Author Topic: Shutter Stock Sales Drop (Read 19972 times)

angelawaye · « **Reply #25 on:** June 30, 2016, 09:02 »

It is a * good thing I don't shoot this type of imagery! I would give up with that kind of competition - haha

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #26 on:** June 30, 2016, 09:58 »

Quote from: pixel8 on June 29, 2016, 19:41

Quote from: Minsc on June 29, 2016, 15:07
These guys currently occupy a good portion of the most popular images on SS:

http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-2117717p1.html

If your image sales are down, these guys probably have something to do with it. IMO, they have one of the best overall mircostock portfolio on SS and they're targeting some of the most popular categories. Studios like these are one of the reasons why sales are down for many people.

There is no conspiracy. There is escalating competition. I've seen some of my popular images stopped getting downloads because someone has a better image than me. At that point, the only option I have was create something better. My downloads continue increase month over month (Hit a new BME today), so don't see any artificial cap on downloads/earnings per day.

That is an insane amount of photos I don't understand why they even submit to SS and not just promote their own site as a stock site in competition with SS and IS. I can't keep up with that machine.

good point. if you have enough ppl to produce that many like a factory, you would in fact be better off starting your own agency, giving all your factory products the top ranking and top search
and you can still under ss and still end up being ahead in the books.
plus, you get to deduct all your expenses as be CEO too.

Noedelhap · « **Reply #27 on:** June 30, 2016, 18:07 »

Worst month in more than 3 years, worst June since 2011.

NitorPhoto · « **Reply #28 on:** July 01, 2016, 10:27 »

This is definitely an unfair behavior what should be punished and the images removed by SS. It is 100% clear the contributor tries to fool the customers by this little dirty trick. Disgusting.

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 29, 2016, 16:52

I noticed something today which is either the entrepreneurial spirit in full bloom, or the sad abdication of any long term care over their library by Shutterstock: A vector contributor has started adding "Good Vector", "Best Vector Ever", "Best Seller", and "Exeptional Vector" icons to the uploaded work. And that's the contributor's spelling, not my typo.

It seems to me completely unfair to customers that they have to remove this trash from their vectors prior to using them. It's not much work, admittedly, but it's still rude behavior and I don't think SS should permit this type of stuff.

Not to mention labeling many vectors in your portfolio "Best Vector Ever" suggests you don't really understand what you've written.

everest · « **Reply #29 on:** July 01, 2016, 10:54 »

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on June 30, 2016, 07:36

Quote from: pixel8 on June 29, 2016, 23:15
Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on June 29, 2016, 19:57

Totally true.

Although, if you sort by newest, you can just take your existing images and add words on top of them.

Please explain what you mean "you can just take your existing images and add words on top of them."

Sort that portfolio by newest, and you'll see.

nice way to self destroy a portfolio.......really weird stuff this mega factories do.....

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #30 on:** July 01, 2016, 11:06 »

Quote from: NitorPhoto on July 01, 2016, 10:27

This is definitely an unfair behavior what should be punished and the images removed by SS. It is 100% clear the contributor tries to fool the customers by this little dirty trick. Disgusting.

Quote from: Jo Ann Snover on June 29, 2016, 16:52

I noticed something today which is either the entrepreneurial spirit in full bloom, or the sad abdication of any long term care over their library by Shutterstock: A vector contributor has started adding "Good Vector", "Best Vector Ever", "Best Seller", and "Exeptional Vector" icons to the uploaded work. And that's the contributor's spelling, not my typo.

It seems to me completely unfair to customers that they have to remove this trash from their vectors prior to using them. It's not much work, admittedly, but it's still rude behavior and I don't think SS should permit this type of stuff.

Not to mention labeling many vectors in your portfolio "Best Vector Ever" suggests you don't really understand what you've written.

alas, ss is too busy penalizing ordinary folks like you and me on spamming words
blaming all of us , even the ones who is not guilty.
even had a reviewer reject me for grammar error which was non-existent
... so where was this diligence-beast of burden when they were really needed?

Astonished · « **Reply #31 on:** July 01, 2016, 13:02 »

June 16 sales is just at 20% of June 15. It's getting ridiculous

pixel8 · « **Reply #32 on:** July 01, 2016, 18:18 »

Today was a bad day, I swear if july is going to be worse than June then it might be time to put my 4000 portfolio of popular images online at full res for free and let Karma take care of the rest! Hopefully it was due to outages at SS today but I am not so sure thats it.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #33 on:** July 01, 2016, 20:26 »

Quote from: pixel8 on July 01, 2016, 18:18

Today was a bad day, I swear if july is going to be worse than June then it might be time to put my 4000 portfolio of popular images online at full res for free and let Karma take care of the rest! Hopefully it was due to outages at SS today but I am not so sure thats it.

