pancakes

MicrostockGroup Sponsors


Author Topic: please tell me this makes sense!  (Read 24127 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

« Reply #25 on: March 23, 2017, 05:02 »
+1
He did personally know a couple of the bigger agency bosses so he must have known something.
I personally know a couple of billionaires but it doesn't mean I've got an inside track on all their future plans.


Harvepino

« Reply #26 on: March 23, 2017, 05:20 »
+1
I started believing in the "cap theory" for two reasons:
1) As per discussion - I have 40 sales a day +-2 with very few fluctuations.
2) Additional story - I did a big push in last 6 months and increased my port size on SS from 10,000 to over 20,000 very quickly. The outcome? Sales increased from 25 a day to 40 a day - reasonable result. BUT 90% of my current sales are my new images! Only 6 months ago, I had stable 25 sales a day, now the same old 10,000 images only contributes to some 4-5 sales a day, other 35 sales a day are new images. Why aren't there 35 sales from new images and 25 (or at least 20) from the old portfolio?
My theory is the "cap". New images are obviously preferred, but earnings are capped and therefore the old images can't sell as much as they used to.

« Reply #27 on: March 23, 2017, 05:23 »
+1
I started believing in the "cap theory" for two reasons:
1) As per discussion - I have 40 sales a day +-2 with very few fluctuations.
2) Additional story - I did a big push in last 6 months and increased my port size on SS from 10,000 to over 20,000 very quickly. The outcome? Sales increased from 25 a day to 40 a day - reasonable result. BUT 90% of my current sales are my new images! Only 6 months ago, I had stable 25 sales a day, now the same old 10,000 images only contributes to some 4-5 sales a day, other 35 sales a day are new images. Why aren't there 35 sales from new images and 25 (or at least 20) from the old portfolio?
My theory is the "cap". New images are obviously preferred, but earnings are capped and therefore the old images can't sell as much as they used to.
So the cap goes up for you if you add images.....Its all very confusing  ???

« Reply #28 on: March 23, 2017, 05:35 »
+2
Conspiracy theories are fun (and great excuses for declining/stagnating sales).

Who knows, it might even be true, but what would be REALLY strange is if there WAS NOT a wall or stagnation in sales. Buyers are not in infinite supply. It ends somewhere.

Harvepino

« Reply #29 on: March 23, 2017, 05:37 »
+1
So the cap goes up for you if you add images.....Its all very confusing  ???
I don't think the "cap" is a fixed number. It is more like: you earned your $20 today, now your chances of additional sales are smaller, you have to give the others chance to sell as well. When you earn $40, your chances of other sales go down again."
The more you earn, the harder you have to try to earn more. Of course, I have no idea how it really is, but I wouldn't be surprised if the algorithm would contain a "cap" formula based in my observations.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

« Reply #30 on: March 23, 2017, 05:40 »
0
Conspiracy theories are fun (and great excuses for declining/stagnating sales).

Who knows, it might even be true, but what would be REALLY strange is if there WAS NOT a wall or stagnation in sales. Buyers are not in infinite supply. It ends somewhere.
As as been said many time supply is going up much faster than demand...it doesn't really what you are selling it can only mean lower sales and profit in the long run. It may not be quite so bad as it appears after seeing the stuff re image spamming

« Reply #31 on: March 23, 2017, 06:09 »
+4
Furthermore, showing 4 days and seeing patterns is not nearly enough. Where did you study statistics again?

Show me 100-200 (CONSECUTIVE) sales days and then we can start looking for patterns.

« Reply #32 on: March 23, 2017, 07:29 »
+3
I practically do only video (just starting to upload a few images very recently) so things may be different.

I have absolutely no doubt that there is a sale control at SS, even though I do not complain about my sales.
- Every months I have at least 10 days when the gates are closed, I mean zero downloads, and a couple of weeks with huge sales
- For 4 to 6 months I get to the same exactly total in dollars. Sometimes I get there before the middle of the months, in that case the gates close and I don't get one single download until the end of the month
- Sometimes I start the month with 10 days of zero sales, but then I sell a lot (often with very high priced sales) until I get to my allocated total
- In the weeks of good sales, a very broad range of files sell. In the bad weeks all my sales come from the same single file (which represent 50% of my sales, with a portfolio of almost 2,000 video)
- Apparently so far my allotted sales are revised every 4-5 months, so that I then get to a slightly higher level

I must add that I have been in this game for less than 2 years, so I don't have a big deal of well established files

« Reply #33 on: March 23, 2017, 08:25 »
0
I started believing in the "cap theory" for two reasons:
1) As per discussion - I have 40 sales a day +-2 with very few fluctuations.
2) Additional story - I did a big push in last 6 months and increased my port size on SS from 10,000 to over 20,000 very quickly. The outcome? Sales increased from 25 a day to 40 a day - reasonable result. BUT 90% of my current sales are my new images! Only 6 months ago, I had stable 25 sales a day, now the same old 10,000 images only contributes to some 4-5 sales a day, other 35 sales a day are new images. Why aren't there 35 sales from new images and 25 (or at least 20) from the old portfolio?
My theory is the "cap". New images are obviously preferred, but earnings are capped and therefore the old images can't sell as much as they used to.

