Author Topic: October 2011 Sales (Read 5326 times)

imageegami · « **on:** November 05, 2011, 11:11 »

Since free speech is not something that is encouraged on the iStock forum, I thought it might be a good idea to have a parallel monthly sales thread here.

There seems to be a particularly high level of contributors with falling sales.

I am reposting here what was removed on iStock forum:

http://siteanalytics.compete.com/istockphoto.com/ (Re-posted Noodles`s link - picture is worth a thousand words)

The first step to fixing a problem is admittting that you have one (see above link). iStock needs to acknowledge that they have made mistakes when they screwed everyone over with commission cuts, then make things right by keeping their original promise of grandfathering canister level commissions and not reducing commissions on V/A. Although untold damage has already been inflicted, I don`t think that its too late yet to turn the boat around. The effects of their short sighted policies are just now becoming self evident.

PaulieWalnuts · « **Reply #1 on:** November 05, 2011, 12:08 »

The first step is to determine if you actually have a problem.

You're assuming the 70% drop is a problem for IS. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

What happens if they did lose 70% traffic but actually increased revenue and profits? Is it possible the buyers that stayed are buying Vetta and Agency which makes up for what was lost? They may have planned for, and expected, this drop.

tee · « **Reply #2 on:** November 05, 2011, 14:06 »

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on November 05, 2011, 12:08

The first step is to determine if you actually have a problem.

You're assuming the 70% drop is a problem for IS. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

What happens if they did lose 70% traffic but actually increased revenue and profits? Is it possible the buyers that stayed are buying Vetta and Agency which makes up for what was lost? They may have planned for, and expected, this drop.

It's true that traffic != revenue, but there's a pretty high correlation. When you read the iS Oct. sales thread, many of the top earning artists on the site are reporting drastic losses, so I'd be amazed if somehow that wasn't affecting iS' bottom line in a big way. That being said I'd be amazed if they threw contributors a bone. Morale is so low there that I'm not even sure it would help all that much. My guess is it'll be more cuts or other shafts to contributors, if anything. I can't believe they aren't talking about this with us yet. Probably still working on spin, and we'll hear how it's good for us in the long run.

Even if traffic and sales were to suddenly pick up, lots of people (myself included) are likely going to fall short of the RC goals they set way back before they started the main series of middle fingers to contributors.

imageegami · « **Reply #3 on:** November 05, 2011, 14:47 »

Although theoretically possible, I think you would be hard pressed to find someone at iStock to stand up and say that this is a good trend and that it was planned (although they have said stranger things in the past).
IMO the trend during a recession would be for customers on average to trend away from more costly imagerie such as Vetta and Agency and look for suitable alternatives at better prices. At the end of the day when traffic to the site is down by 2/3, and most contributors are complaining about plummeting sales (especially large portfolio contributors which are more statistically significant) its generally not a good performance indicator.

imageegami · « **Reply #4 on:** November 05, 2011, 15:21 »

The problem iStock is having is similar to the problem governments have when they want to increase their revenue. The simple answer is “raise taxes”. The unfortunate result is that people find ways to avoid paying more taxes by moving away or not starting businesses etc. And in end the laws of diminishing returns take hold. In other words, the more a government raises taxes, the less revenue they get. iStock IMO is faced with a similar problem now. Short sighted profitability objectives resulted in higher commissions (To the point of ridiculousness) and contributors started migrating elsewhere. Customers followed (Some contributors are also customers, so double whammy in certain cases). These trends are not easily reversed. iStock has enjoyed a market leadership position and instead of nurturing it, it has abused it and the inevitable downward trend has now been placed into motion. It will take a huge effort on their part to reverse this but I don`t get the sense that anyone there has smelled the coffee yet.

sharpshot · « **Reply #5 on:** November 06, 2011, 04:56 »

+1 on that. I have used the tax analogy before. By taking more from us, they have decreased motivation and increased the strengths of their rivals. The only way back for istock is a reversal of this policy but that's not likely, unless they are sold. It could be a good opportunity for someone to buy them, now they are struggling but are they for sale? It looks like istock is going to become a Getty collection and all the microstock images will be moved to Thinkstock.

