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Author Topic: Quarterly results  (Read 9458 times)

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« Reply #25 on: November 05, 2016, 04:42 »
0
There is no corporation or PLC in the entire world that just keeps going up up and up year after year.

I kind of get what you're trying to say, but for the sake of accuracy, your statement is 100% false.


Oh well in that case we will all be laughing all the way to the bank!  we're not..... or maybe we are? you might be perfectly correct. :D

Based on your reply, you seem to be under the impression that I'm saying that every person and/or company in the world will make more money than they did last year, and this will happen until the end of time. I don't think I even inferred or hinted at anything like that, but hey-ho!

No what I meant was that its hard pushed to find any corp who constantly lets say over a period of 15 years produce a constantly rising quarterly report every single year. Ups and downs are common in the business world and in the stock market it happens every second of the day.
Yes the thing is though many web based businesses stock prices  are based around forecasts of jam tomorrow high levels of growth. So when growth slows investors get very jumpy as they so far have NEVER had a dividend. As a business they seem to be doing just about OK as an investment very risky I think


SpaceStockFootage

  • Space, Sci-Fi and Astronomy Related Stock Footage

« Reply #26 on: November 05, 2016, 05:32 »
+1
There is no corporation or PLC in the entire world that just keeps going up up and up year after year.

I kind of get what you're trying to say, but for the sake of accuracy, your statement is 100% false.


Oh well in that case we will all be laughing all the way to the bank!  we're not..... or maybe we are? you might be perfectly correct. :D

Based on your reply, you seem to be under the impression that I'm saying that every person and/or company in the world will make more money than they did last year, and this will happen until the end of time. I don't think I even inferred or hinted at anything like that, but hey-ho!

No what I meant was that its hard pushed to find any corp who constantly lets say over a period of 15 years produce a constantly rising quarterly report every single year. Ups and downs are common in the business world and in the stock market it happens every second of the day.

Couldn't agree more. Although I was going purely on your original post, that didn't include this clarifying information! But I kind of knew what you meant. Sort of.

« Reply #27 on: November 05, 2016, 07:01 »
0
And SSTK stock tanked on the earnings announcement.  Dropped over 6 points to the upper 40's (48.xx).  A drop in excess of 10%. According to one analysis, their earnings went up but total sales went down.  If they are losing sales, but increasing profits, that points to inroads from competitors and reducing the cost of sales (sales from newbies is only one of many possibilities).

Yup. Very convenient how they decided to battle spammers more decisively right after announcing quarterly results. ;)

« Reply #28 on: November 05, 2016, 12:33 »
+8
An article on why investors reacted negatively to Shutterstock's results.

http://www.nasdaq.com/article/shutterstock-shares-fall-on-weak-sales-guidance-cm704429

I read through the transcript of the earnings call, and it seemed to me  that SS was being pretty defensive about the impact of Adobe on their sales/earnings (basically saying it made no difference and hammering on the talking point of their library being the biggest).

One question about the downloads from the Photoshop plugin didn't get answered but Oringer said "We are seeing thousands of users in Adobe use our product with access to over 100 million of our images. So we see thousands of people inside of Adobe accessing the largest collection that's ever been integrated into creative cloud period." If he'd had tens of thousands of users of the plugin, he'd have said that, so I'm assuming that the actual number of users really is low. And I also assume they'd have trumpeted the download numbers if they were significant.

The CFO talked about what they've done promoting the plugin "... major holding companies and advertising agencies to make presentations which our sales teams have done to significant sized groups at their organizations so that they can see the ease of use" and about the great customer feedback they've gotten. This seems to indicate there are no real results so far ('cause they'd have talked about that, not their sales efforts, if they could have).

I also found the comments about the various segments of their business a little depressing for those of us who aren't included in their Premier Select collection. "Enterprise" is 30% of their revenue with 35,000 customers and "... continues to grow faster than the business today". Edited to make a correction; most of us are not in the Premier Select collection. All of us are in Premier - thanks to Shelma1 for pointing out the distinction

They have over 1.6 million customers total.  They expect to convert more "e-commerce" customers into enterprise accounts - I think e-commerce is where most of us here live as far as downloads.  "...our enterprise customer base has grown rapidly and we expect that trend to continue as we convert more e-commerce customers into enterprise accounts, broaden the portfolio of content available to our enterprise customers, and introduce new functionality and services into our premier product. Customers who upgrade to our enterprise product increase their annual spend with Shutterstock significantly"

They also said "Finally, we saw revenue per download increase 5% on a reported basis and 8% excluding the impact of foreign currency movements primarily driven by our continued success in growing our enterprise business which operates at higher price points than our traditional e-commerce offerings."

