Doc Posted January 1, 2016 Share Posted January 1, 2016 Average number of images on sale 2014: 15681 Average number of images on sale 2015: 17,600 (^ by 12.2%) Images sold 2014: 496 Images sold 2015: 657 (^ by 32.5%) Gross income 2014: $25,423 Gross Income 2015: $26,612 (^ by 4.7%) Average Gross sale 2014: $51.25 Average gross sale 2015: $40.50 (decreased by 21.4%) Gross income/Image in collection 2014: $1.62 Gross income/image in collection 2015: $1.51 (decreased by 6.8%) Aims for 2015 achieved ie more images sold for more income in total, (but average value of sales going down. ) Also managing to incorporate some different techniques which seem to be paying off! CTR in the past 5 months almost best ever so very hopeful for 2016. Kumar ps. Shall try and produce some further stats for 2015 over the next couple of weeks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Posted January 1, 2016 Share Posted January 1, 2016 2013 = 6 sales 2014 = 16 sales 2015 = 37 sales Income this year up 40% on 2014 Small but growing ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reimar Posted January 1, 2016 Share Posted January 1, 2016 I'm still trying to get back to 2012 levels: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cofiant Posted January 1, 2016 Share Posted January 1, 2016 Financially the best year since 2009, but still not enough, hoping for further improvements in 2016. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
losdemas Posted January 1, 2016 Share Posted January 1, 2016 Sales volume and revenue halved from 2014. EDIT: Images online increased by ~20% Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Number Six Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 Number of sales slightly down from 2014 but revenue slightly up. Both figures well down from 2011/2012 but, thankfully, still increasing from the 2013 nose dive that I recall many people reporting. Did we ever come to any sort of conclusion about the poor 2013 sales performance? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonnyab Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 Sales improved since 2014 but way down since 2011 which was my most number of sales by far. Income about $120 more than 2011 which means 2015 was my best year ever owing to 6 nice sales in december. Lastly my average sale price was about $41.33 (gross) only one 3 figure sale this year. I have put a lot into it this year, so we shall see. Zooms have been constantly up and so things are looking good. Im a small fish obviously here but one day would love to make more of it. Slowly slowly im hopeful. Best of luck this year all! Jonny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cryptoprocta Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 Number of sales slightly down from 2014 but revenue slightly up. Both figures well down from 2011/2012 but, thankfully, still increasing from the 2013 nose dive that I recall many people reporting. Did we ever come to any sort of conclusion about the poor 2013 sales performance? Not for me. 2013 was my peak year. 2014 was well down from that. 2015 is up from 2014. A big difference is the vastly reduced rpd. Ouch, that's supposed to be my stats graph. Can someone please point me in the correct direction to make a dropbox jpg show up in my post? Tx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pearl Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 Number of sales slightly down from 2014 but revenue slightly up. Both figures well down from 2011/2012 but, thankfully, still increasing from the 2013 nose dive that I recall many people reporting. Did we ever come to any sort of conclusion about the poor 2013 sales performance? I have exceeded 2014 by about $440 but ended 19 sales behind. However 2013 was my best year on Alamy for sales and by far the best for revenue. 2011, 2012 and 2013 all beat 2015 for revenue whereas 2012, 2013 and 2014 all beat 2015 for sales. I seem to be at odds with most people reporting here but maybe it depends to some extent on when others started and how many images they have. Some results are more statistically significant than others. Pearl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 Number of sales slightly down from 2014 but revenue slightly up. Both figures well down from 2011/2012 but, thankfully, still increasing from the 2013 nose dive that I recall many people reporting. Did we ever come to any sort of conclusion about the poor 2013 sales performance? I have exceeded 2014 by about $440 but ended 19 sales behind. However 2013 was my best year on Alamy for sales and by far the best for revenue. 2011, 2012 and 2013 all beat 2015 for revenue whereas 2012, 2013 and 2014 all beat 2015 for sales. I seem to be at odds with most people reporting here but maybe it depends to some extent on when others started and how many images they have. Some results are more statistically significant than others. Pearl I started submitting in late 2007, and my sales climbed steadily until 2012 as I added more images. My sales graph took a significant dip in 2013 and then soared to new heights in 2014 (my best year by far on Alamy). This was followed by a major dip to 2009-10 levels in 2015 despite my continuing to fatten my collection. This lends some credence to the "yo-yo" theory (in my case, anyway) discussed in other threads -- i.e. after a number of years of reliable growth, sales numbers start to become unstable. If things pick up for me in 2016, then yo-yo-ing could turn out to be my new normal. It will be interesting to see what happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panthera tigris Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 For me volume was up (by 60%) but the total $ value was approx the same (within 5%). But my collection is very niche so I would not consider it representative. My total sales value was minor TBT ... but as I shoot for personal enjoyment