If there is any (partial) overlap in subject matter / style between your old and your new files, than that is easily explained by your new files taking sales from your old files - either they are better or appear higher in search because they are newer.

« Reply #34 on: March 23, 2017, 11:23 »
0
I find it very odd these Shutterstock earning numbers. I sold 15 videos this month and they are all different numbers;

5,70 - 5,28 - 18,61 - 18,72 - 79,32 - 3,87 - 12,41 - 17,85 - 4, 19 - 12,55 - 4,19 - 5,10 - 20,40 - 11,99

How is this possible???

« Reply #35 on: March 23, 2017, 12:07 »
0
I find it very odd these Shutterstock earning numbers. I sold 15 videos this month and they are all different numbers;

5,70 - 5,28 - 18,61 - 18,72 - 79,32 - 3,87 - 12,41 - 17,85 - 4, 19 - 12,55 - 4,19 - 5,10 - 20,40 - 11,99

How is this possible???

Quickly, run! Conspiracy alert, I found two $4.19! This pattern can't be denied. The big boss is doing something.

Just kidding.  ;)

It's likely to be mostly Clip Pack sales right? There are at least 12 different plans to choose from so prices can vary greatly.

This means a 4k original can have (at least) 16 different prices (12 clip pack prices + 4 regular) depending on size.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2017, 12:33 by increasingdifficulty »

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #36 on: March 23, 2017, 12:24 »
0
How do they chose where to cap? Why would they cap someone at 20 dls and someone else at 250 dls?

you laughed at me last days about my thought of capping..and now you ask information....ahahahah.....i already knew all about you.

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #37 on: March 23, 2017, 12:29 »
+1
pugh! I just find it incredible but why? what would they gain? I cant work it out.

well dividing the cake between more people....let small portfolio sell something to get them busy to upload something and not stop....share sales between small portfolio so many don't reach a payout for month. instead of a single payout of 500 dollar ...beter one of 300 and 10 for 20 dollars...200 dollars less than physically leave the house:)...

Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #38 on: March 23, 2017, 14:59 »
+2
How do they chose where to cap? Why would they cap someone at 20 dls and someone else at 250 dls?

you laughed at me last days about my thought of capping..and now you ask information....ahahahah.....i already knew all about you.
I am really trying not to call you out every time you make a fool of yourself, because I have better ways to spend my time, but boy do you make it hard.

jonbull

    This user is banned.
« Reply #39 on: March 23, 2017, 15:35 »
0
How do they chose where to cap? Why would they cap someone at 20 dls and someone else at 250 dls?

you laughed at me last days about my thought of capping..and now you ask information....ahahahah.....i already knew all about you.
I am really trying not to call you out every time you make a fool of yourself, because I have better ways to spend my time, but boy do you make it hard.

i know you are busy counting your 20k royalty every month....

Justanotherphotographer

« Reply #40 on: March 23, 2017, 15:39 »
+1
 So hard :-X

« Reply #41 on: March 23, 2017, 17:18 »
0
There is no cap that I know of. My earnings has fluctuated wildly in the last few weeks. I think it's more of a coincidence than anything else.
Normally I'd agree but with these posts beginning to wonder you'd need a lot more data to be sure though. I'm a sceptic because I think "hiding" stuff from buyers seems a very risky strategy.

If they cap earnings, I think they'd cap the high earners, not the low-medium ones. There is always an invisible wall that contributors need to break through, but not a wall that is imposed by an agency to intentionally cap contributor earnings.

I've seen my earnings rise steadily, and if there was a cap, I would have experienced it. Of course, there is a wall that many contributors will run into unless they improve or diversify their work. In the case of FT, rising up the weekly ranks becomes exponentially harder as you go higher, so that's a wall in a sense.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2017, 19:06 by Minsc »


« Reply #42 on: March 24, 2017, 02:10 »
+4
pugh! I just find it incredible but why? what would they gain? I cant work it out.

well dividing the cake between more people....let small portfolio sell something to get them busy to upload something and not stop....share sales between small portfolio so many don't reach a payout for month. instead of a single payout of 500 dollar ...beter one of 300 and 10 for 20 dollars...200 dollars less than physically leave the house:)...