Bottom line, the vanishing of the high-value SODs appears to be a result of them converting the buyers who shopped with our stuff to other collections where our offerings aren't available. Hence my patterns of seeing download volumes up and revenue down.

A guy from Deutsche Bank asked about revenue growth - that it appeared to be overall at a rate close to the consumer growth (he didn't get a clear answer as to why, at least as I read it) and also asked about the "re-platforming" driving acceleration in revenue growth - why hadn't that happened as they'd earlier said it might. Lots of words in the answers about motherhood and apple pie, but no direct answer to the questions asked :(
« Last Edit: November 06, 2016, 17:41 by Jo Ann Snover »

« Reply #29 on: November 05, 2016, 13:07 »
+6
Thanks for that report Jo Ann.

I have noticed a serious drop in the SOD sales, especially the higher value ones. It is sad that they are working hard to benefit themselves and the closed club enterprise people and not the regular rank and file.

« Reply #30 on: November 05, 2016, 14:12 »
+1
An article on why investors reacted negatively to Shutterstock's results.

I read through the transcript of the earnings call, and it seemed to me  that SS was being pretty defensive about the impact of Adobe on their sales/earnings (basically saying it made no difference and hammering on the talking point of their library being the biggest).
...Bottom line, the vanishing of the high-value SODs
A guy from Deutsche Bank asked about revenue growth - ..why hadn't that happened as they'd earlier said it might. Lots of words in the answers about motherhood and apple pie, but no direct answer to the questions asked :(
May be the first signs of Adobe making serious inroads....SS really need to get their act together imho they do seem to be losing their grip but think they are still a long way ahead.

I think you are right. Maybe not the end, but a serious change in the overwhelming leader dominance. Reminds me that once IS was the leader and the rest were chasing. Adobestock will catch SS eventually, not for a few more years. Growth and innovation will win.

in one of my early days of seminars, i remember one thing prevalent with all successful businesses..
whenever the question of competitor threat comes up...
they don't look at it at all, nor find an excuse to belittle the competition...
they look at their own first...
ie. they take care of their own act first,
and ensure goodwill and transparency with suppliers, employees, public relations,etc..

iow, the only time you worry about damage control , is when your act is not together,
and your sales are down, and your suppliers are no longer having good faith in the CEOs,etc.

the question of when is also volatile. many companies who went backrupt also had that arrogance, to think it's going to "take awhile" .. before the competitor is a worry.
but as a result, the competitor came to ovetake them faster, as a saying , "before the fall, comes
arrogance".

what goes around comes around. it happened to istock, it will happen to ss if their arrogance
persist... to think only of shareholders bolstering numbers to fake potential, while displeasing
contributors .

the writing is on the wall.  the direction is much in line with the steps istock took,
is now the resume of ss these past months ...
with esp. the vanish high earning SODs

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #31 on: November 05, 2016, 16:15 »
+3
last month i did and begin shooting with model. i never did this for micro but gave it a shot.
i produced good content and uploaded with multiple platform.

then i went and simulate some searches with keyword related to these images
fotolia istock showed good relation and my images showed as new in the first pages...in shutter stock the first three pages were full of images not related to the keywords...and couldn't find my images there.
now i understand why all my best still sell everyday but new and better stuff not sell at all or in limited amount.

irrelevant keyword and image spamming is killing shutter stock.

« Reply #32 on: November 06, 2016, 02:48 »
+4
Many years ago I remember reading a piece of advice about investing that said you should actually take a look at the "real business" e.g if its a shop take a walk round one of its stores...is it well maintained, are the staff happy are there plenty of customers etc?

One look at the SS offering these days would sound a few alarm bells.....in particular proving the assertion that more = better. If it were a supermarket you would be confronted with thousands of brands of baked beans spread all over the store often stacked in the wrong place and labelled as something different. Usually I found what Oringer said on these calls pretty persuasive but this time I found their responses pretty unconvincing. I think the next quarter may prove a troublesome one but I do hope they turn it round as I always felt they were a solid and in the context of this business "fair" outfit

Shelma1

  • stockcoalition.org
« Reply #33 on: November 06, 2016, 05:34 »
+7
Just a reminder that all of us are in Premier, and all of our work AFAIK is availablle to their enterprise customers.

