MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => Shutterstock.com => Topic started by: Poncke on December 21, 2012, 04:02
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I am 83% sure SS has some ever changing rotating search going on. This week my sales have been low, but what I sell are my oldest photos. I mean my very first photos ever added for my admission to SS. Stuff that had stopped selling altogether. And what I dont get is that my newest stuff, which I consider to have some of my best photos, doesnt sell at all. Its really weird. Every time I think that my sales will finally pick up, nothing happens, my sales leveled out and no matter how many or how good or conceptional stuff I add, my sales wont rise and my oldest stuff is selling. I find it very weird. But I probably am seeing ghosts, I know, but I wish some of my newer stuff would be picked up and add to my sales so they would increase instead of level out every month. 3 months in a row. Adding 70-80 photos a month, BUT no increase in DLs and $$. Not blaming SS coz I love them. Just pondering.
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Hi Poncke,
If I understood well, the 70-80 photos that you monthly uploaded in the last 3 months are not selling.
I can't imagine why your new files are not selling without looking at your portfolio. I uploaded less than you and the earnings from these files represent 12,3% of my last 3 months total. If I take 6 months, it represents 16,9%.
I can see some increase in the sales. It's true that it is much less than it used to be in the past. But it's not zero. I used to sell much more and quicker the new files.
Of course, it depends on what you upload and the portfolio size.
Maybe other people can share their experiences.
Cheers
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I have a few sales on the new stuff, but the old stuff is now selling regularly. But its photos added 9 months ago. It should be buried under a million other photos by now. So SS is doing something that brings up my old stuff. But the new stuff doesnt sell much at all.
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One think I noticed is that my files are not available in the search right after they are approved. It takes a long to to see then online. And when it happens, my files are not on the top of the newst ones anymore. Sometimes not even in the first page.
That is the only thing that I can see that changed in the search by newest. But it can have this effect that we are experiencing.
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I've already made more this December than last December. The only site I'm using that's done that. I don't really care how they do it, as long as they continue doing it.
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I've already made more this December than last December. The only site I'm using that's done that. I don't really care how they do it, as long as they continue doing it.
Thanks, that answers all my questons ;-)
But good for you. I really need to change something to increase my sales tho.
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How old is old? I have to say that I still have no clue what makes a seller - some take off, others don't but still getting regular sales on some of my first 10.
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How old is old? I have to say that I still have no clue what makes a seller - some take off, others don't but still getting regular sales on some of my first 10.
My admission to SS was in March of this year. Its like photo 1 through 7 are selling now :)
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Ha, ha! I have been saying that for weeks now. Ever since their so called experiment with Relevancy, as a search, its never been right.
Day before yesterday they sold a pic which I submitted in my second batch, 7 years back. Embarrassing! I deleted it.
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Ha, ha! I have been saying that for weeks now. Ever since their so called experiment with Relevancy, as a search, its never been right.
Day before yesterday they sold a pic which I submitted in my second batch, 7 years back. Embarrassing! I deleted it.
I dont have a problem with selling older files, they are not bad, but I wish it was alongside new files, not one or the other.
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Ha, ha! I have been saying that for weeks now. Ever since their so called experiment with Relevancy, as a search, its never been right.
Day before yesterday they sold a pic which I submitted in my second batch, 7 years back. Embarrassing! I deleted it.
I dont have a problem with selling older files, they are not bad, but I wish it was alongside new files, not one or the other.
Agreeing! that would be ideal.
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SS has been very weird for me since they started fiddling with the search some months ago. They were always on top and steady and then suddenly they tanked for a couple of months. I panicked and it was what gave me a push to work more on my own site. They're almost back on track but it did seem like the sales were coming in waves with every week or second week peeking and then falling again. The peaks and troughs are becoming less drastic as the months go so I'm hoping the line levels out again.
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yeah they are trying desperatly to find the right search to maximize profits. Chopping, changing, ups and downs, old files new files, this and that. profit gaining.
ONLY, nothing seems to work? oh well maybe in 20 years time. :)
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Look at it this way!
If you didn't have any old files and since your newer files aren't selling much just think of what kind of sales you would have!
Be glad everything is selling otherwise you may as well just delete all your old files that are doing nothing for you but sitting there right?
But then that long lost EL from an old image wouldn't be there for a buyer now would it?
SS knows what they are doing.
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I added many series over the last 18 months that I thought would be strong sellers only to see them sit with little or no initial sales but after about 8 months I would start to see an increase with some regular sales. For some I think it was a seasonal thing but a lot were food shots so it's hard to say what is triggering the change. My fresh squeezed orange juice series did nothing at first but picked up later. I've wondered if it had to do with winter colds in the n. hemisphere and vitamin c but there is really no way to know.
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I'm a SS newbie....only been around for 8-10 months and 90% of daily sales are from my earliest submissions. There's always a sprinkling of sales from new images but nothing sells consistently/daily like my old ones. Video clips, on the other hand, sell from all "eras"....old, middle and new submissions.