Sorry you had a bad day, but it's a holiday in Canada and the lead up to a 3-day holiday weekend in the US on top of Fridays being slow weekdays in general.

Of course I could just be feeling a little less gloomy about SS because they e-mailed me about an EL purchase this morning (I opted out when they cut rates) and as it was for $28 I let them process it.

For June, downloads were up 4% over 2015, but $$ were down 36% - almost all relating to SODs all but vanishing. I can't see how the subscription business can possibly make up for the siphoning off of the SODs to keep the larger contributors happy (which is what I assume they're doing with Premier Select; I have no information whatever to back that guess up).

Minsc · « **Reply #34 on:** July 01, 2016, 22:57 »

Quote from: pixel8 on July 01, 2016, 18:18

Today was a bad day, I swear if july is going to be worse than June then it might be time to put my 4000 portfolio of popular images online at full res for free and let Karma take care of the rest! Hopefully it was due to outages at SS today but I am not so sure thats it.

July 4th weekend. Most people were off today. Personally, sales are down 20%, but that's expected.

If you have 4000 images and sales are declining, consider re-keywording some of your images.

heywoody · « **Reply #35 on:** July 02, 2016, 05:38 »

Statistically my RPI has fallen by 50% over 3 years due to simple supply & demand. From that it's reasonable to infer that, to keep earnings static, it's necessary to double your portfolio every three years. Doubling it quicker results in earning going up but, while doubling port size in the beginning is easy it's gonna become impossible after a few years. The time needed to double port size is also gonna decrease as the choice for buyers is growing so fast.

In the long term, supplying MS sites is really not a viable business

OM · « **Reply #36 on:** July 02, 2016, 06:44 »

Quote from: Minsc on June 29, 2016, 15:07

These guys currently occupy a good portion of the most popular images on SS:

http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-2117717p1.html

If your image sales are down, these guys probably have something to do with it. IMO, they have one of the best overall mircostock portfolio on SS and they're targeting some of the most popular categories. Studios like these are one of the reasons why sales are down for many people.

There is no conspiracy. There is escalating competition. I've seen some of my popular images stopped getting downloads because someone has a better image than me. At that point, the only option I have was create something better. My downloads continue increase month over month (Hit a new BME today), so don't see any artificial cap on downloads/earnings per day.

Interesting thing about that factory (and I've seen others that do it too) if you click on their 'about' on that contributor page, their website is not so much a web site as their own stock agency using their SS page as a link. I didn't look further but I'll bet that their prices for ODDs' packages are better than those of SS. Maybe these guys and others are taking the business in ODDs, SODs and ELs away from SS which could also be a reason for declining earnings for other contributors.

Mantis · « **Reply #37 on:** July 02, 2016, 08:15 »

Quote from: Minsc on July 01, 2016, 22:57

Quote from: pixel8 on July 01, 2016, 18:18
Today was a bad day, I swear if july is going to be worse than June then it might be time to put my 4000 portfolio of popular images online at full res for free and let Karma take care of the rest! Hopefully it was due to outages at SS today but I am not so sure thats it.

July 4th weekend. Most people were off today. Personally, sales are down 20%, but that's expected.

If you have 4000 images and sales are declining, consider re-keywording some of your images.

When the SS email came out I started looking at my accepted images starting in late 2006. I've gotten so much better at key wording today, and am in fact going to go through all of my older images and cleaning the keywords......albeit taking my time and not panicking against a 2-3 week timeline. I've already plowed through 100 images in a few hours.

OM · « **Reply #38 on:** July 02, 2016, 08:38 »

I have to wonder whether re-kewording old images that are so far down the sort order is going to make any difference to their sales. I've done it with a few old and even not-so-old images but it seems to have no effect. Time and number of sales within a short time on the site seem to be the most important factors for a good position in search.

Mantis · « **Reply #39 on:** July 02, 2016, 08:41 »

Quote from: OM on July 02, 2016, 08:38

I have to wonder whether re-kewording old images that are so far down the sort order is going to make any difference to their sales. I've done it with a few old and even not-so-old images but it seems to have no effect. Time and number of sales within a short time on the site seem to be the most important factors for a good position in search.

Totally possible and highly probable. Just gives me something to do this weekend.

Minsc · « **Reply #40 on:** July 02, 2016, 11:30 »

Quote from: Mantis on July 02, 2016, 08:15

Quote from: Minsc on July 01, 2016, 22:57
Quote from: pixel8 on July 01, 2016, 18:18
Today was a bad day, I swear if july is going to be worse than June then it might be time to put my 4000 portfolio of popular images online at full res for free and let Karma take care of the rest! Hopefully it was due to outages at SS today but I am not so sure thats it.

