Author Topic: SS sells mostly outside US? (Read 11974 times)

disorderly · « **on:** September 08, 2009, 12:03 »

July was the first month where Shutterstock provided a revenue breakdown between US and non-US sales. I was surprised to see that my sales broke down as 36% US / 64% rest of world. August was even more extreme: 25% US / 75% rest of world, thanks to the errant customer whose downloads were converted to ELs. Without him, I'd have been 37% US / 63% non. Not bad for the month when a lot of Europe goes on holiday!

Dreamframer · « **Reply #1 on:** September 08, 2009, 12:07 »

My images are sold mostly outside US.

PowerDroid · « **Reply #2 on:** September 08, 2009, 12:18 »

Yup, same here... about 2/3 non-US. Was an eye-opener. It made me think that I need to pay more attention to news in Europe to make sure I'm capitalizing on any trends there that might be different than in the US.

goldenangel · « **Reply #3 on:** September 08, 2009, 12:25 »

I'm in the US so SS doesn't provide me with this information. anyway, it's a good piece of information that everything doesn't need to be marketed with a US customer in mind.

PowerDroid · « **Reply #4 on:** September 08, 2009, 12:29 »

Wrong. Actually it shows this info for US contributors as well. Click on payment history and you'll see the breakdown.

borg · « **Reply #5 on:** September 08, 2009, 12:31 »

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=shutterstock&cmpt=q

goldenangel · « **Reply #6 on:** September 08, 2009, 12:39 »

Quote from: PowerDroid on September 08, 2009, 12:29

Wrong. Actually it shows this info for US contributors as well. Click on payment history and you'll see the breakdown.

I was wrong! I was looking at the last row of payments instead of the first row. I have about 25% of US sales.

cidepix · « **Reply #7 on:** September 08, 2009, 12:45 »

% 18 US

% 82 Non US here

Randomway · « **Reply #8 on:** September 08, 2009, 13:01 »

I'm in the US and my sales were over 50% US.
I'm trying to figure out what to do so my images actually sale better to buyers in the rest of the world.
I don't know if it's my keywords or images generally, but I'd like to reach a broader audience there.

Dook · « **Reply #9 on:** September 08, 2009, 13:24 »

It is the rest of the world that welcomed cheap pictures. In my city, here at Balkans country, very few designers bought stock five years ago. Now everybody is buying.

Pixart · « **Reply #10 on:** September 08, 2009, 13:33 »

Randomway I see that you are an illustrator, maybe Americans buy more illustrations than the rest of the world? I am a photographer and at a glance seeing around 20% U.S. sales.

KB · « **Reply #11 on:** September 08, 2009, 13:34 »

Interesting. I had no idea my images appealed to non-US buyers so much.

Foreign vs US:
July: 66% vs 34%
Aug: 72% vs 28%

melastmohican · « **Reply #12 on:** September 08, 2009, 13:48 »

US: 40%
F : 60%

PowerDroid · « **Reply #13 on:** September 08, 2009, 14:11 »

Quote from: goldenangel on September 08, 2009, 12:39

Quote from: PowerDroid on September 08, 2009, 12:29
Wrong. Actually it shows this info for US contributors as well. Click on payment history and you'll see the breakdown.
I just got my payment for the last month and there is no breakdown of earnings, only the total is displayed.

That's odd. Are you clicking on the link on your stats page at the bottom that reads: Gross Earnings (click here for your actual payment history)? That should take you to a screen that gives the breakdown. Did your last payment include downloads going back to a date prior to July? Maybe because the payout includes some downloads from a period when they weren't tracking and reporting this data, so they're not showing a breakdown?

takestock · « **Reply #14 on:** September 08, 2009, 14:49 »

Curious - where did you find these stats on the site?

PowerDroid · « **Reply #15 on:** September 08, 2009, 14:53 »

You get to them via the link on your stats page at the bottom that reads: Gross Earnings (click here for your actual payment history).

takestock · « **Reply #16 on:** September 08, 2009, 14:54 »

Quote from: PowerDroid on September 08, 2009, 14:53

You get to them via the link on your stats page at the bottom that reads: Gross Earnings (click here for your actual payment history).

Cheers! - thanks for that!

Randomway · « **Reply #17 on:** September 08, 2009, 14:55 »

Quote from: Pixart on September 08, 2009, 13:33

Randomway I see that you are an illustrator, maybe Americans buy more illustrations than the rest of the world? I am a photographer and at a glance seeing around 20% U.S. sales.

Pixart - You could be right. Maybe it's seasonal too since the US doesn't vacation the same way other places do. Either way I see a massive rekeywording campaign in my future.

dirkr · « **Reply #18 on:** September 08, 2009, 16:38 »

10% US / 90% Non-US.
I'm really surprised, didn't expect that. But then again, I often see credits to shutterstock when looking through newspapers or other publications here in Germany. They seem to have many clients here at least...

michaeldb · « **Reply #19 on:** September 08, 2009, 18:38 »

Quote from: borg on September 08, 2009, 12:31

http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=shutterstock&cmpt=q

Great link. It was nice to see 'vector stock' #1 on the list of rising searches.

mwp1969 · « **Reply #20 on:** September 08, 2009, 18:46 »

Where are you seeing this data that compares US Sales to Non-US Sales?

