Author Topic: down the toilet (Read 88865 times)

Bauman · « **Reply #50 on:** January 17, 2017, 04:40 »

Comparison 2016-2017 after 16 days on SS:

Portfolio +16%
Downloads -18%
Earnings -35%

Stickystock · « **Reply #51 on:** January 17, 2017, 06:08 »

I depend very much on my income from stock. SS is still my best selling agency but as it is going now I am dropping 1000+ downloads this month. My normal downloads per month are always between 4500-5000. They used to be very steady with nice growth but since November they made a huge drop for me.

But on the positive side. New files sell like they did in 2012. I have some files on page 1 within 2 weeks and one even in 2 days for single word search!

Normally good photo's needed at least 3 - 5 weeks to climb to page 1.

So I hope I can recover.

jav · « **Reply #52 on:** January 17, 2017, 06:48 »

Hi, I'm think this permanent growing of new contributor has gonna have a limit. It can´t
be eternal. That's can be a new era of stability, maybe with less earnings for all of us.

Sorry for my basic english

jonbull · « **Reply #53 on:** January 17, 2017, 08:33 »

Quote from: jav on January 17, 2017, 06:48

Hi, I'm think this permanent growing of new contributor has gonna have a limit. It can´t
be eternal. That's can be a new era of stability, maybe with less earnings for all of us.

Sorry for my basic english

i completely agree....microstock agency must understand that-

- there is already everything available in micro...contriboutior to produce zillion photos...
- the best content in micro are produced by full time...if full time will stop produce cause they need to find another job micro will be only amateurish. personally i see this reflect on quality of photo. i sometimes search in various website like alamy and shutter stock to have inspiration for keyword or title, or look places i wanna visit in my travel, the difference is ee between the two agency is so big. the micro look so newbie amateur...most of travel are cliche', postcard, while in alamy you can find for any country so many themes. that's what photographer do when travel compared to amateur who go to travel with family and snap some postcard.

in my opinion the only benefit they have is they pay much less 0,25 to new contributors compared to 0,38...but is this worth?

jonbull · « **Reply #54 on:** January 17, 2017, 08:36 »

Quote from: Stickystock on January 17, 2017, 06:08

I depend very much on my income from stock. SS is still my best selling agency but as it is going now I am dropping 1000+ downloads this month. My normal downloads per month are always between 4500-5000. They used to be very steady with nice growth but since November they made a huge drop for me.

But on the positive side. New files sell like they did in 2012. I have some files on page 1 within 2 weeks and one even in 2 days for single word search! Normally good photo's needed at least 3 - 5 weeks to climb to page 1.

So I hope I can recover.

i agree about new files. i rebegin uploading after holiday...one batch of 96 83 approved and some already sold today...practically i'm selling only files uploaded in 2016 and mostly from end of november. that's good cause i had a super backlog to upload, and it seems they approved anything i throw. my plan is 100 file every two days. i already see a boost last two days. unluckily other agency especially stock seems to struggle.

pixmicro · « **Reply #55 on:** January 17, 2017, 09:04 »

Same for me... Way down as last january... which was slow

increasingdifficulty · « **Reply #56 on:** January 17, 2017, 09:16 »

Quite slow here too in general - good thing a 4k sale made up for 236 image sales...

jonbull · « **Reply #57 on:** January 17, 2017, 09:51 »

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on January 17, 2017, 09:16

Quite slow here too in general - good thing a 4k sale made up for 236 image sales...

i agree is time to hope for those big sales...in december had 4 sales for 84 dollar each...in 21..332 dollar made like 1000 sales for 0,38 cent and it was vey good to see big sales in micro back after while...but since then really so slow everywhere not only ss...last two days seems starting again to sale let's see. clearly is a war between poor micro stock with some big production earning good money the rest pennies

Mantis · « **Reply #58 on:** January 17, 2017, 09:54 »

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 16, 2017, 18:02

what worries me most, lately i see a hard stop of sales around 6pm, i am based in the greater LA area, i normally would have sales around the clock, although slowing down at certain times. but this stop i never had before.

I am in there OC area (so close to you) and my "volume" sales after 5-6 pm nearly always go stagnant and have for years. However, I frequently have a bigger sale (SOD or video) at night, so I think the machine for me is on but most sales are US based and when the US goes to bed so do SS sales, for the most part.

