be an issue of lack of certain skills in the workplace that the new managers are expecting to see so I would not doubt there will be some front line personnel changes.   

The question is will Pond5 be able to come back as a top seller for us?  these days if you lose traction it's near impossible to come back into favor with the customer and one only has to read the story of Blackberry to what happened there and to this day no matter what they do and come out with the customer isn't even looking, the name has been tarnished.



« Reply #28 on: April 14, 2016, 16:48 »
+1
Love it! They blame each other depts. Btw, P5 CTO is gone...so how about blaming HR for not replacing him to organize sales report.   ::)

Not good, these are small departments too not departments with hundred people, a "team" there is probably 2-3 people at most and answers should be immediate. Something tells me you are on to something, they are going around in circles blaming each other and occasionally giving the customer/supplier/us the middle finger.

Could not be all attitude directed at us though, could be intense unhappiness within the company, employees may not be happy, not like the new leadership for all we know and it's basically work to rule.  I have seen that before in a workplace, everyone just dumbed down, worked to rule and eventually the company went bankrupt but was bought by different owners.

As I said long ago, circus artists can NOT fit in corporate environment that is on now. If founders thought that getting $61mill is just that, they were dead wrong. Even them got replaced (although, let's not worry about their bank accts). You gotta perform or you OUT. And that's what they do now, new leadership is bringing new employees and it will take time to make ops smooth.
And guess who is gonna suffer most?   :-\

You nailed it on that one!  like any startup, the day you take delivery of VC funding is the day the party is over and you start working for not the customers but the investors and VC's will bleed the company dry, they aren't in it for the long haul and to make a family business out of it and that's just the way it works.   

There may also be an issue of lack of certain skills in the workplace that the new managers are expecting to see so I would not doubt there will be some front line personnel changes.   

The question is will Pond5 be able to come back as a top seller for us?  these days if you lose traction it's near impossible to come back into favor with the customer and one only has to read the story of Blackberry to what happened there and to this day no matter what they do and come out with the customer isn't even looking, the name has been tarnished.

I don't think they are rushing to become bestsellers anymore. It's more like acquisition they are craving...
My craziest prediction is that Google might buy them out in the end, which for sure P5 would love. That's why that VP guy from Google got on board to fix them up in a way that Google needs them.
Time will tell.  8)

« Reply #29 on: April 14, 2016, 17:23 »
+2
so much unfounded paranoia in this thread

SquirrelPower

« Reply #30 on: April 14, 2016, 17:54 »
+1
I don't think they are rushing to become bestsellers anymore. It's more like acquisition they are craving...
My craziest prediction is that Google might buy them out in the end, which for sure P5 would love. That's why that VP guy from Google got on board to fix them up in a way that Google needs them.
Time will tell.  8)
[/quote]

Yep, that thought(s) have been going through my mind as well, they aren't gonna pay back the investors, maintain operating costs off of what they make selling some videos online, no gonna happen.  Two things on the radar, their big push towards Virtual reality video content and the current Google VP who has joined the board.   They are a late stage startup with no change in hell of staying the course on their own so getting acquired is probably what the investors are looking for at this point and they will make it happen if they have to, they don't want to and they won't lose $60 million. 

Google is a player in virtual reality content so if pond5 can pull it off then that's what happens and for the rest of the contributors it's probably time to find another site or means of selling our video and photos.


« Reply #31 on: April 15, 2016, 01:57 »
+1
Another sales report was due just over 2 hours ago and it seems this one hasn't come through either. I and other artists have email support... again.

What makes this personally frustrating is after train wreck start to year sales appeared to be really taking off in the right direction and ATCs ("add to carts" where you can track which clips have been added to customers' cart) over the last 4 days have been best in years. So yes I'm particularly keen to see if these ATCs have converted to sales but of course everything's messed up right now.

I still have faith in the company but these glitches and corresponding lack of communication is frustrating - I hope it gets resolved ASAP, especially with Payday tonight / tomorrow.

« Reply #32 on: April 15, 2016, 02:16 »
+2
Another sales report was due just over 2 hours ago and it seems this one hasn't come through either. I and other artists have email support... again.

What makes this personally frustrating is after train wreck start to year sales appeared to be really taking off in the right direction and ATCs ("add to carts" where you can track which clips have been added to customers' cart) over the last 4 days have been best in years. So yes I'm particularly keen to see if these ATCs have converted to sales but of course everything's messed up right now.

I still have faith in the company but these glitches and corresponding lack of communication is frustrating - I hope it gets resolved ASAP, especially with Payday tonight / tomorrow.


After 10 years of existence they just announced hiring for Head of Customer Service...so be patient with your requests. You will get an answer...eventually.   :o
http://www.ventureloop.com/stripes/jobdetail.php?jobid=501462

SquirrelPower

« Reply #33 on: April 15, 2016, 06:17 »
0
Another sales report was due just over 2 hours ago and it seems this one hasn't come through either. I and other artists have email support... again.

What makes this personally frustrating is after train wreck start to year sales appeared to be really taking off in the right direction and ATCs ("add to carts" where you can track which clips have been added to customers' cart) over the last 4 days have been best in years. So yes I'm particularly keen to see if these ATCs have converted to sales but of course everything's messed up right now.

I still have faith in the company but these glitches and corresponding lack of communication is frustrating - I hope it gets resolved ASAP, especially with Payday tonight / tomorrow.


After 10 years of existence they just announced hiring for Head of Customer Service...so be patient with your requests. You will get an answer...eventually.   :o
http://www.ventureloop.com/stripes/jobdetail.php?jobid=501462


Ireland again, Ireland, Prague, like is that where most video sales come from?  I don't know to be honest, thought it more from North America but they are hiring programmers, engineers and now customer service all in Ireland.  I dunno.....