Like an earlier comment, all that matters are consistent sales. Doesn't matter how old/young the images are. SS is the only agency that provides that dependability.
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Images uploaded less than a year ago are not 'old' __ they're still new and still establishing themselves in the Popular sort-order. Some of your older images are selling best presumably because they have become established. That's how it works. Stock is a long game. You can only evaluate the success or otherwise of a shoot/series after about 5 years.
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Images uploaded less than a year ago are not 'old' __ they're still new and still establishing themselves in the Popular sort-order. Some of your older images are selling best presumably because they have become established. That's how it works. Stock is a long game. You can only evaluate the success or otherwise of a shoot/series after about 5 years.
Thank you I was still laughing at 8-9 month old photos, as old. Wow, that makes mine virtually vintage and legacy, I mean five years old, they must be pure carp and cripple? LOL
Can it only take nine months to reach the wall of diminishing returns? That's a new record for modern times. And with 10,000 new photos a week, I can see why it's possible.
My best photos sell best, my marginal images, don't sell as well. Some of the ones that never should have been accepted, don't get any downloads, and I don't expect that they should. I'm sure there's some agency conspiracy and search issue, that causes this? (or not?)
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Can it only take nine months to reach the wall of diminishing returns? That's a new record for modern times. And with 10,000 new photos a week, I can see why it's possible.
SS many times with 100k per week
SS - 23,151,282 royalty-free stock images / 84,163 new stock images added this week
DP - 11,275,185 royalty-free stock files / 146,538 stock files added this week / 819,840 customers
DT - 15,639,857 royalty-free stock files / 434,244 monthly images / 63,673 pending images
123RF - 16,984,870 royalty-free stock images
FT - 20,122,759 royalty-free stock images
IS - 12,490,367 royalty-free stock files / 60,325 pending
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Did I mean to say, 10,000 a day? ::)
SHUTTERSTOCK STATS:
23,151,586 royalty-free stock images / 84,505 new stock images added this week
I still think the result is, everyone has a smaller slice of the pie and even returns on long standing, very professional, wonderful images, will drop when the competition is now reaching for 25 Million! Reviews are tougher, and they are still adding 10,000 new images a day!
The original Subject was: "Re: Selling my oldest oldest oldest photos" which still gives me a laugh, because that's nine months ago? That's 2,700,000 new images? Imagine how something from 2008 is getting buried - how many images did SS have at the end of 2008 total?
Feb. 2010 reached 10 Million. By the end of 2011 the number had doubled.
Does anyone question that they are being buried under an avalanche of new images? Of course sales will drop for most individuals.
Can it only take nine months to reach the wall of diminishing returns? That's a new record for modern times. And with 10,000 new photos a week, I can see why it's possible.
SS many times with 100k per week
SS - 23,151,282 royalty-free stock images / 84,163 new stock images added this week
DP - 11,275,185 royalty-free stock files / 146,538 stock files added this week / 819,840 customers
DT - 15,639,857 royalty-free stock files / 434,244 monthly images / 63,673 pending images
123RF - 16,984,870 royalty-free stock images
FT - 20,122,759 royalty-free stock images
IS - 12,490,367 royalty-free stock files / 60,325 pending
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Images uploaded less than a year ago are not 'old' __ they're still new and still establishing themselves in the Popular sort-order. Some of your older images are selling best presumably because they have become established. That's how it works. Stock is a long game. You can only evaluate the success or otherwise of a shoot/series after about 5 years.
Thanks for clearing that up.
There is still something to say for the fact that they were dormant and all of a sudden started to sell.
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Did I mean to say, 10,000 a day? ::)
you said per week, just that :)
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I'd consider any image that I uploaded this year to be a new image.
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The topic is: "Selling my oldest,oldest image"....in my case, my oldest,oldest image
is 9 months. In YOUR case, if you've been around for years with SS it's not old....regardless of the interpretation, my first :-\ submissions have always sold well since day one. Recent images ::) are sporadic. In the case of video clips.....my initial submissions ::), my new submissions ::) all sell...
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Did I mean to say, 10,000 a day? ::)
you said per week, just that :)
I'm taking a position of denial until it blows over. ;)
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The topic is: "Selling my oldest,oldest image"....in my case, my oldest,oldest image
is 9 months. In YOUR case, if you've been around for years with SS it's not old....regardless of the interpretation, my first :-\ submissions have always sold well since day one. Recent images ::) are sporadic. In the case of video clips.....my initial submissions ::), my new submissions ::) all sell...
If you'd actually read my posts you'd know I am talking about photos I submitted for my first 10 which are 9 months old.
The main point is, nothing of my new stuff is selling. I always thought it was because of bugs on the site, not showing up for days in the search or weekend approvals. But I had some batches accepted on Monday and showing up fairly quickly but not selling either.