Jafo2016 · « **Reply #59 on:** January 17, 2017, 12:13 »

Quote from: Mantis on January 17, 2017, 09:54

Quote from: Microstockphoto on January 16, 2017, 18:02
what worries me most, lately i see a hard stop of sales around 6pm, i am based in the greater LA area, i normally would have sales around the clock, although slowing down at certain times. but this stop i never had before.

I am in there OC area (so close to you) and my "volume" sales after 5-6 pm nearly always go stagnant and have for years. However, I frequently have a bigger sale (SOD or video) at night, so I think the machine for me is on but most sales are US based and when the US goes to bed so do SS sales, for the most part.

I check the map and most of my sales are Europe and US. Might be what I have for sale. When I started it was 60/40 US, last payment was 30/70 but most of the 70 was Europe, Australia and South America. Asia and Africa I sell almost nothing.

I'm convinced that all the folks who say competition is the problem, are right. SS will never come back, and neither will anyplace else Microstock for any of us. Competition has taken over so many of the sales that we used to get, that our good quality or subjects isn't a selling point anymore.

I can't expect the same sales with under 10,000 images now, that I did a short few years ago. Stockmarketer and some others have pointed out the math facts. It's not just a wall, it's that we get 1 million new photos against ours, every week.

Not going to get better for most.

LDV81 · « **Reply #60 on:** January 17, 2017, 13:59 »

Quote from: Jafo2016 on January 17, 2017, 12:13

I'm convinced that all the folks who say competition is the problem, are right. SS will never come back, and neither will anyplace else Microstock for any of us. Competition has taken over so many of the sales that we used to get, that our good quality or subjects isn't a selling point anymore.

I can't expect the same sales with under 10,000 images now, that I did a short few years ago. Stockmarketer and some others have pointed out the math facts. It's not just a wall, it's that we get 1 million new photos against ours, every week.

Not going to get better for most.

Yes. It is more or less game over. Sooner or later the agencies will require that contributors pay monthly fees to be able to sell. Too many images floating around. The ship is sinking.

I am looking for a lifeboat, but can't find any...Things that I considered lifeboats are leaking, too. If anybody has a free spot in their lifeboat, please let me know.

Minsc · « **Reply #61 on:** January 17, 2017, 14:44 »

The new image page does seem to have changed things a bit. Sales dropped a bit since November 21st, but I still can't pinpoint where it changed since image placement remained the same.

The 'Similar Images' are much more prominent than before, which actually benefits other contributors almost as much as you. You do all the hard work of placing high on the search and now it benefits other people. Someone can look at the similar set of images and next thing you know, they've clicked away to another image.

This presents a problem and a benefit. If you have a better image, there's a good chance they won't click away, but if another contributor has a better one, then there is a good chance the buyer will click away and you lose the sale. The benefit is that your images could also show up in 'Similar Images' for other contributors search. This really pits contributors against each other and it's the survival of the fittest...or in this case, the best image.

The "Same Artist" section is a mess at the moment. It doesn't show anything that's relevant to the search...just the most popular images from that contributors. There's almost no benefit to the buyer since it doesn't have context. They really need to fix that so the original contributors has a chance to fight back against the 'Similar Images' section.

For the last couple months, sales has fallen roughly 20% on SS. Things are starting to look up though. Today had the highest volume of sales I've seen in a long time, almost as high as pre-November 21st levels.

fiftyfootelvis · « **Reply #62 on:** January 17, 2017, 20:18 »

Shutterstock is down about 30% for me too, but iStock is up a bit and Adobe/Fotolia is up significantly.
I'm guessing Adobe Stock has taken some of Shutterstock's customers. After all, 99% of designers work with Adobe programs.

cg3dphoto · « **Reply #63 on:** January 17, 2017, 20:25 »

Same here, Shutterstock down, Fotolia up, looks like Shutterstock will be in trouble

SpaceStockFootage · « **Reply #64 on:** January 17, 2017, 23:14 »

Quote from: cg3dphoto on January 17, 2017, 20:25

Same here, Shutterstock down, Fotolia up, looks like Shutterstock will be in trouble

In trouble with what?

cg3dphoto · « **Reply #65 on:** January 17, 2017, 23:31 »

Competition with Adobe

sharpshot · « **Reply #66 on:** January 18, 2017, 05:09 »

I don't think Shutterstock is in any trouble. They have probably made it easier for new people to sell new images. They carry on making more and more money but every individual contributor that has a lot of older images finds it harder to sustain earnings. It will work for them because they have massive oversupply. They make more money by selling more images from newer contributors that are on the lower commission levels. It's a shame things seem to be going the same way as other sites but it was inevitable really.

