Seems we're slowly opening a can of worms here..

To give an indication - I have a somewhat poor acceptance ratio regardless on SS for example (only about 60% I think).
FT, however is ridiculous.
I've submitted around the same number of pics, and although I'm still new to this, my port on SS is around 55 images only. My port on FT is around 16!!!
That's not very encouraging at all.
I've made 35 downloads this month and counting, on a port of 55 images.
I can't say that's bad at all for SS, but shocking for FT.

Seems they're shooting themselves in the foot - if they accepted some fine images from the rest of us, they may actually make more money.
Quality is important - I get that - and there's no compromise, however, in financial times like this, they should potentially be looking into growing their base to make more sales, or at least broaden horizons.

If I was a marketer, I would likely go to the site that has the most images available.
This increases my chances of finding what I'm looking for - surely?

For your amusement, I am posting the pics that did not reach aesthetic level of quality for today:
 

Fotolia has killed my last batch also...

2/10 were approved only...

Here is some of them,also touristic motives but few hundred km from Mostar,island Cres...
Rejected:




Approved:

Quote from: Chris.Alleaume on March 24, 2009, 12:46

Seems they're shooting themselves in the foot - if they accepted some fine images from the rest of us, they may actually make more money.
Quality is important - I get that - and there's no compromise, however, in financial times like this, they should potentially be looking into growing their base to make more sales, or at least broaden horizons.

If I was a marketer, I would likely go to the site that has the most images available.
This increases my chances of finding what I'm looking for - surely?

I agree that Fotolia has some crazy rejections.  I certainly would not dispute that.

But to your broader point, no, it does not benefit sites to be less picky and "broaden their horizons".  All the major micros have in the millions of images now.  The sites that do better and attract more buyers are the ones that have higher standards of image quality.    

If you look at the top sites to the right of this forum, you will find that there is a more or less direct correlation between how selective they are and how many sales they generate.  

As an example - istock, which is very selective, is able to charge more and keep its position among the top sites because customers know they can find quality there.  OTOH Canstock, which until very recently took nearly anything submitted, hardly has any sales at all.  

Before they pulled the capability to see some details on the buyer, I was able to surmise that most of my sales were to European customers.  I really think that FT has a totally different take on what their buyers want.

As coming out of germany and selling most on Fotolia i can say: yes, most of the customers from Fotolia are out of germany and nearby in europe.
...and don't give any attention to the rejection reasons on FT, they roll a dice for their rejection mails (don't understand this as abuse, they know itself and laugh about it. My own rejection rate is less than 10% on FT and the rejections i get are allmost complet nonsense. Latest rejection i get was about pixelproblems and blur...unfortunately it was a vector illustration).

Greets from Bertold

Of the seven sites I have contributed to over the last 2 years - largest portfolio is only 262 on SS -  only on FT have my revenues increased faster than my portfolio size  (121).  Earnings have collapsed elsewhere (WME on SS in spite of the fact that I just got my raise to $0.33) or at best stayed even (IS).  FT must be doing something right.

fred

Add my voice to the FT craziness  they seem to run hot and cold or there is a reviewer out of step with others, I just had a batch hit, in it were images taken on the same background and setup just the object changed yet I got rejections for aesthetic level of quality, most times it makes no sense especially when 9 other agencies approve the same image including IS which people deem to be the toughest to work with.

David

Rejections at FT are a pain but they are easy to upload to.  I recently found out that you really don't have to assign any categories if you don't want to and that speeds their upload process a lot.

c h e e r s
fred

Fotolia has also turned out to be my harshest critic by far. 

They reject photos that all other sites accepted. Even phots that IS accepted (!).  They reject my best sellers.  And always with that snotty line about not meeting their "level of aesthetic quality".   Couldn't they change that to something with a bit less edge, maybe "not what we're looking for"?

This is my BME at Fotolia and Fotolia earnings take 3rd place this month (usually it was 4th or even 5th).

I had a pretty good month at Fotolia, not BME, but good.

As coming out of germany and selling most on Fotolia i can say: yes, most of the customers from Fotolia are out of germany and nearby in europe.
...and don't give any attention to the rejection reasons on FT, they roll a dice for their rejection mails (don't understand this as abuse, they know itself and laugh about it. My own rejection rate is less than 10% on FT and the rejections i get are allmost complet nonsense. Latest rejection i get was about pixelproblems and blur...unfortunately it was a vector illustration).

Greets from Bertold

 

I just try to sneak 'em back in later....one at a time!

Seriously though, I believe that most of my sale on FT come from the Eurozone (credit price 1.00 Euro) whereas FT likes to keep me on the UK site at 60 pence/0.66 Euro per credit. This is good business for FT but some things do sell so I'm not whining.

Just got clobbered again.  It is very confusing.  I uploaded mostly flowers to a European-leaning site.  That wasn't real smart.  Europeans are way deep in flowering culture.  But, the only one accepted was a flower?  Go figure.   

It only bothers me when they reject photo that I know is good and has been selling elsewhere.