That said, they undoubtedly promote their Premier Select (which only certain people are included in) library the most to Enterprise customers, along with Offset--also a closed club. And if you take a stroll theough their new customer image editing application, you'll see that it's pre-loaded with templates featuring a curated collection of images (all photos and no illustrations, or at least it seems that way to me). So some people's work is definitely being pushed to the front when it comes to Enterprise.

That does not bode well for the vast majority of us who are not included in the Premier Select or Offset clubs. It starts to remind me more and more of that other place that has two classes of contributors and feels 2 cents per download is fine for the lower class.

Their tacit approval of spamming tactics also indicates to me that they don't particularly care about the huddled masses of "regular" contributors any more. (Lying to me on the phone about it was pretty crummy as well.)
« Last Edit: November 06, 2016, 05:39 by Shelma1 »

« Reply #34 on: November 06, 2016, 05:44 »
0
Just a reminder that all of us are in Premier, and all of our work AFAIK is availablle to their enterprise customers.

That said, they undoubtedly promote their Premier Select (which only certain people are included in) library the most to Enterprise customers, along with Offset--also a closed club. And if you take a stroll theough their new customer image editing application, you'll see that it's pre-loaded with templates featuring a curated collection of images (all photos and no illustrations, or at least it seems that way to me). So some people's work is definitely being pushed to the front when it comes to Enterprise.

That does not bode well for the vast majority of us who are not included in the Premier Select or Offset clubs. It starts to remind me more and more of that other place that has two classes of contributors and feels 2 cents per download is fine for the lower class.

Their tacit approval of spamming tactics also indicates to me that they don't particularly care about the huddled masses of "regular" contributors any more. (Lying to me on the phone about it was pretty crummy as well.)

I understand to be in Premier you need to opt in to sensitive use and you will not get SODs if you don't.

« Reply #35 on: November 06, 2016, 05:50 »
+2
Seems like the agencies are moving towards turning microstock all back into high dollar images, with high returns for them (macrostock). Good for them and the elite contributors that are in the club, but the fact remains the market for microstock is still there. Someone will still need to supply that market. And 2 cents per download for the contributor isnt going to cut it.

PureArt

  • UK
« Reply #36 on: November 06, 2016, 07:37 »
+1
One look at the SS offering these days would sound a few alarm bells ... thousands of brands of baked beans spread all over the store often stacked in the wrong place and labelled as something different.

You don't get the idea. The Unique Selling Proposition of ShutterStock now is the bean tins with labels like "beans beans beans beans beans beans beans beans beans beans beans". Where every single bean in that tin is counted and mentioned on the label.

« Reply #37 on: November 06, 2016, 14:59 »
+1
Many years ago I remember reading a piece of advice about investing that said you should actually take a look at the "real business" e.g if its a shop take a walk round one of its stores...is it well maintained, are the staff happy are there plenty of customers etc?

One look at the SS offering these days would sound a few alarm bells.....in particular proving the assertion that more = better. If it were a supermarket you would be confronted with thousands of brands of baked beans spread all over the store often stacked in the wrong place and labelled as something different. Usually I found what Oringer said on these calls pretty persuasive but this time I found their responses pretty unconvincing. I think the next quarter may prove a troublesome one but I do hope they turn it round as I always felt they were a solid and in the context of this business "fair" outfit

well said & good observation. the store is running more like a boiler room shady these days!!!
the thing to watch is the stock prices of ss. now that the quarterly is out and the questions left unanswered.
if you run a public firm like a penny stock business, soon the hedgers and quick profiteers would be gone after shorting, to go find another roadkill .
if you run a business like a bluechip where transparency and goodwill and longterm is the rule
of your portfolio, you won't evade your questions of how the business is running.
nor do you have to bolster your cans of beans all around the store to make it look like you have a store of good distribution .

what i mean is, by now, the vultures would already have taken the money and run ,
before the slide begins. and the CEO would have left like the captain of a sinking ship...
long before he shouts from afar to the suckers on the ship ,"do not panic, all is fine!"..
as he paddles away on a lifeboat.

