If something new sells, it sells for a couple of times and then usually disappears; never to sell again. That's not the reason I'm in microstock so I''ve stopped uploading as it seems pointless. I have sales of 2,000+ of a couple of images I uploaded in 2012 and around 30 images that sold 100+ all of which were uploaded years ago. I don't think I have anything uploaded in the past 2 years that managed above 25 sales so why bother.

Seriously poor. $$$ back to levels of 2013 when I had only been at SS 12 months and had 20% of the images I have now. Downloads 40% down on 2013 levels. Complete disaster averted by one medium large SOD mid-month.

Clearly with a payment of $65 million for Flashstock, SS doesn't appear to apply the same criteria of valuation to the company as might be done in Shark Tank or Dragon's Den!

Let me see now....the site shows 24 examples of projects completed. From this site's members' information on payment, they hand over $50-$100 to the shooter. Lets just say that Flashstock has had 1,000X the completed commissions they are prepared to highlight on the 'cases' page (24,000).
At 24,000 jobs @$100 payment = $2.4 million payout (and I reckon these assumptions are wildly optimistic) they must be selling the commissioned photos for 10X what they pay for them to come anywhere close to that $65 million valuation (3 years @20 million profit/year).

Anyway, whatever.....yet another race to the bottom now in commissioned photography.

Noticed quite a lot of negatives about the CEO on 'glassdoor'.

Quote from: pancaketom on May 01, 2017, 16:48

The thing that worries me is that it is just a few somewhat random sales that account for making this a decent month. The total # of sales at sites like SS are down a lot.

Yep. That's the trouble with SS this last year. April marginally better than March but now the months of this year are around 25-50% down on previous years despite a portfolio increase of 50% in the last 2 years. Going to have to find a more remunerative reward for my genius! 

Quote from: Microstockphoto on March 20, 2017, 16:42
black is the new colorful

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/colorful-abstract-background-572030401?src=03_bhvnrwEYlmQ9YihrgHg-1-14

haha

and then the similar images, all the same black gradient, unbelievable that this gets through without help on the inside, or it has to be a machine

which reviewer lets through a black image with the title colorful ?

Remarkable that all the similar images appear almost identical and from the same contributor. They only started serious uploading around the end of 2016 (image numbers from 52........ onward) and they already have 35K images in portfolio. As far as I can see, their technique is now find a 'celebration day' and add that to 100+ standard backgrounds that have different colours.

Judging by the video number, it was 'earning'/stealing for quite a few months before being taken down.

VAT in NL is simple. If you are required to charge VAT to a customer, you do that and complete the required VAT reporting every quarter or month. When you don't receive VAT payments from stock agencies because they're registered in USA or Canada etc, you can't report it because no VAT was involved in your payment. How the stock agencies work the VAT that they have to charge customers licensing images in the EU, I haven't a clue.....that's their problem.
Adobe appears to do all their 'transactions' in NL via Ireland. FT/Adobe payments come through Ireland as does my subscription to Photoshop CC. As I'm VAT registered here in NL, I don't have to pay VAT on my PS CC subscription after I've provided Adobe with my NL VAT registration number. (Falls under intra-community transactions, I believe).

Quote from: Pauws99 on February 19, 2017, 15:10

Quote from: Mumut Greenstripe on February 19, 2017, 14:51
Can't find number of followers ... 

Believe that hasn't worked for a year or two

Dunno whether that worked or didn't work when last seen....now it's completely disappeared with the new layout. Sorry....found it. Go to 'Earnings' in the new dashboard and click on 'delayed earnings'. Hover mouse over earnings and you'll get current month earnings with dl's and followers. First I had zero followers, then it jumped to 6 and sometime last year it went to 7 where it remained since then.

Quote from: pancaketom on February 17, 2017, 18:23
I think the most recent thumb is blue bordered - the one with the location listed.

Correct.
I think that the idea of the new dashboard is to constantly remind us ungrateful peasants just how much we have earned in our lifetime with Shutterstock (hence the largest size font) and to distract us from the more recent earnings decline that many have complained about. 