The way to do that would be by weighting in the search, to push up poor quality, newbie work to the top of the pile. It doesn't involve a "cap" for individuals. The problem is that if buyers can't find good images on one site they will go to another where they can, so the site that's fiddling the search will eventually lose out.
The same applies to a "cap". The very idea requires a belief that the sites are trying to keep most decent images down in order to favour a handful of select portfolios. If they are doing that, what's the point of hosting all the stuff that won't be sold?
And, anyway, how can they stop people buying your work when you hit your daily "cap" without an infinite number of search engine changes every day in order to hide it? Or are you saying that the are selling your work but hiding the sales once they think you've got enough to keep you quiet? If you think that why do you carry on working with them?
This cap idea simply doesn't make any sense because there is no way of applying it other than fraudulent sales reporting.

« Reply #43 on: May 30, 2017, 14:19 »
+4
I simply have to share this just to see if anybody have experienced the same. To me it seems very very odd indeed.

Last week. thursday.  $. 43.02
                  friday.           43. 93
                  Monday         44.34
                  Tuesday.       43.77

It just seems very funny to me. Is it some sort of a machine haha! determing how much we are going to earn? ;D

Yes exactly, BI machine which prepares input parameters for media database search engine.

I thought I will never post again anything about microstock but here I am first post after 5 years and also first post here on microstockgroup.com forum.
Better late than never, but time has come to bust some myths.
Before my comment let me introduce myself: 8 years in stock, mostly photo and a little bit of video. Photography/videography is not my full time job, that is my hobby and microstock helps me to pay my travel and new photo/video equipment.
My main profession is IT related, BI analytics, data mining and creation of algorythms related to that.
For fun I did a series of experiments during 2016. and 2017. on Shutterstock.

In short, despite a lot of input parameters and dynamic nature of their algorythm it is very clear there is a BI machine which process and analyze sales and feed search engine with those results for every single image in a real time. Goal is obvious and it is not to help to contributors or buyers. KPIs of BI machine are set to maximize Shutterstock profits and other secondary financial parameters.  Most important non-marketing related tool for that purpose is their search engine.

During experiments I tried a lot of things, some of them are illegal by Shutterstock rules and terms of usage so I won't explain them here.

Your small sample of financial data based on a things that I analyzed tells me that you and your buyers were very predictable for BI machine in a previous period of time. No big deviations from expected behaviour. So the sales are in according to that.

In general if you and your buyers are predictable (posting and buying statistics) and you are selling a lot of images every day you will see figures like that. If you continue to act like that in a long term figures will decline slowly which depending on a lot of factors. Most important one is a total number of images in Shutterstock database. Decline could be masked in a few different ways so it won't look the same but if you are persistant and predictable and sales a lot of images everyday you could predict your decline very precisely on a yearly even monthly basis if they are not messing around with parameters which they do from time to time.

I read all comments from this topic and based on my learnings I could give explanation for every behaviour if I have enough informations and time for that.
Some things are not obvious, because machines still can't control humans so if buyers are searching for exact things(artist, picture number, very specific keywords) search algorythm must show your images. There were some reports that in a case of a very specific keywords images were removed from search results but I didn't manage to proove that the images are completely removed from search results. Also contributors and buyers could act unpredictable but BI machine is permanently trying "to fix" that unpredictable behaviour with lower rating of your images.

It is not simple to understand but in general if you are statistically significant seller changing in your sales is directly related to changing your behaviour/status or your buyers behaviour/status or even other contributors status/behaviour with which you are competing for a position in a search engine order.

All of you are probably interested in an answer is it possible to beat their BI machine to get more income with less work instead opposite?
From everything I learned so far the answer is Yes but a) it is not legal, b) it can't be done permanently, c) it is complicated/time consuming
If you want to play legal I think you will have better chances in a casino.

p.s. Sorry for my English, it is not my native language.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2017, 14:28 by mb »

« Reply #44 on: May 30, 2017, 14:40 »
+3
For several years I have been uploading very little, and surprisingly my monthly earnings continued to move within a very narrow band. There was an amount which I identified as "my minimum" and my monthly earnings usually were within the range: minimum + around 15%. Sometimes a fluke at the end of the month could have made it: minimum + 20%. I could not complain about it because I wasn't uploading very actively. If a had an excellent start of the month, later weeks sucked really bad.
Call it a cap, or "more even distribution of revenue", I didn't mind it.

