Author Topic: What is happening to SS? (Read 28805 times)

Phadrea · « **on:** October 13, 2017, 03:01 »

I am absolutely stunnedby how bad SS sales have dropped in the last year. October is looking tragic and set to fail at making payout. Sometimes a video sale here and there would pull me though but no longer, even though I have recently added a lot more footage. Has anyone else found it unbelievably dire of late ?

So demotivating.

Pauws99 · « **Reply #1 on:** October 13, 2017, 03:24 »

I thought things were picking up at beginning of october but this week across the board has been awful....except Mostphotos weirdly. (though from a tiny base so not compensating) Hope its just a blip but finding recently I get more of these blips.

alexzappa · « **Reply #2 on:** October 13, 2017, 04:38 »

October looks awfol even for the low standards I'm used to.

Shutterstock has been very regular in the last 6 months, with month to month oscillations always below 10% (the famous "cap"?) but in the first 12 days of October I made only 1/10th of the usual monthly avarage (in terms of revenue and DLs).

In general things are really quieter than usual on all the other agencies, too.

Unless some big changes next weeks, this will be my WME: I earned more on August 2016, after two month since I started, with 200 items on 4 agencies, than what I'll probably do this month with 1600 items on 14 agencies.

Not really encouraging...

Quasarphoto · « **Reply #3 on:** October 13, 2017, 07:51 »

Sometimes you just have to put in balance: anybody wanted the photos you have, I mean the theme.Or. Somebody else had better photos of the same theme and the buyer picked that. A limited number of a certain theme will sell in a month. Sometimes buyers look for fresh ideas, would they buy a photo which is seen at every gas station or they want something new?

Mantis · « **Reply #4 on:** October 13, 2017, 08:26 »

Quote from: Pauws99 on October 13, 2017, 03:24

I thought things were picking up at beginning of october but this week across the board has been awful....except Mostphotos weirdly. (though from a tiny base so not compensating) Hope its just a blip but finding recently I get more of these blips.

HAHA me too. Sept was a 'back to normal' month and now Oct is back to bad. These last 6-8 months on SS have essentially shown that there is a new norm for my port. Granted I am no longer really producing commercial work for micro, just uploading stuff I like to shoot. The more I read about high-enders producing commercial work and not really seeing any tangible benefits makes me glad I haven't spend a lot of time in the studio. I've instead decided to get into motion time-lapse and while there is a learning curve with motion and holy grail it brings what I like to do: problem solve, learn, reapply and see results. I think 2018 will be a strong focus on improving my video as opposed to stills. When I added over 1,000 videos (600 ish in a year) I saw ZERO increase in sales on SS. I sell video, but less stills to balance out my monthly average. It sure stinks of controlled revenue. I have over 5,000 assets on SS with a mix of video and stills and my income is still the same as it was when I wasn't shooting video.

Brightontl · « **Reply #5 on:** October 13, 2017, 08:48 »

Quote from: Mantis on October 13, 2017, 08:26

Quote from: Pauws99 on October 13, 2017, 03:24
I thought things were picking up at beginning of october but this week across the board has been awful....except Mostphotos weirdly. (though from a tiny base so not compensating) Hope its just a blip but finding recently I get more of these blips.

HAHA me too. Sept was a 'back to normal' month and now Oct is back to bad. These last 6-8 months on SS have essentially shown that there is a new norm for my port. Granted I am no longer really producing commercial work for micro, just uploading stuff I like to shoot. The more I read about high-enders producing commercial work and not really seeing any tangible benefits makes me glad I haven't spend a lot of time in the studio. I've instead decided to get into motion time-lapse and while there is a learning curve with motion and holy grail it brings what I like to do: problem solve, learn, reapply and see results. I think 2018 will be a strong focus on improving my video as opposed to stills. When I added over 1,000 videos (600 ish in a year) I saw ZERO increase in sales on SS. I sell video, but less stills to balance out my monthly average. It sure stinks of controlled revenue. I have over 5,000 assets on SS with a mix of video and stills and my income is still the same as it was when I wasn't shooting video.

Mantis I have exactly the same situation as you, only opposite.
I was doing video only for a couple of years, but a few months ago I started uploading also photos and it was a very bad idea.
At SS I do sell some photos and the revenue is increasing month by month, but my total revenue stays the same. In other words photo sales are taking out income from video sales.
At FT/Adobe, even much worse: I always did quite well at FT with video sales, even though the revenue was constantly the same, in spite of increasing the portfolio. This month so far I have had the usual number of downloads, but zero video download: my allocated number of download has been totally taken by crappy sales of photos!!! Of course I will be deleting all the photos in my port.