SpaceStockFootage · « **Reply #67 on:** January 18, 2017, 05:14 »

It could be an issue... but it's hard to say if any drop in sales is definitely due to Adobe Stock. But still, SS don't seem to be going anywhere any time soon.

Artist · « **Reply #68 on:** January 18, 2017, 06:21 »

here you go...

Shutterstock Has Trained A Computer To Find You The Perfect Photos
www.popsci.com/shutterstock-is-visualizing-images-in-whole-new-way

Thomas from France · « **Reply #69 on:** January 18, 2017, 06:35 »

Quote from: Artist on January 18, 2017, 06:21

here you go...

Shutterstock Has Trained A Computer To Find You The Perfect Photos
www.popsci.com/shutterstock-is-visualizing-images-in-whole-new-way

This is functional since March 2016.

Graphs80 · « **Reply #70 on:** January 18, 2017, 08:53 »

Comparing 2015 to 2016, my income in SS decrease in 12% and sales in 10.7%

The increase of my port there in 2016 was 10.8% (total of ~3500 files in the port)

increasingdifficulty · « **Reply #71 on:** January 18, 2017, 09:12 »

Quote from: Graphs80 on January 18, 2017, 08:53

Comparing 2015 to 2016, my income in SS decrease in 12% and sales in 10.7%

The increase of my port there in 2016 was 10.8% (total of ~3500 files in the port)

Yes, but what was the increase in Shutterstock's TOTAL portfolio? And the market? Those are the interesting numbers.

Quasarphoto · « **Reply #72 on:** January 18, 2017, 17:14 »

Sales go up and down all the time, depending what the buyers might need. There are 100 million photos only on Shutterstock and lots of it is not exactly great product either. More and more 'fake situation' photos are produced sometimes comically bad concepts. I personally think there are way too many photos out there of bad quality and bad concept. That many fake smiles can sell. The whole industry needs a reset.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #73 on:** January 18, 2017, 23:39 »

Quote from: sharpshot on January 18, 2017, 05:09

I don't think Shutterstock is in any trouble. They have probably made it easier for new people to sell new images. They carry on making more and more money but every individual contributor that has a lot of older images finds it harder to sustain earnings. It will work for them because they have massive oversupply. They make more money by selling more images from newer contributors that are on the lower commission levels. It's a shame things seem to be going the same way as other sites but it was inevitable really.

i agree with you. older contributors are in trouble; not ~~shitter~~shutterstock. you know they are giving everyone a piece of the pie. in the past, sales keeping going, from day 1 till day 30,31.
but for months already , since the basic payout is 35bucks, you see big sales come in at the beginning of the month, you can be sure there follows a bunch of zero days.
it's almost like the best thing for you is to make a big sale at the end of the month, or else, you can be sure your payout will be about 20 to 50% of your previous years' month total.

as for uploading new work. i have done the opposite. after 6 months of no sales, i delete over 3,000 new works in the past years, instead of letting it sit there to bloat ss total images.
and when i see the new images improve selling, i submit them back again.
if that's how they want it, i will play dirty with them too.
..
until you start behaving like the good old professional ss which was #1 in the close 90s
and the new images are not just garbage loads of similars of amateurish laughing stock photos ... i will be as unprofessional as they are.

and yes, i will bloat adobe with my best images with regularity.

Graphs80 · « **Reply #74 on:** January 19, 2017, 04:14 »

Quote from: increasingdifficulty on January 18, 2017, 09:12

Quote from: Graphs80 on January 18, 2017, 08:53
Comparing 2015 to 2016, my income in SS decrease in 12% and sales in 10.7%

The increase of my port there in 2016 was 10.8% (total of ~3500 files in the port)

Yes, but what was the increase in Shutterstock's TOTAL portfolio? And the market? Those are the interesting numbers.

Hi increasingdifficulty,

Yes, you are totally right. 10% of portfolio increase is too low comparing to SS database increase in 2016. I guess it's the main reason why I experienced this decrease for the first time even if I uploaded more than in previous years.

Cheers

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Author Topic: down the toilet (Read 88865 times)

Bauman

Stickystock

jav

jonbull

jonbull

pixmicro

increasingdifficulty

jonbull

Mantis

Jafo2016

LDV81

Minsc

fiftyfootelvis

cg3dphoto

SpaceStockFootage

cg3dphoto

sharpshot

SpaceStockFootage

Artist

Thomas from France

Graphs80

increasingdifficulty

Quasarphoto

etudiante_rapide

Graphs80

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