rather than sales I have nothing to complain about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christian58 Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 At all accounts, stock-photography, not just here but everywhere, RM, RF, micro, etc, can only keep sinking. mathematically at the rate agencies keep accepting files, we are talking hundereds of thousands per week in total, just SS alone takes in around 100000 per week! well you don't have to have a maths degree to figure that its becoming a fatal blow. New files have to get exposure and of course at the cost of already established files in the search. Consistent uploading won't help either since its robbing the space of perhaps a bona-fide seller. Newbies comes along, throws in a small port and if they are not seeing any money they just leave it there. In some other forum ( nameless) a guy who also was a maths teacher had worked out that if a port was earning .$.500 a month, in a years time that same port would be down to .$.175, of course all the time losing placements in the search-engine. ( in this case SS was the example). There is a trend among many commercial full-time photographers to go on their own, using webb and home-pages, etc. Back in October, I myself deleted some 14 images from an agency to be included in my home/webb pages and sure enough they brought in just over a four-figure amount, they had not sold once as stock. Seen this trend so many times during 25 years of commisioned and stock photography, regardless of old traditional or newer agencies. The people that will survive this are the "factories" with hundereds of thousands of files in their ports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted January 3, 2016 Share Posted January 3, 2016 ... Seen this trend so many times during 25 years of commisioned and stock photography, regardless of old traditional or newer agencies. The people that will survive this are the "factories" with hundereds of thousands of files in their ports. Just like pound and dollar stores. I saw it with PCs they quickly became commoditised and only the big boys who could shift 100s per week could afford to be in the business with the wafer thin margins (about £50 on a £1,000 computer). It has been happening to the makers as well for a few years now, there are fewer and fewer of them.It is happening to a lot of generic products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stokie Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 Average number of images on sale 2014: 4,591 Average number of images on sale 2015: 5,748 (up 25.2%) Images sold 2014: 77 Images sold 2015: 98 (up 27.3%) Gross income 2014: $3,821 Gross Income 2015: $4,821 (up 26.2%) Average Gross sale 2014: $49.62 Average gross sale 2015: $49.19 (down 0.9%) Return per image 2014: $0.69 Return per image 2015: $0.76 (up 10.1% - due to one 4 figure sale) John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christian58 Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 ... Seen this trend so many times during 25 years of commisioned and stock photography, regardless of old traditional or newer agencies. The people that will survive this are the "factories" with hundereds of thousands of files in their ports. Just like pound and dollar stores. I saw it with PCs they quickly became commoditised and only the big boys who could shift 100s per week could afford to be in the business with the wafer thin margins (about £50 on a £1,000 computer). It has been happening to the makers as well for a few years now, there are fewer and fewer of them.It is happening to a lot of generic products. Exactly! the scary part when it comes to stock photography is, you can sit there uploading, keywording at your hearts delight, all day long but it won't get you a penny further and it don't have the slightest impact on the sort-order, algorithm, etc. So by the end of the year you might be up a meager 50 bucks or something. Coffee money. The input just have to match the output. Time vs revenue, or else its a waste of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 ... Seen this trend so many times during 25 years of commisioned and stock photography, regardless of old traditional or newer agencies. The people that will survive this are the "factories" with hundereds of thousands of files in their ports. Just like pound and dollar stores. I saw it with PCs they quickly became commoditised and only the big boys who could shift 100s per week could afford to be in the business with the wafer thin margins (about £50 on a £1,000 computer). It has been happening to the makers as well for a few years now, there are fewer and fewer of them.It is happening to a lot of generic products. Exactly! the scary part when it comes to stock photography is, you can sit there uploading, keywording at your hearts delight, all day long but it won't get you a penny further and it don't have the slightest impact on the sort-order, algorithm, etc. So by the end of the year you might be up a meager 50 bucks or something. Coffee money. The input just have to match the output. Time vs revenue, or else its a waste of time. Yes, perhaps the "pruners" with relatively small, tightly edited collections are the wise ones. The other option is to keep uploading images willy-nilly until your eyeballs fall out, which could prove counterproductive in the long run. Shoot, drink, and be merry seems to be the best philosophy these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christian58 Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 ... Seen this trend so many times during 25 years of commisioned and stock photography, regardless of old traditional or newer agencies. The people that will survive this are the "factories" with hundereds of thousands of files in their ports. Just like pound and dollar stores. I saw it with PCs they quickly became commoditised and only the big boys who could