All other agencies are not even worth mentioning: I stopped at all of them after a couple of months

dragonblade · « **Reply #6 on:** October 13, 2017, 12:48 »

Looks like I'm not alone. There have always been cycles of good sales / bad sales before but at the moment, I reckon I'm having the longest period of no sales / low sales ever.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #7 on:** October 13, 2017, 13:13 »

Actually I find my sales are picking up since September (mostly because of video sales), after a lousy July and August.

Shelma1 · « **Reply #8 on:** October 13, 2017, 13:30 »

Acceptance of every image, no matter how redundant, so the site is flooded with similar crud. Pushing newer contributors up in the search and burying established contributors to maximize profits. And competition from free sites. I see more and more businesses using photos from free photo sites for their social media every day. That's killing our sub sales.

Chichikov · « **Reply #9 on:** October 13, 2017, 13:32 »

Don't worry, be happy, we have Shutterstock Custom now…
We are saved!!

Microstockphoto · « **Reply #10 on:** October 13, 2017, 16:01 »

i see a little uptick to a normal average week like about 2 years ago, which is a great improvement compared to the car crash it has been. having said that, it will probably fall of a cliff again soon. downward and backwards, that sums it ss up.,

k_t_g · « **Reply #11 on:** October 13, 2017, 17:09 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on October 13, 2017, 13:30

Acceptance of every image, no matter how redundant, so the site is flooded with similar crud. Pushing newer contributors up in the search and burying established contributors to maximize profits. And competition from free sites. I see more and more businesses using photos from free photo sites for their social media every day. That's killing our sub sales.

Not to mention loads of online cheat programs that steal your images.
I wish SS and others affected by this would get off their buns and fix this nonsense.

In the mean time, no uploads for them.

Desintegrator · « **Reply #12 on:** October 13, 2017, 18:26 »

After a dreadful August and September, October is really nice so far. Highest RPD ever. But fresh new images hardly ever sell. Mainly selling images from many many years ago.

solucionfotografica · « **Reply #13 on:** October 13, 2017, 18:53 »

5 days in a row without download, something like that had never happened !!! It is not normal.

Quasarphoto · « **Reply #14 on:** October 14, 2017, 09:25 »

Shutterstock (and others) algorithm aways awarded the working photographer, who is contributing continuously. I observed that myself, if I slack my sales drop, when I upload my sales revive. I agree with this algorithm myself too. Regular contributors who really rely on the income from sales, with no other job should take this in consideration. There are 500,000-1,000,000 ports out there. Probably those guys cannot afford to spend too much time on forums, as they are producing content. If you have a 1- 2,000 or so port, these days is a drop in the sea, you shouldn't expect much sales, unless they are mind-blowing quality and variety, which I don't think so.

sgoodwin4813 · « **Reply #15 on:** October 14, 2017, 10:02 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on October 13, 2017, 13:30

And competition from free sites. I see more and more businesses using photos from free photo sites for their social media every day. That's killing our sub sales.

That. And not just social media, I see lots of news feeds using images from flickr, etc., that used to get them from stock agencies. Why anyone would go to the trouble to make, keyword and upload images to be used for free I can't imagine and yet there are millions of them. Of course most are low quality but some are quite good and the end users don't seem to notice or care as long as they don't have to pay. Very frustrating.

Quasarphoto · « **Reply #16 on:** October 14, 2017, 11:17 »

Quote from: sgoodwin4813 on October 14, 2017, 10:02

Quote from: Shelma1 on October 13, 2017, 13:30
And competition from free sites. I see more and more businesses using photos from free photo sites for their social media every day. That's killing our sub sales.

That. And not just social media, I see lots of news feeds using images from flickr, etc., that used to get them from stock agencies. Why anyone would go to the trouble to make, keyword and upload images to be used for free I can't imagine and yet there are millions of them. Of course most are low quality but some are quite good and the end users don't seem to notice or care as long as they don't have to pay. Very frustrating.

Gotta be careful with Flickr or such. There is a specific classification there called 'creative commons' only photos from there can be used and even that with limitations. I just pulled off a scandal about that regarding one of my photos. At the end I decided to delete everything from Flickr and Pinterest and close my Pro account. I noticed photos being used from my travel blog also and I will need to take steps regarding that. If you don't want people to use your photos for free I guess you need to be careful where you post. Although if a buyer is using a photo for their site legally purchased, well the image can be lifted from there too. Welcome to the digital age.

Lukeruk · « **Reply #17 on:** October 14, 2017, 11:28 »

Overall quality on free sites is better than SS. SS have better quality images but you can't see them on the first pages, can't see them on the "new" search. Main problem with SS is - quantity defeated quality. Few of my clients already switched to free sites.
Very large design community on 99designs now downloads files from "free pik", year ago SS was their main source of images.

