What is the number one pic that got you the most sales? Post a link with it. Chceers!

Here's mine: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=303935765

I doubt you'll get many takers for this whilst its not hard to do a bit of research on what sells. I think most people would want to make it a bit harder than this!

Do videos count? http://www.shutterstock.com/video/video.html?id=11325599

Quote from: SpaceStockFootage on July 25, 2016, 14:40
Do videos count? http://www.shutterstock.com/video/video.html?id=11325599

Great clip! My bestseller is obviously more simple
http://www.shutterstock.com/ru/video/clip-12154754

Here is mine: http://www.shutterstock.com/video/video.html?id=8026351
This is the most downloaded.. but not the one that gave me the highest earning 

Here are my bestsellers:
video - http://www.shutterstock.com/video/video.html?id=4997387
photo - http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=138071525

Quote from: Madrolly on July 25, 2016, 05:20
What is the number one pic that got you the most sales? Post a link with it. Chceers!

Here's mine: http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=303935765

Why so other people can go and copy our best sellers??

No thanks

It's to understand what buyers are looking for despite what YOU THINK are looking for. It's for us, contributors, especially for those who are in this business for years and maybe they see lots of income drops without knowing why. So i think we all should make an analysis on our portfolios to see if we lost our way somewhere on the path. It's to motivate those contributors to get up if they feel down, if they feel like there is nothing more in this microstock type of business. And is for beginners to understand what and why are those shots or footages best selling.

have a great day!

Your 'reasons' are spurious. Best sellers can easily get smothered by search algorithm changes, or by changes in style.

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 09:27
Your 'reasons' are spurious. Best sellers can easily get smothered by search algorithm changes, or by changes in style.

Spurious is a bit harsh I think but without knowing more a image of a "best seller" doesn't really tell you much e.g how many sales, when? A bit of interrogation of sites can give better information.

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 09:44

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 09:27
Your 'reasons' are spurious. Best sellers can easily get smothered by search algorithm changes, or by changes in style.

Spurious is a bit harsh I think but without knowing more a image of a "best seller" doesn't really tell you much e.g how many sales, when? A bit of interrogation of sites can give better information.

How many sales? When? These were criteria of this topic. Most sales of all time since your inception into microstock

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 09:27
Your 'reasons' are spurious. Best sellers can easily get smothered by search algorithm changes, or by changes in style.

Chasing algorithms theories for me it's a completely waste of valuable production time, but hey. It's just me

Quote from: Madrolly on July 26, 2016, 10:53

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 09:27
Your 'reasons' are spurious. Best sellers can easily get smothered by search algorithm changes, or by changes in style.

Chasing algorithms theories for me it's a completely waste of valuable production time, but hey. It's just me

Fine, but it isn't a theory, it's easily provable (on iS anyway), and it can affect which files sell, which is what you claimed to want to know. Whatever. It makes chasing 'best sellers' a waste of time.
And on iS, trying to guess by sorting Most Popular - this year/this month is also pretty inaccurate, as is sorting by new. I can't speak to that for other sites.
These are my most recent credit sales on iStock. Note the preponderance of very-low-selling files - what can that be apart from tweaking best match results? A few weeks ago, and for months before that, I had a huge 'imbalance' (regularly over 50%) in credit sales of files uploaded in 2011. What was that? Where have these sales gone?

Years back, I also used to pooh-pooh the importance of the best match algorithm.
Then I began to look at the evidence.
This also suggests that just because a file doesn't sell, it's unsellable: it might just mean that customers don't see it.

I also accept that these are only my stats on one site and others may vary.

Quote from: Madrolly on July 26, 2016, 10:51

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 09:44

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 09:27
Your 'reasons' are spurious. Best sellers can easily get smothered by search algorithm changes, or by changes in style.

Spurious is a bit harsh I think but without knowing more a image of a "best seller" doesn't really tell you much e.g how many sales, when? A bit of interrogation of sites can give better information.

How many sales? When? These were criteria of this topic. Most sales of all time since your inception into microstock

That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's irrelevant which of my files sold best historically if they are now way down in the default search.
Here are my top nine historic sellers. Only one has sold (credit sale) this year:

Quote from: Madrolly on July 26, 2016, 10:51

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 09:44

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 09:27
Your 'reasons' are spurious. Best sellers can easily get smothered by search algorithm changes, or by changes in style.