« Reply #34 on: April 15, 2016, 07:21 »
+3
It's 15th payout time, all I can say is the new Pond5 is definitely a disaster.

Slow tick-tock downward of p5 death has started, lol good riddance to the new hands at Pond5.

SquirrelPower

« Reply #35 on: April 15, 2016, 07:27 »
+2
It's 15th payout time, all I can say is the new Pond5 is definitely a disaster.

Slow tick-tock downward of p5 death has started, lol good riddance to the new hands at Pond5.

Sadly, and there is no obvious choice replacement to jump over to if they are in fact not going to be able to get back on track. Huge loss financially for some artists. Definitely a disaster. No sales there anymore. 

stockVid

« Reply #36 on: April 15, 2016, 12:00 »
+1
(Friday April 15th)
Is Pond5 sales reporting still broken - or am I having a bad month?

« Reply #37 on: April 15, 2016, 12:19 »
+2
Got paid on time as usual. Not sure what the fuss was about there. Hopefully sales reporting is down for the last few days, it'd be nice to see a backlog of sales appear soon. However even if sales reporting has been down for a few days, I don't see how this translates into such doo and gloom unless others have factual info I don't know.

« Reply #38 on: April 15, 2016, 12:34 »
0
I got paid as usual. Pretty average amount. Sales reporting has been down a couple days.

SquirrelPower

« Reply #39 on: April 16, 2016, 06:36 »
0
(Friday April 15th)
Is Pond5 sales reporting still broken - or am I having a bad month?

Don't know, no one getting sales for a month and now we find out sales reporting is broken so when it is fixed and you get 100 sales in one email you know you had a good month but if you get zero you will know you didn't miss anything while the system was sleeping :)

SquirrelPower

« Reply #40 on: April 16, 2016, 06:39 »
+6
Got paid on time as usual. Not sure what the fuss was about there. Hopefully sales reporting is down for the last few days, it'd be nice to see a backlog of sales appear soon. However even if sales reporting has been down for a few days, I don't see how this translates into such doo and gloom unless others have factual info I don't know.

No one has factual information and that's the problem here, complete lack of information from Pond 5 and maybe it's the new management style of don't say a word or tell anyone anything, maybe it's for legal reasons, don't know but it's led to a ton of speculation as for what's gone wrong.  Many haven't had sales now in over a month.

« Reply #41 on: April 16, 2016, 07:45 »
+3
Consensus on the Pond5 forum is that today's sales report only covered 1 day of the 5 or so that are currently unreported, so there are likely more days' worth of sales still in limbo awaiting to be reported. Some sort of communication from Pond5 would be very much appreciated.

stockVid

« Reply #42 on: April 16, 2016, 08:31 »
+3
Consensus on the Pond5 forum is that today's sales report only covered 1 day of the 5 or so that are currently unreported, so there are likely more days' worth of sales still in limbo awaiting to be reported. Some sort of communication from Pond5 would be very much appreciated.

Some sort of communication would be appreciated especially as they should have paid the royalties on those sales yesterday.

« Reply #43 on: April 16, 2016, 09:47 »
+1
Consensus on the Pond5 forum is that today's sales report only covered 1 day of the 5 or so that are currently unreported, so there are likely more days' worth of sales still in limbo awaiting to be reported. Some sort of communication from Pond5 would be very much appreciated.

Well, that would be good, but I doubt it. I had about 3x my daily normal so it was almost definitely a combination of the last couple of days.

stockVid

« Reply #44 on: April 16, 2016, 11:07 »
+5
This is not good.

They had to pay the .50 per clip to the Subscription Suppliers. That money had to come from somewhere.

It says a lot when we do not know how many days sales are missing from last months reporting and P5 management are saying nothing.

« Reply #45 on: April 16, 2016, 12:03 »
+1
I got an email that my payment to skrill will come soon....

It is amazing how they can make such a mess of an agency that was really well run for over 10 years.

what kind of business amateurs are these so called investors?

They must be playing with other people's money, no real investor would make so many mistakes in such a short time.

How will we ever know how many sales have not been reported?
« Last Edit: April 16, 2016, 12:12 by cobalt »

« Reply #46 on: April 16, 2016, 12:07 »
+2
I think they are short on cash so that they waited till April 16 to post the new sales.  That way they don't need to pay it on the 15th.

« Reply #47 on: April 16, 2016, 13:34 »
+1
I have had a large amount of clip page views this week. I know from past history that always results in some sales. Therefore I'd be fairly confident I have around half a dozen give or take unreported sales. However I suppose at this stage we can't do anything but wait for the next say to see what happens.

« Reply #48 on: April 17, 2016, 00:40 »
+1
Consensus on the Pond5 forum is that today's sales report only covered 1 day of the 5 or so that are currently unreported, so there are likely more days' worth of sales still in limbo awaiting to be reported. Some sort of communication from Pond5 would be very much appreciated.

Well, that would be good, but I doubt it. I had about 3x my daily normal so it was almost definitely a combination of the last couple of days.

Let's hope you just had a very good day of sales!  ;)

Today's sales were from clips which appeared as new cart adds on 13th Apr. Normally that would equal sales report on 15th, but it's two days late. Same situation with yesterdays clips that show up as sales. Suggests there are still at least 2 days of sales in limbo.

And the guys / girls in the Pond5 forum who are actively discussing this issue are regular sellers who know when something's amiss and a lot of them are hollering!

Edit: Pond5 admin just stated the "catch up" has started for some people and should be complete for everyone over the next few days.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2016, 05:57 by thepokergod »


 

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