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« on: July 24, 2010, 14:46 »
Hey all,
I know this is old thread alert, but I've been noticing this trend for several months. In fact, I found this particular thread by googling "istockphoto new files don't sell", just to see if anyone else was talking about it. Sure enough. Not only do my meager, once-in-a-while uploads no longer sell, but I've been observing portfolios of several top contributors who usually produce consistent sellers, and the trend is the same with all of them: files uploaded after about Feb 2010 are DOA.
Some quick analysis makes me question if simple market oversaturation is the issue. If that were the case, then old files would suffer as new files cannibalize their sales resulting in a general spreading out of the wealth between new and old files, but this isn't happening. Old files seem to be clipping along as they always have, while new stuff just isn't getting so much as a sniff. I was just browsing a portfolio of a high-volume contributor. He has several flames on files he uploaded as recently as this January, however the biggest seller among files he uploaded after February has a mere 20 downloads, with most having 0- 5 sales. I can't imagine the market got that much more oversaturated between January and February.
Conversely, it's hard to blame search positioning for the problem either. A few of my new files rank very well in the best match, and are getting views but still no sales. It used to be unheard of if one of my files got over 100 views with no sales. Now the norm for my new files is 200-400 views and no sales.
Why views aren't translating into sales is mystifying, as is the February 'extinction event'. My hottest seller right now is a file that I uploaded last October, and if anything it is still picking up steam. I suspect that had I uploaded that same image in March of this year, it would have less than 5 sales.
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