The problem for me is that in November somehow they "seem to have suddenly lowered my minimum amount" by about 25-30%. My monthly earnings still move within a surprisingly narrow range, but this range is much lower than in the past and that sucks.
« Last Edit: May 30, 2017, 14:55 by LDV81 »

« Reply #45 on: May 30, 2017, 15:11 »
+1
For several years I have been uploading very little, and surprisingly my monthly earnings continued to move within a very narrow band. There was an amount which I identified as "my minimum" and my monthly earnings usually were within the range: minimum + around 15%. Sometimes a fluke at the end of the month could have made it: minimum + 20%. I could not complain about it because I wasn't uploading very actively. If a had an excellent start of the month, later weeks sucked really bad.
Call it a cap, or "more even distribution of revenue", I didn't mind it.

The problem for me is that in November somehow they "seem to have suddenly lowered my minimum amount" by about 25-30%. My monthly earnings still move within a surprisingly narrow range, but this range is much lower than in the past and that sucks.

or maybe they just gave a boost to newer images at that time and since all your images were older...

« Reply #46 on: May 30, 2017, 15:15 »
+1

The way to do that would be by weighting in the search, to push up poor quality, newbie work to the top of the pile. It doesn't involve a "cap" for individuals. The problem is that if buyers can't find good images on one site they will go to another where they can, so the site that's fiddling the search will eventually lose out.
The same applies to a "cap". The very idea requires a belief that the sites are trying to keep most decent images down in order to favour a handful of select portfolios. If they are doing that, what's the point of hosting all the stuff that won't be sold?
And, anyway, how can they stop people buying your work when you hit your daily "cap" without an infinite number of search engine changes every day in order to hide it? Or are you saying that the are selling your work but hiding the sales once they think you've got enough to keep you quiet? If you think that why do you carry on working with them?
This cap idea simply doesn't make any sense because there is no way of applying it other than fraudulent sales reporting.


It is not that some single contributor is the only one with "decent" (as you say) images in a specific search. There are LOTS AND LOTS of "equally decent" images for most searches. The number of transactions is gigantic, the number of good files is gigantic, the number of parameters in the search algorithm is very high. They can selectively tweak the algorithm for example in certain regions if they wish, or based on any other parameter.

I don't know if there is a cap. But it would be definitely possible to implement, if they chose to do so. The amount of data that they have collected is huge and they can process it in any way they want. This is big data.

If they have decided that it is the company's policy to "keep as many contributors happy as possible" (because happy contributors are good for business), then they would have a reason to try to distribute the earnings more evenly, and they could do so without sacrificing the quality of search results. They have a huge amount of data, and you can't compare them with some small-scale business.

« Reply #47 on: May 30, 2017, 15:17 »
+1

or maybe they just gave a boost to newer images at that time and since all your images were older...

The problem with that theory is that new images hardly seem to sell these days. My bestsellers from 2010-2013 still sell kind of all right.

« Reply #48 on: May 30, 2017, 17:00 »
+5
Yes, I believe there is an algorithm that caps earnings.  I've noticed that whenever I get an extended licence or a SOD of decent value, the next few days my 'ordinary sales' drop by a significant amount.  It looks like the following days are lower in order to 'adjust' for the sizeable income from the extended licences or SODs.  Happens every time and is obvious.

« Reply #49 on: May 31, 2017, 00:06 »
+1
No selling of new files (for most of the contributors and most of the time) looks confusing because it is not related to financial results but it is Shutterstock method of fighting against different kind of spams.
Other methods and campaigns so far were unsuccessful and other potential solutions costs too much.
Spam sells very rarely, so they prioritizes old stuff which had sales.
Algorythm is a little bit different for brand new contributors but it equalizes after a few months.
It is very rigid now and I expect some refines because it is almost impossible to sell good new stuff these days.
My expirience of that behaviour is that sells only stuff directly targeted from buyers by very specific keywords, artist id...
Everything else newly uploaded is a collateral damage of spam wars.
Some contributors which stops uploading are partially right because that stuff will never sell well even if they refine their algorythms.
But on the other hand they are wrong because lower intensity and frequency of their uploading activity counts also in search engine ordering.
So how to fight against that?
How to upload new stuff which will never sell with minimum effort?
Answer is: become a spammer (to keep frequency and intensity with minimum effort)
Because it is a paradox and they will become aware of that if they are not already, treatment of a newly uploaded stuff must be refined in the future.


 

Related Topics

  Subject / Started by Replies Last post
0 Replies
6056 Views
Last post March 01, 2006, 15:52
by leaf
27 Replies
14001 Views
Last post June 14, 2009, 14:12
by MisterElements
3 Replies
4756 Views
Last post October 15, 2015, 14:40
by sgoodwin4813
7 Replies
3384 Views
Last post January 02, 2020, 05:01
by Tenebroso
1 Replies
3323 Views
Last post April 25, 2020, 12:21
by angelawaye

Sponsors

Mega Bundle of 5,900+ Professional Lightroom Presets

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors