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Last night my dashboard was reporting lower than sales summary page, this morning its reporting higher. Also number of sales jumped by 8 on the current month overnight but only 1 reported. Some gremlins somewhere in the system.

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I like the new dashboard, but where on earth have my Zooms gone ?

You know, where I can see what images have been zoomed between certain dates.

Am I missing something ?

 

Richard McDowell

Perth

West Oz

 

Press the grey box "Build a downloadable sales report" near the top right.

 

John.

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Apart from the minor issues already reported, i.e.  Avg Alamy CTR probably meaning our average CTR and the issues of sales info differing etc, I think it's significant improvement. A few tweaks here and there should finish it off nicely.

 

Going forward, it would be great if they could add additional info around images viewed/zoomed etc so we can manage the less performing images into a different Pseudonym, or, if people wish, delete them. Personally I would just pop them into a new Pseud though. 

 

As a dashboard (future development :-), it would also be really good if you could drag and drop the sections/stats you use most to the prominent area of the screen of your choice. For instance, if you could create a module for the Current month "Net Revenue - Date of Invoice" and "Your Images - Yesterdays stats". These modules could sit around the section "Additional Revenue Options" etc.

 

Effectively, each piece of information is contained within a named module and they can be moved freely around the screen, a bit like jigsaw pieces. The screen would be made up of blocks and you can size each module to any number of blocks, vertically or horizontally. You see this on a few websites as well as widgets on mobile phones. 

 

Anyway.... keep up the good work!!

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Posted 3 hours ago

Richard McDowell, on 30 May 2014 - 3:42 PM, said:snapback.png

I like the new dashboard, but where on earth have my Zooms gone ?

You know, where I can see what images have been zoomed between certain dates.

Am I missing something ?

 

Richard McDowell

Perth

West Oz

 

Press the grey box "Build a downloadable sales report" near the top right.

 

.... No Zooms here .... is anyone else wondering where the Zooms have gone ?????

 

John.

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Posted 3 hours ago

Richard McDowell, on 30 May 2014 - 3:42 PM, said:snapback.png

I like the new dashboard, but where on earth have my Zooms gone ?

You know, where I can see what images have been zoomed between certain dates.

Am I missing something ?

 

Richard McDowell

Perth

West Oz

 

Press the grey box "Build a downloadable sales report" near the top right.

 

.... No Zooms here .... is anyone else wondering where the Zooms have gone ?????

 

John.

 

 

Towards the bottom -- Alamy Measures. Then at the bottom of that window -- Your Images. It takes you to the old page. More trouble than the old way. I've been leaving the Alamy Measures window open.

 

Paulette

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For instance, if you could create a module for the Current month "Net Revenue - Date of Invoice" and "Your Images - Yesterdays stats". These modules could sit around the section "Additional Revenue Options" etc.

 

+1

 

All good ideas in your post Duncan but especially these ones as the defaults are no use to me and I have to change the params everyday to get this meaningful info.

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I have been with Alamy since 2002 and I am happy with Gross Sales on the graph. I am interested in what is happening in the wider market and can make the calculation as to what it means to me. Gross sales are the only thing that tells us what customers are spending, how active the market is and where fees are going. It is the only value (and numberr of sales) that is consistent over the long term. It is still frightening how revenue has collapsed and average licence fee would be even worse :(:angry:

 

The info is in the system so they should be able to show both gross and net in the graph.

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What rubbish?

 

Allan

 

For a moment I read that as 'What rubbish!"

 

I would like to be able to delete my no hopers, but Alamy is keeping back the information I need.  What, for example, has neither been zoomed nor sold over the past three years?  I would also like to be able see what my best trends are, so that I could work on those.  I could spend a week digging this info out (minus zooms of more than a year ago) but given the current work/earnings ratio I don't think I will bother.  Something very simple to implement would be a search that would put our images into sales order, one for revenue and one for number of sales.  As it is I can work with edited agencies, get what feedback and info I need, push my earnings per image well above anything I could hope to earn from Alamy.   

 

After they introduced ranking they were good, but now they are falling behind the competition.  It's no longer like the old days when all they had to contend with were disorganised libraries full of shoe boxes.

 

 

 

I agree, I've been harping on about this for ages.

 

It would be very useful.

 

John.

 

 

Agree with both of your comments.

 

What I was inferring with my statement was that I do not believe any image we place with Alamy is rubbish. They can possibly all be used/licensed at some time. :huh::unsure:

 

Allan

 

 

Allan, that's very true, I wouldn't dare delete any image already uploaded in case it subsequently sold. It would be useful to see what our 'bestsellers' were and maybe concentrate along those lines.

 

John.

 

 

Experience has taught me that I should not delete anything. Non performers are transferred periodically to a non performer pseudo. It is surprising how often they come up as zooms or even sales after 5 or more years of nothing!

 

dov

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this is just a heads up for Alamy:  in the little box at the bottom left of the blue graph it says I have 8 sales this month but if I click the grey button to the right titled "View your sales History" it takes me to the older page which shows 9 little thumbnails of sales this month. 


 


One of the images is listed as selling twice; same German client, two different amounts.


 


not losing any sleep over it


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this is just a heads up for Alamy:  in the little box at the bottom left of the blue graph it says I have 8 sales this month but if I click the grey button to the right titled "View your sales History" it takes me to the older page which shows 9 little thumbnails of sales this month. 

 

One of the images is listed as selling twice; same German client, two different amounts.