Desintegrator · « **Reply #18 on:** October 14, 2017, 11:57 »

Quote from: Lukeruk on October 14, 2017, 11:28

Overall quality on free sites is better than SS. SS have better quality images but you can't see them on the first pages, can't see them on the "new" search. Main problem with SS is - quantity defeated quality. Few of my clients already switched to free sites.
Very large design community on 99designs now downloads files from "free pik", year ago SS was their main source of images.

I just can't understand why SS gave up totally on quality control. Is it that important to have 150+ million images? Are buyers really looking at that number? Or is saving on the cost of proper reviewing that significant to them?

Quasarphoto · « **Reply #19 on:** October 14, 2017, 12:16 »

Quote from: Lukeruk on October 14, 2017, 11:28

Overall quality on free sites is better than SS. SS have better quality images but you can't see them on the first pages, can't see them on the "new" search. Main problem with SS is - quantity defeated quality. Few of my clients already switched to free sites.
Very large design community on 99designs now downloads files from "free pik", year ago SS was their main source of images.

If 99designs use free photos and sell their services for $ they are ignorant pricks. If you are too cheap to spend 25c on a photo while you charge $299-$1299 on your packages, well again, pricks. Based on what you quoted, I never heard of them until now, I use Canva.

derek · « **Reply #20 on:** October 14, 2017, 12:37 »

Quote from: Desintegrator on October 14, 2017, 11:57

Quote from: Lukeruk on October 14, 2017, 11:28
Overall quality on free sites is better than SS. SS have better quality images but you can't see them on the first pages, can't see them on the "new" search. Main problem with SS is - quantity defeated quality. Few of my clients already switched to free sites.
Very large design community on 99designs now downloads files from "free pik", year ago SS was their main source of images.

I just can't understand why SS gave up totally on quality control. Is it that important to have 150+ million images? Are buyers really looking at that number? Or is saving on the cost of proper reviewing that significant to them?

Yes unfortunately it is very important! assets ! they have 150 miljon assets which of course is OUR assets but thats what they have. Very important to shareholders and when going to bank!

Lukeruk · « **Reply #21 on:** October 14, 2017, 12:40 »

@Quasarphoto

Not 99design, it is a design contest based website/platform. Designers who participate there uses free images.

Quasarphoto · « **Reply #22 on:** October 14, 2017, 13:01 »

Quote from: Lukeruk on October 14, 2017, 12:40

@Quasarphoto

Not 99design, it is a design contest based website/platform. Designers who participate there uses free images.

Aren't they in charge of their content? Or all they after is $$? If I upload to SS a photo with non-licensable content they will refuse it. So kudos to SS to keep an eye on things and being considerate? Even if an editorial caption is wrong they will turn it down.

Desintegrator · « **Reply #23 on:** October 14, 2017, 13:08 »

Quote from: derek on October 14, 2017, 12:37

Quote from: Desintegrator on October 14, 2017, 11:57
Quote from: Lukeruk on October 14, 2017, 11:28
Overall quality on free sites is better than SS. SS have better quality images but you can't see them on the first pages, can't see them on the "new" search. Main problem with SS is - quantity defeated quality. Few of my clients already switched to free sites.
Very large design community on 99designs now downloads files from "free pik", year ago SS was their main source of images.

I just can't understand why SS gave up totally on quality control. Is it that important to have 150+ million images? Are buyers really looking at that number? Or is saving on the cost of proper reviewing that significant to them?

Yes unfortunately it is very important! assets ! they have 150 miljon assets which of course is OUR assets but thats what they have. Very important to shareholders and when going to bank!

But this way it's actually decreasing the value of their collection. The average quality really went down. Many years ago buyers could expect to find quality-checked images in return for paying for the service instead of looking for free files..

Having a firm quality control was that differentiated microstocks from free image sites the most

Shelma1 · « **Reply #24 on:** October 14, 2017, 13:36 »

I'm in an advertising FB group, and some graphics guy shared an article about the free sites, including Freepik, which stole a bunch of my vectors and made them available for free. I explained that they stole my work and the work of many others, and everyone should do themselves a favor and just use legit sites and pay for a license. His response? "It's still helpful, tho." Asshat.

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Author Topic: What is happening to SS? (Read 28805 times)

Phadrea

Pauws99

alexzappa

Quasarphoto

Mantis

Brightontl

dragonblade

Noedelhap

Shelma1

Chichikov

Microstockphoto

k_t_g

Desintegrator

solucionfotografica

Quasarphoto

sgoodwin4813

Quasarphoto

Lukeruk

Desintegrator

Quasarphoto

derek

Lukeruk

Quasarphoto

Desintegrator

Shelma1

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