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on January 31, 2017, 18:40

Quote from: OM on January 31, 2017, 14:02

Quote from: OM on January 30, 2017, 09:05
Seems to me that the real damage to sales is being done by the change in 'search'. When a potential buyer clicks on one of your images, they used to be offered similar images (based on keywords) from YOUR portfolio (same artist). Now the offering of alternatives is often not from your portfolio and is a pixel-based/color-pattern similarity search. If I were a buyer who had searched using keywords, I'd be seriously annoyed at SS offering these pixel-based alternatives because often they're totally irrelevant.

Another thing I've just noticed about the search is that in the past is that the keyword order changed as the image sold more frequently. Keywords appeared to be ordered on the basis of popularity as the image sold.....not any more. Keywords are now purely in alphabetical order as they appear under the image selected. Hardly surprising that sales of established portfolios have changed drastically (mostly for the worse according to contributors here).

You are correct. I've watched the keywords change on sold files and stay the same on unsold, from same upload. I watched the words go to alpha sort. I could guess that the search didn't change but the keywords did. And expect they will change again.

Currently upload order of keywords makes no difference on SS. Changing the order, doesn't matter. When they fix whatever broke, the sort will be back to agency priority and order.

Anybody who doubts this, go look at your keywords from the buyers site. Alpha sorted. Look at edit keywords on your file on SS, different order. Now look at the original file on your computer, not the same as the SS file that you can edit.

SS still arranges keywords on our pages, into a different order than upload, and buyers, different from submit our site.

Anyone else get this more then every before looking at SS site? "Secure Connection Failed"

You're right. Buyer's site in private browsing gives completely different (alpha sorted) order. In contributor mode it's alphabetical.

Quote from: OM on January 30, 2017, 09:05
Seems to me that the real damage to sales is being done by the change in 'search'. When a potential buyer clicks on one of your images, they used to be offered similar images (based on keywords) from YOUR portfolio (same artist). Now the offering of alternatives is often not from your portfolio and is a pixel-based/color-pattern similarity search. If I were a buyer who had searched using keywords, I'd be seriously annoyed at SS offering these pixel-based alternatives because often they're totally irrelevant.

Another thing I've just noticed about the search is that in the past is that the keyword order changed as the image sold more frequently. Keywords appeared to be ordered on the basis of popularity as the image sold.....not any more. Keywords are now purely in alphabetical order as they appear under the image selected. Hardly surprising that sales of established portfolios have changed drastically (mostly for the worse according to contributors here).

Seems to me that the real damage to sales is being done by the change in 'search'. When a potential buyer clicks on one of your images, they used to be offered similar images (based on keywords) from YOUR portfolio (same artist). Now the offering of alternatives is often not from your portfolio and is a pixel-based/color-pattern similarity search. If I were a buyer who had searched using keywords, I'd be seriously annoyed at SS offering these pixel-based alternatives because often they're totally irrelevant.

Quote from: gyllens on December 31, 2016, 18:22
Might be interesting to know!  This factory with a few photographers with over 100.000 files at Shutterstock. Spoke to one of them this morning. Yesterday they had 2 downloads and today at 12 noon still nothing. I cant even put in writing what they said about SS.

So people we are not alone far from it.

Makes me feel somewhat better with less than 700 files but I have never had 2 consecutive days of zero sales until now (30th and 31st Dec). Money OK for the month thanks to more than $100+ in SODs but down from Dec 2015 by 16% and downloads almost halved! Fails to inspire for 2017.

I noticed that Jon Orringer posted a FB message thanking SS contributors for their help in weeding out the title spammers.

Quote from: Pauws99 on November 26, 2016, 12:26

Quote from: Hundstage14 on November 26, 2016, 12:23

Quote from: Pauws99 on November 25, 2016, 17:31

Quote from: Hundstage14 on November 25, 2016, 00:11
I really want a explanation from the company why several month nothing happens and the contributors were ignored.

To be honest I rather think its a waste of your energy if they did give an explanation you may well not believe it.  I may be too fatalist but I think to survive in this environment its best to focus on what you can control.

I believe that to focus on things you can control is always a good action maxim, no matter what environment. (Under the premise you know what you can control and whether it is purposeful.)
And I assume that you wanted to tell me that you do not expect a statement and if only an unsatisfactory. My expectation is the same.