 

not losing any sleep over it

 

 

Similar problem for me but the other way round. The figure shows 17 more sales than I've actually had this month.

Interestingly, 17 is the number of NU sales that have come through. It a bit ironic if they count double!

I still like the new look - it needs a couple of glitches sorted out.

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My sales for this month are 1500 , the graph shows 1789, the graph has not taken into account that three of the sales are later refunded.

I guess you mean $1500 rather than 1500 sales this month. If not, what are the rest of us doing wrong? B)

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this is just a heads up for Alamy:  in the little box at the bottom left of the blue graph it says I have 8 sales this month but if I click the grey button to the right titled "View your sales History" it takes me to the older page which shows 9 little thumbnails of sales this month. 

 

One of the images is listed as selling twice; same German client, two different amounts.

 

not losing any sleep over it

 

 

Similar problem for me but the other way round. The figure shows 17 more sales than I've actually had this month.

Interestingly, 17 is the number of NU sales that have come through. It a bit ironic if they count double!

I still like the new look - it needs a couple of glitches sorted out.

 

I've also noticed a few discrepancies between info supplied on the new dashboard and the linked-to old pages -- e.g. CTR stats. However, I too like the new graphic look now that I'm getting used to it. I'd still like to see a direct link to the forum, though.

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Jeff

 

I am sure Martin has more than a smidgen of business sense, and asking the sort of questions that anyone with said smidgen would be likely to be asking.  What are the trends within the industry, how does this supplier stack up against that one in terms of average sale prices and RPI, is stock photography even viable as a business and will it continue to be so, and if it isn't why are we doing it, does selling through large crowd sourced operations like Alamy make any sense except for fun etc, etc ??? (to the last question, ‘no’ in my opinion for just about anyone who hasn’t already accumulated a sizable collection of saleable images, and I can draw that conclusion by spending five minutes on the data).

 

A net dollar graph would be pretty, but won't mean much in GB or Euroland.

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Thank you Robert.

 

I was going to reply to Jeff to say that because I am using data differently to him does not mean I am wrong, stupid or unprofessional. I am at a different stage to him in redeveloping a full time photographer career so need answers to different questions as Robert suggests. Despite the abuse I refuse to use the red flag.

 

I am the first to say that a sale is not sale until the cash is in the bank. In which case the $ Net Revenue is  no more useful than gross revenue. For that I monitor the cash that hits my bank account each month as that is the only real money in my pocket; only then do I know how much cash I have to meet my commitments. As one of the many contributors that does not work in $ the sales figures are meaningless until then because the timing of clearance and especially payment value is affected by the currency exchange rate (almost as much as changes in Alamy share and certainly more volatile). The graph for payments will be a different shape to the net or gross revenue.

 

Until recently I had a long career in high-level business consultancy and before that I was a full time photographer and did a mathematics degree. I therefore understand numbers and graphs better than most.

 

Thanks again Robert.

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I'd say the more information available in graphs, the better. The 'most useful' varies from person to person. See above.

The most interesting, if not important, stat for me is the earnings per image. Seeing a 10% rise in income is all very well, but misleading if you've doubled your portfolio in that time.

Having said that, it's also been the most depressing stat recently. After five years of consistent earnings per image, almost to the penny, in the last year it has almost halved.

My net income has remained almost unchanged, but I've grown my image collection by about 50%.

 

Of course, it's not that hard to produce any of these graphs yourself, even though it's a lot more convenient to have Alamy do it for you.

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It's true that we all use the information in different ways according to our particular needs and interests. I have said it before but although stock work represents only .05% of my photographic output and income, I am interested in the trends and the business as a whole. I have kept my picture library returns from the early 1980's when I did a lot more stock work and they make depressing reading now in terms of the kind of reproduction fees I was getting then compared with the average now. It would be interesting to see a graph, or graphs, going way back to then to see long-term trends. 

 

Back then I was also selling original selenium-toned gelatin silver prints through galleries for about £125. If the pricing trends followed stock work I would be selling them for about £20 now instead of my, or my various galleries, current prices which reflect inflation since then and then a lot more on top! I know it's a different sector of the photographic world but an interesting comparison. 

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I think your issue, Jeff, is the drop in contributor share, and you would like to see a graphic that reveals this to the world.  I suspect most contibs noticed the 10%(16.7%) drop, and might not learn anything they didn't know.  Martin has explained why a net graph would otherwise be pretty useless in the UK.

 

I expect my issue is that too many photographers have got caught up in a race to the bottom, otherwise known as unregulated volume production.  You don't need an economics degree to see why this is all hopeless and helps to explain the sad state of the industry (buyers must be laughing their socks off), and why Alamy would eventually have no choice but to cut back on outgoings.  And actually they can do what they like, since they are only a supplier, they don't have any legal or ethical duties towards photographers.  Some would, anyway, probably go on supplying them if they cut photographer share to 10%.

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In which case the $ Net Revenue is  no more useful than gross revenue. As one of the many contributors that does not work in $ the sales figures are meaningless until then because the timing of clearance and especially payment value is affected by the currency exchange rate (almost as much as changes in Alamy share and certainly more volatile). 

 

Not sure I agree with this. I'd like to see gross and net. As a UK contributor I accept that neither give an accurate indication of what will arrive in my bank account. However, net $ gives me a much better view of how I'm doing than gross $ does since it removes the effect of variation in commission levels (due to changes in the Alamy rate and distributor versus direct sales) and only leaves exchange rate variations. Even as a UK contributor Net$ is certainly not meaningless to me. 

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