Spurious is a bit harsh I think but without knowing more a image of a "best seller" doesn't really tell you much e.g how many sales, when? A bit of interrogation of sites can give better information.

How many sales? When? These were criteria of this topic. Most sales of all time since your inception into microstock

Like most sales 2 in 2010?

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 11:04

Quote from: Madrolly on July 26, 2016, 10:51

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 09:44

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 09:27
Your 'reasons' are spurious. Best sellers can easily get smothered by search algorithm changes, or by changes in style.

Spurious is a bit harsh I think but without knowing more a image of a "best seller" doesn't really tell you much e.g how many sales, when? A bit of interrogation of sites can give better information.

How many sales? When? These were criteria of this topic. Most sales of all time since your inception into microstock

That's exactly what I'm talking about. It's irrelevant which of my files sold best historically if they are now way down in the default search.
Here are my top nine historic sellers. Only one has sold (credit sale) this year:

Now listen. I didn't mean to offend or to upset anyone by any form. That was not my intention. I was simply asking people of this community to share (if they want) their best selling picture of all time for various reasons that i mentioned in the previous reply!
I am using a 3rd party software that tracks my sales and how the pictures behave on different agencies. Is called Microstockr Pro(the PC version).
From there you can see how many downloads you had on a particular picture, how much income your pictures generated, from all agencies or from a particular agency.
I was simply sorting those by best selling, by all agencies and i applied the 'all time' filter. And the i got my results.
So i'm sorry if you thought that my intentions were to copy all of others contributors picture... although i shared mine first.

I'm certainly not "upset" and if anyone wants to share pics thats up to them. I'm merely saying its of limited use.

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 12:08
I'm certainly not "upset" and if anyone wants to share pics thats up to them. I'm merely saying its of limited use.

Me2

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 12:08
I'm certainly not "upset" and if anyone wants to share pics thats up to them. I'm merely saying its of limited use.

Right. I have images that don't see much anymore, but they were hotties. 700-1000 downloads, not I am lucky to see a few over a year. BUT.....that does not mean they won't come back with a algorithm change.  Hard, though, to compete with millions of new images which does affect the overall choice for buyers.  So to me it is competition and algorithm unless your image is very unique and hard for someone to duplicate its message.

Quote from: Mantis on July 26, 2016, 13:28

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 12:08
I'm certainly not "upset" and if anyone wants to share pics thats up to them. I'm merely saying its of limited use.

Right. I have images that don't see much anymore, but they were hotties. 700-1000 downloads, not I am lucky to see a few over a year. BUT.....that does not mean they won't come back with a algorithm change.  Hard, though, to compete with millions of new images which does affect the overall choice for buyers.  So to me it is competition and algorithm unless your image is very unique and hard for someone to duplicate its message.

Now let me tell you something i figured out in this microstock business. Let's say that you're shooting 10 pics of an apple. For me that's one potential client that has 10 options to choose. So you're client in this criterias is looking for an apple. But if you're shooting 10 pics of an apple, a banana, an orange, a lemon and a kiwi in the same picture, you have 6 potential clients. the 6th may want a multifruit shot. Considering that fruits are on white background. So you see my point here? you have 10 shot in both cases but in the second case the probability percentage will be higher.

Quote from: Madrolly on July 26, 2016, 18:26

Quote from: Mantis on July 26, 2016, 13:28

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 12:08
I'm certainly not "upset" and if anyone wants to share pics thats up to them. I'm merely saying its of limited use.

Right. I have images that don't see much anymore, but they were hotties. 700-1000 downloads, not I am lucky to see a few over a year. BUT.....that does not mean they won't come back with a algorithm change.  Hard, though, to compete with millions of new images which does affect the overall choice for buyers.  So to me it is competition and algorithm unless your image is very unique and hard for someone to duplicate its message.