But: I really want a explanation from the company why several month nothing happens and the contributors were ignored.

For what its worth my explanation is contributors were ignored but once buyers started complaining, and possibly defecting to the likes of Adobe something had to be done........

I remember thinking as much a couple of weeks ago. Only when the buyers start voting with their feet will something be done. Looks like the buyers started shuffling out the door.

Quote from: KuriousKat on October 16, 2016, 18:23
Shutterstock should send another email warning that those who don't amend their descriptions/keywords by a given date, will have their accounts suspended, and then actually follow it through.

Then it should lock the description field so that it can't be altered after upload.

This can't be a difficult fix, and yet the problem has persisted for months.

That is probably what SS will do, unfortunately. Thereby punishing the thousands of correct users of this facility (of which I too occasionally make use) because there's a few smarty-pants b*****s who abuse it. In the description field, it's sometimes difficult to avoid using a word more than once but restricting it to a maximum of two or three times should be sufficient.

In the good old days when you could see how many sales an image had on Fotolia, best sellers of the day often only had one or two sales in total (since approval). IMO completely fictitious or randomly generated file number.....sort of like the lottery.   

I thought this problem of spamming the description was confined mostly to vectors. However, I came across this photo of soup today in 'Best Match'. Only just approved judging by its number and already #1 in 'Best Match' already on page 1 (middle) of 'Most Popular'. Category 'soup' photo's has 290,000 shots.

http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/706681/496729930/stock-photo-soup-in-clear-soup-mug-on-wooden-table-soup-soup-soup-soup-soup-soup-soup-soup-soup-soup-496729930.jpg

Description =soup in clear soup mug on wooden table [soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup. soup]

Quote from: Pauws99 on October 12, 2016, 17:15

Quote from: spike on October 12, 2016, 16:08
Shutterstock has a problem with spammers, that's in the open, but I had no idea how big the problem was.

Check the "best match" result for "arrow icon": https://www.shutterstock.com/search?searchterm=arrow+icon&search_source=base_search_form&language=en&page=1&sort=relevance&image_type=all&safe=true

Check the metadata of all the results.

Nothing new sells because spammers make it impossible for your images to be seen. But they grow the library for shutterstock, and that's what's important for them. They can show that number to the shareholders. If you make more or less, they don't care.

I guess that blows the theory about needing super clever keywording strategies to get to the top. I'm surprised repeat keywords are allowed let alone seeming to add weight to the relevance

The keywords are all different (albeit very slightly) because the SS keyword filter automatically removes duplicates. Clearly, this is not the case for the description where 'arrow.' repeated 40 times is 'allowed'. And the description seems to have more weighting in the search algo than we have perhaps been led to believe.

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on September 11, 2016, 18:51

Quote from: Teddy the Cat on September 11, 2016, 16:20
https://twitter.com/jonoringer/status/773921086237016065

Looks like Jon Oringer doesn't seem to think there is any problem over at the HQ

To busy buying guitars with the money he made off the chumps and chumpettes

someone sent me a msg opening my eyes. it said, so what is the crisis with J.O???
say 200 old contributors complain shortfall of 50% and more since the vanishing port issue.
but did you go see ss forum how many newbies are going wooo yay my first download.
if you lose 1000 dls and the other 199 lose 200,000 dls a month,
there are still 200,000 newbies getting 2 dls a week cheering for ss.

of course there is no crisis for big O !!!

...and even better for Big O, those 200,000 newbies may have to wait a year or so before they reach payout. Like having creditors' terms that give you a year to pay instead of 30 days! 

Contributor log-in down most of the morning in the Netherlands. And no search results available on Shutterstock buyer's site.

Yup. Not working since sometime on Thursday. Maybe it's another part of the 'new normal'. 

Well, looking at the SS earnings rating on the right hand side of the page (105.7), someone(s) here is doin' da bizznizz at SS.

One thing to be aware of with FT compared to SS is that FT allows Print on Demand for a sub price.
Poster producers can print up a poster from your work at FT and you get a pittance.