shift 100s per week could afford to be in the business with the wafer thin margins (about £50 on a £1,000 computer). It has been happening to the makers as well for a few years now, there are fewer and fewer of them.It is happening to a lot of generic products. Exactly! the scary part when it comes to stock photography is, you can sit there uploading, keywording at your hearts delight, all day long but it won't get you a penny further and it don't have the slightest impact on the sort-order, algorithm, etc. So by the end of the year you might be up a meager 50 bucks or something. Coffee money. The input just have to match the output. Time vs revenue, or else its a waste of time. Yes, perhaps the "pruners" with relatively small, tightly edited collections are the wise ones. The other option is to keep uploading images willy-nilly until your eyeballs fall out, which could prove counterproductive in the long run. Shoot, drink, and be merry seems to be the best philosophy these days. Sure is! another pint please! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Douglas Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 2014: 25 sales 2015: 52 sales, up 108% 2014 to 2015: Gross revenue up 13% Revenue per image down 45%, but I think a big contribution to that was some higher value news sales in 2014 which have skewed the figures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 I saw it with PCs they quickly became commoditised and only the big boys who could shift 100s per week could afford to be in the business with the wafer thin margins (about £50 on a £1,000 computer). It has been happening to the makers as well for a few years now, there are fewer and fewer of them.It is happening to a lot of generic products. I agree that this was happening and does still. However something else also occurred, a small computer company that nearly went bankrupt turned its fortunes round by not competing on price. It's products are now sold at premium prices and Apple is the most valuable Company in the world. How this relates to stock photography is up for debate however for photography in general I would say it's about taking a non volume direction and making as many non easily replicable photos as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin P Wilson Posted January 4, 2016 Share Posted January 4, 2016 I saw it with PCs they quickly became commoditised and only the big boys who could shift 100s per week could afford to be in the business with the wafer thin margins (about £50 on a £1,000 computer). It has been happening to the makers as well for a few years now, there are fewer and fewer of them.It is happening to a lot of generic products. I agree that this was happening and does still. However something else also occurred, a small computer company that nearly went bankrupt turned its fortunes round by not competing on price. It's products are now sold at premium prices and Apple is the most valuable Company in the world. How this relates to stock photography is up for debate however for photography in general I would say it's about taking a non volume direction and making as many non easily replicable photos as possible. I agree I I did consider making the point that by creating a niche product with what was perceived as added value ( design creating a cool "vibe") Apple carved out an, initially small, niche for itself and has since built on it. At one point it only just survived though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christian58 Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 Yes but there will always be classic examples of the opposite. Apple is one of them but that was in another time, I believe some 35 years back. Different world then. These rags to riches stories just don't come about today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marianne Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 Well, I have a feeling that the stout lady has sung now, and the numbers for 2015 don't exactly sound pretty. Both my sales and gross revenue are down by over 40% from 2014, which puts me back to 2009-2010 levels when I had less than half of the images that I have in my collection now. Average price per image dropped from $81 in 2014 to $69 in 2015. On the plus side, monthly sales were consistent during 2015 (I averaged six per month), which meant that I had regular but modest payouts. Not at all sure what 2016 will bring. If the "yo-yo" theory is correct, I could be headed for a financial recovery. That would be nice. However, if Donald Trump becomes president of the USA, it won't much matter what happens. Happy New Year / Bonne année to all my fellow Forumites John, if Donald Trump becomes the president of the USA, I will seek refugee asylum in Canada! If you guys will let me in! Me too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armstrong Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 Yes but there will always be classic examples of the opposite. Apple is one of them but that was in another time, I believe some 35 years back. Different world then. These rags to riches stories just don't come about today. They certainly do and I would say that they are more likely to occur these days. Whatsapp was founded in 2009. Worth $6.8 billion last year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christian58 Posted January 5, 2016 Share Posted January 5, 2016 Yes but there will always be classic examples of the opposite. Apple is one of them but that was in another time, I believe some 35 years back. Different world then. These rags to riches stories just don't come about today. They certainly do and I would say that they are more likely to occur these days. Whatsapp was founded in 2009. Worth $6.8 billion last year. Of course! happens all the time. So why are you here then? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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