I think they have planned to reduce traffic, by increasing prices. They have planned all these changes and they aren't for our benefit. It looks like there's lots more on the way and I don't think most of us are going to benefit. Perhaps they think that it will improve Getty, if the biggest microstock site has much less customers? What I don't understand is that they seem to of forgotten about the other microstock sites. Perhaps they underestimated the strength of the competition? As long as they don't buy Shutterstock, their strategy seems flawed.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #6 on:** November 06, 2011, 07:53 »

It seems that those encouraging a boycott in this thread http://www.microstockgroup.com/istockphoto-com/buyers-bailing-on-istock/ were successful.

Negative publicity can have a huge effect. This guy reckoned that one nasty internet comment wiped out 80% of his business http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15575171

microstockphoto.co.uk · « **Reply #7 on:** November 06, 2011, 07:54 »

Since the iStock issues started, I did NOT experience a reduction in my overall earnings, but just a shift from iStock to all other sites, mainly Shutterstock. They may not care about us and microstock, but why should we keep on caring about them?
I just hope they will manage to keep their exclusives "happy" - that is, at least not too angry to leave - so they won't flood our independent marketplace (although I have some doubts that they are a real menace: standards at Shutterstock nowadays are higher than at iStock).

For the rest, they are slowly turning into a minor site - at least from the microstock perspective - so there's nothing to worry about. And since they have the worst upload method ever (barely acceptable thanks to DeepMeta), they are saving us a lot of time if they become completely irrelevant. Did anyone cry for months when Lucky Oliver (and similar) closed? No, because they meant nothing to most of us. That's what will happen in the near future if they don't change their attitude completely. A new owner is the only solution imo; otherwise, bye bye iStock. I'm not deleting port but just collecting what is left until they die, and I wish them good luck - sincerely - in their new adventures away from us and from microstock as we know it.

We must accept changes, in our own interest. Let's stop whining about a single site which used to be n.1 in the past, or we will look like those old photographers shouting at us microstockers instead of adapting. I spent the last few months uploading my entire port to all minor sites - including the virtually hopeless ones - and guess what? They completely replaced - and even surpassed - iStock loss collectively.

And the other site which is following them in the race to cut commissions is advised! Try not to reach the same point of no return, please.

StanRohrer · « **Reply #8 on:** November 07, 2011, 07:33 »

When looking at site visit stats, are the forum visits a part of the overall? Certainly the iStock forums are a lot quieter than they were a few years ago. Is it possible the sales accesses are still close but the differential is in the forum access? Does anyone have a guess on what percentage of site access is related to sales and what percentage is related to forum activity?

imageegami · « **Reply #9 on:** November 07, 2011, 07:48 »

No one knows but that metric isn`t measuring visits, its measuring unique visits. The people who visit forums are mostly contributors and they visit to check earnings, upload, keyword etc. so they don`t really affect the stats. In other words whether or not they visit the forums, they still only count for 1 visit so if they suddenly would all stop visiting forum, the stats would remain unaffected.

jen · « **Reply #10 on:** November 07, 2011, 18:12 »

We should also take into consideration that their stats are based on 2,000,000 internet users (1%) in the US only. They've already said they've ramped up their overseas marketing so perhaps European visitors have gone up?

lisafx · « **Reply #11 on:** November 07, 2011, 18:40 »

Quote from: jen on November 07, 2011, 18:12

We should also take into consideration that their stats are based on 2,000,000 internet users (1%) in the US only. They've already said they've ramped up their overseas marketing so perhaps European visitors have gone up?

I doubt it. Since the European crisis heated up my sales during European business hours have gone way down. Maybe it's just my port, but a most sales are coming from the US recently.