Vector Sales Earnings in June July and August 2012

Vector sales has been amazing all the way until the last 3 months. Shutterstock has the biggest drop in sales compared to the rest. Many big contributors have been reporting a loss of 30% to 50% at Shutterstock. Other agencies fluctuated, but are still consistent and bearable, except Dreamstime.

In the last 3 months, I had failed to reach a payout ($100) at Dreamstime. This never happened in the last 2 years. The sales at Dreamstime is very disappointing with a lot of subscription sales ($0.35) and hardly any on-demand sales.

Other agencies such as DepositPhotos, CanStockPhoto, GraphicRiver, 123rf are all doing fine with little fallback. I hope they rise further.

iStockPhoto maintains its usual trend although I did not upload much there. This shows that iStockPhoto is consistent and sustainable. The sales is hard to improve, though.

Just like iStockPhoto, Fotolia remains strong, but again, I do not see major improvement despite heavy upload. The Enhanced License purchase at Fotolia is getting rare and almost unseen these days.

I believe the biggest reason for drop in sales (especially in Shutterstock) are due to summer holiday, Euro Cup, and Olympics. Many have complain that Shutterstock screws up its search algorithm making it difficult for buyers to purchase. I do not believe this is true. Looking at the site analytic from compete.com, Shutterstock traffic is dropping dramatically.

Summer holiday is ending soon, and I hope the slowdown is over. We should be seeing major improvement from September and onward. However, if no improvement can be seen at Shutterstock, then we could have a big problem.

The big problem may caused by competition from sites such as DepositPhotos, Fotolia, and ThinkStock which are currently promoting their subscription model heavily.

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