Now let me tell you something i figured out in this microstock business. Let's say that you're shooting 10 pics of an apple. For me that's one potential client that has 10 options to choose. So you're client in this criterias is looking for an apple. But if you're shooting 10 pics of an apple, a banana, an orange, a lemon and a kiwi in the same picture, you have 6 potential clients. the 6th may want a multifruit shot. Considering that fruits are on white background. So you see my point here? you have 10 shot in both cases but in the second case the probability percentage will be higher.

I don't reckon it works quite like that. The buyer won't want that combination or arrangement. You could go on forever making endless combinations and arrangements, and you can see attempts to do this very thing by some contributors on some sites.
Far better to take the best isolated on white fruit images you can as individual fruits, and then leave the buyer to comp them, or most likely others, as they please.


I'm sure you already know this, but I really wouldn't bother shooting isolated fruit though these days!

Quote from: Madrolly on July 26, 2016, 18:26

Quote from: Mantis on July 26, 2016, 13:28

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 12:08
I'm certainly not "upset" and if anyone wants to share pics thats up to them. I'm merely saying its of limited use.

Right. I have images that don't see much anymore, but they were hotties. 700-1000 downloads, not I am lucky to see a few over a year. BUT.....that does not mean they won't come back with a algorithm change.  Hard, though, to compete with millions of new images which does affect the overall choice for buyers.  So to me it is competition and algorithm unless your image is very unique and hard for someone to duplicate its message.

Now let me tell you something i figured out in this microstock business. Let's say that you're shooting 10 pics of an apple. For me that's one potential client that has 10 options to choose. So you're client in this criterias is looking for an apple. But if you're shooting 10 pics of an apple, a banana, an orange, a lemon and a kiwi in the same picture, you have 6 potential clients. the 6th may want a multifruit shot. Considering that fruits are on white background. So you see my point here? you have 10 shot in both cases but in the second case the probability percentage will be higher.

Not really as there might be a thousand people wanting a picture of an apple and one wanting an apple and a Kiwi. The hard bit is figuring out where demand outstrips supply and that's getting harder and harder.

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 27, 2016, 10:19

Quote from: Madrolly on July 26, 2016, 18:26

Quote from: Mantis on July 26, 2016, 13:28

Quote from: Pauws99 on July 26, 2016, 12:08
I'm certainly not "upset" and if anyone wants to share pics thats up to them. I'm merely saying its of limited use.

Right. I have images that don't see much anymore, but they were hotties. 700-1000 downloads, not I am lucky to see a few over a year. BUT.....that does not mean they won't come back with a algorithm change.  Hard, though, to compete with millions of new images which does affect the overall choice for buyers.  So to me it is competition and algorithm unless your image is very unique and hard for someone to duplicate its message.

Now let me tell you something i figured out in this microstock business. Let's say that you're shooting 10 pics of an apple. For me that's one potential client that has 10 options to choose. So you're client in this criterias is looking for an apple. But if you're shooting 10 pics of an apple, a banana, an orange, a lemon and a kiwi in the same picture, you have 6 potential clients. the 6th may want a multifruit shot. Considering that fruits are on white background. So you see my point here? you have 10 shot in both cases but in the second case the probability percentage will be higher.

Not really as there might be a thousand people wanting a picture of an apple and one wanting an apple and a Kiwi. The hard bit is figuring out where demand outstrips supply and that's getting harder and harder.

The one buying a picture of an apple and a kiwi is not buying it because he needs specifically these two fruits, but because he gets a kiwi picture for free and he may use it someday.

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 11:04

Sorry for being offtopic, but how does Istock set their collections? I mean Signature, Signature+ etc. I guess Signature+ is the most expensive one?

Quote from: Irina Anosova on July 27, 2016, 17:22

Quote from: ShadySue on July 26, 2016, 11:04

Sorry for being offtopic, but how does Istock set their collections? I mean Signature, Signature+ etc. I guess Signature+ is the most expensive one?

The system was once different, but nowadays exclusives can nominate files for a further inspction to possibly become Sig+, which don't cost any more than credit sales, but are mirrored to Getty, at least in theory, where they can be sold for less than an exclusive credit file on iStock (or you might get lucky and earn more). If a file is Sig+, you get $2.50 for a sub sale instead of 75c.