-Mark

HermanM · « **Reply #21 on:** September 08, 2009, 19:39 »

For me is even more extreme... 10% US VS 90% non-US...

suwanneeredhead · « **Reply #22 on:** September 08, 2009, 19:50 »

For August I had 70% US and 30% outside the US.

Don't you think it has to do with what you have to offer in your port? For instance, I have a lot of scenic images of Florida and Washington state, and many vector maps of American states and the whole USA. It actually surprises me that I have many non-US sales based on what I have in my port.

gbalex · « **Reply #23 on:** September 08, 2009, 20:06 »

Yes suwanneeredhead I think it does depend on the content of your port.

July: 71% US vs 29% F
Aug: 79% US vs 27% F

I expect the US result to drop this month of because labor day and a long weekend. I would think people in the US are taking time to enjoy vacations with family before the kids need to be back in school.

epixx · « **Reply #24 on:** September 08, 2009, 20:17 »

14% US and 86% rest of the world for July, but my August numbers aren't up yet. I wonder why...

disorderly · « **Reply #25 on:** September 08, 2009, 22:08 »

Quote from: mwp1969 on September 08, 2009, 18:46

Where are you seeing this data that compares US Sales to Non-US Sales?

-Mark

On the Submit page, under PERFORMANCE STATS, click on the details button.
At the bottom of the page, under Gross Earnings, click on the link for payment history.
For the last two months you'll see Gross, US and non-US income.

Kngkyle · « **Reply #26 on:** September 08, 2009, 22:28 »

33% US 66% World

Adeptris · « **Reply #27 on:** September 09, 2009, 02:09 »

I was wondering about this as the US is reported as the biggest image buying market, so are they all using Getty and Istock in the USA, the same 25% USA : 75% ROTW percentages were reported by The3DStudio.com in another thread in response to withholding tax question.

There is a lot of articles based on what the US buyers want, but I wonder what percentage of all images are purchased by the US buyers?

David

hoi ha · « **Reply #28 on:** September 09, 2009, 04:33 »

I noticed the same results a couple of weeks ago with non-US sales far larger than US sales - it did not make sense to me though because the vast majoirty of my sales occur during North American business hours - so it got me wondering how SS determines the "nationality source" of sales - it could be that the sales are to companies operating in the US but that the companies are actually incorporated offshore, as probably the majority of US companies are. Could that explain it?

MikLav · « **Reply #29 on:** September 09, 2009, 09:43 »

I am not like others

For me it's almost precisely 50/50 for US/non-US

but I didn't upload in July/August and August was low - perhaps September will be different proportion.

lisafx · « **Reply #30 on:** September 09, 2009, 09:55 »

40/60 split for me, in favor of non-US sales.

michaeldb · « **Reply #31 on:** September 09, 2009, 13:33 »

Quote from: hoi ha on September 09, 2009, 04:33

I noticed the same results a couple of weeks ago with non-US sales far larger than US sales - it did not make sense to me though because the vast majoirty of my sales occur during North American business hours - so it got me wondering how SS determines the "nationality source" of sales - it could be that the sales are to companies operating in the US but that the companies are actually incorporated offshore, as probably the majority of US companies are. Could that explain it?

I wonder about this also. My SS sales are only 30% US, but it seems to me that US holidays (such as Labor Day) and US business hours have a much greater than 30% impact on my sales fluctuations. Could offshore-incorporated companies be buying enough images to account for the US-timing impact?

Dreamframer · « **Reply #32 on:** September 09, 2009, 14:38 »

OK, I got my payment today. My US sales are only 16,4% of my total sales.

Opla · « **Reply #33 on:** September 09, 2009, 14:54 »

25% US for me

Microstock Posts · « **Reply #34 on:** September 10, 2009, 12:12 »

Quote from: Whitechild on September 09, 2009, 14:38

OK, I got my payment today. My US sales are only 16,4% of my total sales.

Haha 16.5% are US based for me. The vast majority of my photos are taken in Asia. Maybe that explains it.

BikeTourist · « **Reply #35 on:** September 10, 2009, 13:42 »

My numbers:

US - 40%

World - 60%

Many of my images that I can find have been used in Europe, so I'm not surprised.

mwp1969 · « **Reply #36 on:** September 28, 2009, 01:49 »

One has to ask where is the majority of the marketing spend ...

I believe emerging markets around the world will be a driving factor for microstock sales for several years.

-Mark

travelstock · « **Reply #37 on:** September 28, 2009, 08:31 »

My US sales are about 18% - also much lower than expected.

Actually I met a few SS subscribers in Colombia. Looking at that google chart, it seems Latin America is pretty well represented, which could explain the US time-zone sales, which are essentially the same as here.

Maybe we should all be keywording in Spanish

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Author Topic: SS sells mostly outside US? (Read 11974 times)

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