« Reply #38 on: November 06, 2016, 18:09 »
+5
Seems like the agencies are moving towards turning microstock all back into high dollar images, with high returns for them (macrostock). Good for them and the elite contributors that are in the club, but the fact remains the market for microstock is still there. Someone will still need to supply that market. And 2 cents per download for the contributor isnt going to cut it.

One big problem for us rank and file microstock contributors is that when the money was good, a lot of us invested in expensive equipment and models to make high value images. These are images that can easily compete with high end collections, and should be included in them.  But for some reason, if your pictures,  even HCV ones,  have been in micro, they are treated as tainted and inferior by SS when they choose Premier Select, or allow contributors to Offset.

Adobe, so far, treats images as equal and doesn't turn up their nose just because they are microstock.  In very early days micro may have been inferior quality, but for long time much micro can rival Macro and other top tier collections. 

If you don't want cheap micro images competing with your premier expensive images, don't hide them in the back of searches.  Put the top quality micro images in the higher end collections.

« Reply #39 on: November 06, 2016, 18:59 »
+1
Seems like the agencies are moving towards turning microstock all back into high dollar images, with high returns for them (macrostock). Good for them and the elite contributors that are in the club, but the fact remains the market for microstock is still there. Someone will still need to supply that market. And 2 cents per download for the contributor isnt going to cut it.

One big problem for us rank and file microstock contributors is that when the money was good, a lot of us invested in expensive equipment and models to make high value images. These are images that can easily compete with high end collections, and should be included in them.  But for some reason, if your pictures,  even HCV ones,  have been in micro, they are treated as tainted and inferior by SS when they choose Premier Select, or allow contributors to Offset.

Adobe, so far, treats images as equal and doesn't turn up their nose just because they are microstock.  In very early days micro may have been inferior quality, but for long time much micro can rival Macro and other top tier collections. 

If you don't want cheap micro images competing with your premier expensive images, don't hide them in the back of searches.  Put the top quality micro images in the higher end collections.

excellent point!!!  the insinuation that micro contributors are inferior was obvious when ss indicated "ss contributors need not apply for offset".
the irony was it was they (microstock agencies) who set the standard,
and in the days when 7/10 entry criterion, the bar was lifted way above all across the stock photo tiers..
your point to repeat...  in red
« Last Edit: November 06, 2016, 19:29 by etudiante_rapide »

« Reply #40 on: November 06, 2016, 19:35 »
0
Seems like the agencies are moving towards turning microstock all back into high dollar images, with high returns for them (macrostock). Good for them and the elite contributors that are in the club, but the fact remains the market for microstock is still there. Someone will still need to supply that market. And 2 cents per download for the contributor isnt going to cut it.

One big problem for us rank and file microstock contributors is that when the money was good, a lot of us invested in expensive equipment and models to make high value images. These are images that can easily compete with high end collections, and should be included in them.  But for some reason, if your pictures,  even HCV ones,  have been in micro, they are treated as tainted and inferior by SS when they choose Premier Select, or allow contributors to Offset.

Adobe, so far, treats images as equal and doesn't turn up their nose just because they are microstock.  In very early days micro may have been inferior quality, but for long time much micro can rival Macro and other top tier collections. 

If you don't want cheap micro images competing with your premier expensive images, don't hide them in the back of searches.  Put the top quality micro images in the higher end collections.

Premier Select is not a collection of high end images, but a group of top earners, which might suggest high end images, but does not guarantee it.  Two advantages of Premier Select are access to the ever expanding number of Enterprise customers on their dedicated web site meaning new images are not buried under the influx of millions of images a month, and having the Enterprise Team working for you bringing in all those lovely SODs.   
If you want to compete at this level get yourself a syndicate together of twenty or so with 50,000 or 50 or so with 20,000 decent selling images.  A group of such syndicates together should have enough selling power to force a way in to Premier Select, but no bluffing it's win or lose. I think that the window of opportunity is a little narrow for this approach as they need to expand the Premier Select group now to make it more diverse and give Enterprise buyers more choice and it needs to remain relatively select. If you have not had your invite yet it's time to crash the party.   None of this makes any difference to most of us.

Adobe, far from treating images/contributors equally, is already heading down the Shutterstock route, it's where the money is.


 

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