Zooms in the time of COVID

[John Mitchell]

I've been seeing a drastic drop in zooms during the past few months -- only eight so far this month. CTR has been creeping downward as well. Strangely enough, sales have been holding up well. Most months have been average or better for number of licenses. Anyone else noticing this odd pattern? If so, any explanations or theories (crackpot or otherwise)?

[Ognyan Yosifov]

10 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

I've been seeing a drastic drop in zooms during the past few months -- only eight so far this month. CTR has been creeping downward as well. Strangely enough, sales have been holding up well. Most months have been average or better for number of licenses. Anyone else noticing this odd pattern? If so, any explanations or theories (crackpot or otherwise)?

Same here -  my zooms and CTR are lowest ever (especially in the last two months), but the sales are on the usual level

[DJ Myford]

With a tiny collection my CTR tends to swing between extremes, but I've been watching the mountain range slowly drift to the left of the graph, and this month the last zoom disappeared and I've flatlined.

[Doc]

Views, Zooms and sales all down by a similar proportion, to about 66% normal. CTR therefore approximating to normal; - but mainly a travel-biased portfolio.

 

Kumar

[Gina Kelly]

Zooms down, sales WAY down 

[Reimar]

Oddly, my zooms are not lower than normal.  Although it is once again taking AGES to open an image for editing.  The Alamy glitch continues.

But I must say sales are truly remarkable.  After two weeks, I finally got my first sale today for this month: two sales of the same image for 35 cents each.  That's right.  Net, but still....

Two other places are showing $53 and $61 for me so far this month.  Hard to see how Alamy will catch up given recent prices.

[losdemas]

30 minutes ago, Doc said:

Views, Zooms and sales all down by a similar proportion, to about 66% normal. CTR therefore approximating to normal; - but mainly a travel-biased portfolio.

 

Kumar

 

My experience is variable, but pretty much this - with distinctly editorial port.

[Marianne]

This has been my worst year ever, Covid has really taken its toll. In the spring and early summer, views were way down and although my CTR was holding steady, sales were gone.

 

 Starting late in the summer, when Covid was down, views crept back closer to normal, and some images zoomed back then sold in August, September and two this month. Ironically, while sales improved, at the same time my CTR dropped and is now average for my primary pseudo (which is more usually .80 to over 1.0) and well below average for the others.

 

This month, my views are down a little from the summer and early fall, but significantly up from the spring and early summer, although still below past years. I made more back in 2009 when I was new to this with a handful of files than I have this year with over 1400 higher quality images and a much better understanding of how to keyword. 

 

With Covid at its worst here in the US, it's really impossible to tell whether things will get back to normal when there are finally widespread vaccines around the world. I'm hopeful that with a new administration things in my country will improve and 2021 will be a better year. The news about new vaccines is encouraging, let's hope this pandemic is controlled around the world and we can all start rebuilding our economies. 

Edited November 13, 2020 by Marianne

[Marianne]

As with many here, my portfolio is primarily travel oriented. I had a migraine for most of my only vacation in January, so I had just one day to shoot. Since then I've been healthy but with Covid all I've managed are a handful of new landscape images, which don't generally have much sales potential. Fortunately a lot of my images are fairly timeless so hopefully when travel is safe again the lack of new images in 2020 won't put me at a disadvantage, as I'm certainly not alone in being unable to shoot much that is new. 

 

I've tried to add other types of images to my portfolio but my only sales here even this year have been travel images, Alamy's and my strength. 

[John Mitchell]

My current crackpot theory is that mainly well-established Alamy customers tend to be licensing images here these days. New ones might be going elsewhere for economic reasons. Hence the drop in zooms but not so much in sales (in my case, anyway).

[Matt Ashmore]

My CTR last month was pretty good but so far it has been abysmal this month.

I would guess the subjects in your portfolio makes a difference. Presumably, newspapers will still be buying images but producers of travel brochures maybe won't so much. And maybe publishers are delaying the publication of new books.

Edited November 13, 2020 by Matt Ashmore

[meanderingemu]

After tanking as the Pandemic set in, my Zoom had rebounded nicely in August, September... but this was short lived, October was my lowest zoom since i started focusing on Alamy, I think my CTR was at 0 for the first half of the month....  not much rebound in November, though thankfully i had a couple early so the line is not a fall to 0....