July 4th weekend. Most people were off today. Personally, sales are down 20%, but that's expected.

If you have 4000 images and sales are declining, consider re-keywording some of your images.

When the SS email came out I started looking at my accepted images starting in late 2006. I've gotten so much better at key wording today, and am in fact going to go through all of my older images and cleaning the keywords......albeit taking my time and not panicking against a 2-3 week timeline. I've already plowed through 100 images in a few hours.

That's great. When I first uploaded, I used the shutterstock keywording tool a lot as a clutch. It turned out to be fairly ineffective when competing against established images because there is nothing unique about your keywording.

I went back and re-keyworded my earlier images and sales started trickling in for them.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #41 on:** July 02, 2016, 15:43 »

Quote from: OM on July 02, 2016, 08:38

I have to wonder whether re-kewording old images that are so far down the sort order is going to make any difference to their sales. I've done it with a few old and even not-so-old images but it seems to have no effect. Time and number of sales within a short time on the site seem to be the most important factors for a good position in search.

highly doubtful, as rewording is not going to change your search position.
you are better off submitting new images .
also, if they are older images, you were likely to be in a mindset of what sold at that time,
and times have changed since then, at least for me,
and i see what was selling before is no longer selling today,

except for those that were selling well initially...
as they are still selling daily because of their placement on page 1 first row.

andy_arden · « **Reply #42 on:** July 05, 2016, 05:27 »

anyone having issues? with over 45k files i do good but after the day with the infamous mail from them my sales droped to half. i have also recived the "sorry" e-mail and i don't have a single image that spams their site. so anyone with sudden low sales?

Groman · « **Reply #43 on:** July 05, 2016, 05:35 »

Quote from: andy_arden on July 05, 2016, 05:27

anyone having issues? with over 45k files i do good but after the day with the infamous mail from them my sales droped to half. i have also recived the "sorry" e-mail and i don't have a single image that spams their site. so anyone with sudden low sales?

Yes! me too. Very low sales.

captain · « **Reply #44 on:** July 06, 2016, 01:43 »

bad sales on Shutterstock as well.

I decided to stop uploading new photo there.After this month,my download can reach the top tier level and no interest to upload any more new contents there.

Stockmaan · « **Reply #45 on:** July 06, 2016, 03:56 »

Quote from: Groman on July 05, 2016, 05:35

Quote from: andy_arden on July 05, 2016, 05:27
anyone having issues? with over 45k files i do good but after the day with the infamous mail from them my sales droped to half. i have also recived the "sorry" e-mail and i don't have a single image that spams their site. so anyone with sudden low sales?

Yes! me too. Very low sales.

Last 20 hours no sales.
Yes me too! Over 35 sales every day now only 10-15???

Dirima · « **Reply #46 on:** July 07, 2016, 01:56 »

Hi to all, I can also confirm your claims;
I have been suffering a progresive declination in sales and about a 30% income during last year with an alarmating lack of Ods and Enhance downloads. Since the last SS email the drop is bigger this week, entering in the ridiculous zone.
By other hand Fotolia and 123rf are rising to me.

skyfish · « **Reply #47 on:** July 07, 2016, 02:08 »

Everything is frozen from yesterday.

Chichikov · « **Reply #48 on:** July 07, 2016, 02:29 »

This year I have uploaded a lot of images, almost 35% of my portfolio has been uploaded this last 12 months.

My sales are still growing, very slowly but enough regularly.
The strange thing is that they are not growing because I am selling the new images, they are growing because I am selling more my "old" works…

I can't understand why.

Groman · « **Reply #49 on:** July 07, 2016, 02:33 »

My earning falling like a poisoned fly.

The buyers go to another agency because the shuttetstock portfolio it's bulk of crap.
I make new 50 new vectors, accapted in monday, and i sell nothing from them. I am realy Angry and frustrated
I stopped uploading the new pictures.
We sould boycott, stop the uploading the quality pictures, even the spammers, are there.
I belive the problem is the: tons of crap in the shutterstock.

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Author Topic: Shutter Stock Sales Drop (Read 19972 times)

angelawaye

etudiante_rapide

Noedelhap

NitorPhoto

everest

etudiante_rapide

Astonished

pixel8

Jo Ann Snover

Minsc

heywoody

OM

Mantis

OM

Mantis

Minsc

etudiante_rapide

andy_arden

Groman

captain

Stockmaan

Dirima

skyfish

Chichikov

Groman

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