What's Selling
Have you ever asked yourself "What can I do to increase my sales"? This section will provide you with sales statistics that may help you decide on which subjects to photograph for commercial use to boost the likelihood of sales. We reviewed categories of all photos that were sold on ShutterPoint during the year 2005 and compared the sale statistics with the total number of images in each category. The results are below:
Columns:
1. Category Ratio – ratio of the category to all available images.
2. Sales Ratio – ratio of the sold images that belong to a category to all images sold.
3. Sold vs. Available – ratio of the sold images in the category to all images in the same category.
Category |
Category Ratio, % |
Sales Ratio, % |
Sold vs. All Available, % |
| Nature |
42.01 |
23.97 |
1.02 |
| Landscape |
28.29 |
18.92 |
1.20 |
| Travel |
17.47 |
16.77 |
1.72 |
| Animals |
17.57 |
13.70 |
1.40 |
| General |
19.47 |
13.52 |
1.25 |
| People |
8.21 |
10.27 |
2.24 |
| Architecture |
10.86 |
9.52 |
1.57 |
| Ocean |
9.00 |
8.47 |
1.69 |
| Botanical |
13.74 |
7.78 |
1.01 |
| Rural Life |
9.40 |
6.85 |
1.31 |
| Still Life |
6.39 |
5.69 |
1.60 |
| Urban Life |
5.56 |
5.28 |
1.71 |
| Children |
3.34 |
5.05 |
2.71 |
| Business World |
2.25 |
4.99 |
3.97 |
| Documentary |
4.17 |
4.93 |
2.12 |
| Abstract |
6.05 |
4.76 |
1.41 |
| Portrait |
4.76 |
4.64 |
1.75 |
| Fine Art |
6.10 |
4.41 |
1.30 |
| Macro |
7.00 |
4.29 |
1.10 |
| Sports |
3.18 |
4.24 |
2.39 |
| Family |
2.64 |
4.18 |
2.84 |
| Digital Arts |
3.88 |
4.12 |
1.91 |
| Holiday |
4.36 |
4.12 |
1.69 |
| Religion and Spirituality |
4.51 |
3.48 |
1.38 |
| Technology |
1.90 |
3.42 |
3.24 |
| Office World |
0.95 |
3.32 |
5.51 |
| Night Shot |
3.71 |
3.08 |
1.49 |
| Humorous |
2.97 |
3.02 |
1.83 |
| Food |
2.84 |
2.90 |
1.83 |
| Transportation |
4.42 |
2.73 |
1.11 |
| Industrial |
2.10 |
2.67 |
2.27 |
| Backgrounds and Textures |
4.53 |
2.38 |
0.94 |
| Current Events |
1.30 |
1.92 |
2.65 |
| Entertainment |
2.38 |
1.86 |
1.40 |
| Health |
1.13 |
1.68 |
2.66 |
| Glamour |
2.07 |
1.63 |
1.41 |
| Fitness |
0.86 |
1.16 |
2.41 |
| Military |
1.75 |
1.04 |
1.07 |
| Fashion |
1.39 |
0.99 |
1.27 |
| Music World |
0.76 |
0.87 |
2.04 |
| Erotic |
1.31 |
0.58 |
0.80 |
| Law |
0.33 |
0.58 |
3.14 |
| Medical |
0.38 |
0.41 |
1.92 |
| Isolated Objects |
0.57 |
0.23 |
0.73 |
| Vintage |
0.58 |
0.06 |
0.18 |
The highest numbers of sales are in the Nature
category, which is not surprising since Nature is the
largest category of all, however because it is so large, chances of selling a nature image are actually quite low - only
slightly more than 1% of all nature images sell. As the numbers show, supply and demand is least favorable for
Backgrounds and Textures,
Erotic, and
Botanical
categories - out of all images in these categories, only very few actually get purchased.
Please note that somewhat low sales ratios of "Vintage" and "Isolated Objects" categories could be related to the fact that are relatively new and have not existed
during the entire year 2005.
If you are interested in increasing sales, you may find it important to know that the highest chances of selling are in
Business World,
Office World and
Technology categories -
for example over 5.5% of all Office World images
sell.
Our recommendations:
To increase sales, focus on the subjects that sell most. Ensure your images are top
notch - they should be well composed, they should clearly get the message you are trying to convey across or illustrate an
idea you wanted to express, they should have no noise, they should be sharp and of high resolution. Try to clearly
understand how and where each image you submit can be used - if you are guessing about what it can be used for, so will
the buyer. If you have recognizable and uniquely identifiable property or models in your photos, you must
submit a release form, since otherwise you are
limiting yourself to
editorial use only. Put an effort into assigning a
good set of keywords with the most descriptive keywords
or key phrases placed in the beginning of the list. If you get any feedback on your images from other members,
evaluate validity of the criticism (if any) and try to improve your photos.
Album and Photo Sorting
We have received a series of valuable suggestions from our members and yesterday another one of them had become a reality.
Now every photographer can define the sort order of his/her albums and images when they are displayed on various pages on
the site. The custom sort order, labeled "Photographer's Choice" is the new default order of images for anyone looking at
your portfdolio.
To try the custom sort ordering, login to your account and select
Album & Photo Manager.
Unrated Photos Section
In the middle of December 2005, we introduced teh new Unrated Photos section that can be found under the Ratings submenu.
The new section was inspired by your suggestions and it was made to allow an alternative way to offer ratings to all the images that may need them more than others. We saw that many members expressed their willingness to help others and rate photos that have no ratings. We hope that the new section can be a great way to contribute to this process.
Selections shown on the page include all unrated images regardless of the date of their submissions, some as early as August 2003. As some of you noticed, you can refresh the page and get a totally different set of thumbnails, and open several images for ratings in the new tab or window (depending your browser's choice). In this way this page is very flexible and brings back certain freedom of selection without reopening the door for abuse and overratings. Once an unrated photo gets its first rating, it comes back to the "normal" pool where it still has higher priority than some others with more ratings, and it may continue accumulating new ratings there.
Affiliate Program
We would like to remind you that unless you already got invloved in our Affiliate Program, now is the time to do it! This program allows you to maximize your earnings potential by promoting ShutterPoint on the web. There are no applications to fill out, and every member of the site can start with the program right now. Being part of the affiliate network can bring you substantial income - it's all in your hands!
In short, the program works by tracking sales that you can help us generate. Every time ShutterPoint makes a sale, you will be paid a share of the sale if you brought a paying customer to the site. The program pays for bringing both photo buyers and photographers! To see details of the program, please see
http://www.shutterpoint.com/Home-Affiliate.cfm
You will need to login to see the program details
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