 

 

[Michael Ventura]

Oddly, my Zooms and CTR are at the highest point since January....but sales have been sluggish so far this month.  Hopefully sales will pick up in the second half of November.

[AlbertSnapper]

Maybe because many bods are working from home, therefore their Alamy activity isn't recorded in the database ?

They are using their own computers, not logged in from the usual customer account computer.

 

When images are purchased/licenced, that actual buying bit is done back at the office.

 

Just an idea. But probably a crackpot idea !

 

Prices seem to be creeping up tho, for me at least.

[ReeRay]

7 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

I've been seeing a drastic drop in zooms during the past few months -- only eight so far this month. CTR has been creeping downward as well. Strangely enough, sales have been holding up well. Most months have been average or better for number of licenses. Anyone else noticing this odd pattern? If so, any explanations or theories (crackpot or otherwise)?

 

Not surprised as most days lately the site is either down or running at snails pace.  Most morning between 09.00 and 10.00 over here (02.00 GMT) the site is down. Then again a few hours later. 

WHY?

[John Mitchell]

15 minutes ago, ReeRay said:

 

Not surprised as most days lately the site is either down or running at snails pace.  Most morning between 09.00 and 10.00 over here (02.00 GMT) the site is down. Then again a few hours later. 

WHY?

 

That's a good point. Perhaps it's a technical thing -- i.e. some zooms just aren't showing up. The site is super slow for me tonight (7:30 pm PST).

 

However, everyone's experience is different. I did say it was a crackpot theory... 🤪

 

 

[ReeRay]

17 minutes ago, John Mitchell said:

 

That's a good point. Perhaps it's a technical thing -- i.e. some zooms just aren't showing up. The site is super slow for me tonight (7:30 pm PST).

 

However, everyone's experience is different. I did say it was a crackpot theory... 🤪

 

 

Maybe so but try a two word search now and see what you get. The site is frozen! The whole site is a mess

[Betty LaRue]

Trying to do a search from the main page, the bar hangs up for awhile then slowly creeps. I thought the action when clicking on my number under my avatar was broken. Just a blank, white page. Then in what seemed like ages, it loaded.

[Gina Kelly]

The website issues have been really frustrating for the past week or two. Today has been particularly bad with AIM and searches not working, and this evening I can't upload anything.

[meanderingemu]

7 hours ago, ReeRay said:

 

Not surprised as most days lately the site is either down or running at snails pace.  Most morning between 09.00 and 10.00 over here (02.00 GMT) the site is down. Then again a few hours later. 

WHY?

 

i thought the slowdown was reported as only on the contributors side not the customers, this is bad then. thanks .

Edited November 14, 2020 by meanderingemu

[John Morrison]

Against expectations, my sales are up. Should pass last year's total sometime next week, and beat my best year by Xmas.

 

Revenue? Well, that's a different story. 🙁

[sb photos]

7 hours ago, Gina Kelly said:

The website issues have been really frustrating for the past week or two. Today has been particularly bad with AIM and searches not working, and this evening I can't upload anything.

 

Same here, slow and at times not responding at all. Worst was earlier this morning. I still suspect a lack of pre-emptive monitoring as Alamy grows, no obvious plans to cope with growth compounded by issues attributable to the pandemic. Alamy can only apply sticky plasters for so long. I hope I am wrong for everyones sake.

[David eastley]

A strange year, views and zooms down about 20 % but sales ( numbers and value ) are my best year ever. I am also seeing a small improvement in average selling prices overall

[DJ Myford]

Views have halved and so far zero sales this year, compared to three last year. I've had totally dry years before, but this is probably the end of the road.

[MizBrown]

I have had five sales this year, two more than what had been my average, but no sales since the end of June and only one zoom.  Finally got the count up to over a thousand in  my portfolio, and one early sale makes me not care too much about trying to figure out what someone may pay $19.99 to license (see below, taken on my block).   And out of fourteen licenses, I only have one with a person doing something and he was looking at the camera.  Fish, flowers, plants, rifle, landscapes -- shrug.