Decoy Theory on Shutterstock

After I started working with stock agencies and monitoring my sales, I began to wonder, “How can I increase my sales volume on stock agencies?” All microstockers surely ponder similar thoughts at some point. It turned out that most stock agencies follow the rule of “More quality works in the portfolio – more sales.” However, there’s an exception to this rule. This exception is the stock agency Shutterstock. It’s known that on Shutterstock, new works tend to sell better, and to ensure that image sales on Shutterstock continue to grow or, at the very least, do not decrease, one needs to constantly refresh their portfolio with new works. But it turns out that the process of adding new works to Shutterstock has its own specifics and certain optimization nuances, for which there exists a special strategy or theory. This clever strategy for uploading works to the stock agency Shutterstock is known as the theory of decoys. You know, for some reason, when I first heard about it, nothing stuck in my mind except the name, which has become more associated with “theory of decoys.” 🙂

Typically, most stock agencies review submitted images sequentially, meaning if images are submitted with a one-day interval, the review interval will be approximately the same. However, Shutterstock has a unique process in that images are checked as a batch; once the queue reaches the first image from that batch, the review happens simultaneously for all submitted images, regardless of when they were uploaded. For example, if the first image was uploaded on a Friday and others were added on Saturday, they will all be reviewed together on Sunday when the first image reaches the front of the queue. Other distinctive features of Shutterstock that microstockers have identified through experience include:
– On Shutterstock, the upload time of an image is not as significant as the identification number assigned to the image during upload.
– The numbering of images on Shutterstock follows a standard scheme where each subsequent image uploaded by the author receives a higher number than the previous one. Note that image numbers are assigned not after the review is complete but at the time of upload.
– When customers sort images by novelty on Shutterstock, the stock agency arranges indexed works in descending order based on their identification numbers — from the highest to the lowest.
– Shutterstock inspectors conduct reviews for all images queued from a given author simultaneously.
– Works submitted too late for acceptance (1-2 hours before acceptance) may not make it into the waiting queue.
Based on these discovered features, microstockers developed the theory of decoys. A decoy is defined as an image that occupies a place in line for review for all other works. It’s clear that a decoy will have a lower identification number, and its position in search results will be lower, thus reducing its chances of sale. Therefore, decoys are often not particularly promising in terms of sales; these are works that you might think the stock agency may not accept or ones that you wouldn’t mind if they were accepted, but the decoy allows for earlier acceptance of other works uploaded later with later identification numbers.

How to use the decoy theory on Shutterstock?

On Shutterstock, due to its specifics, sales peaks usually occur on weekdays. On weekends, the number of image purchases on Shutterstock drops significantly. Hence, most microstockers aim to upload works so that after review and indexing, they go on sale on Shutterstock on Mondays or Tuesdays, which are the peak sales days. For this purpose, decoys are typically uploaded on Fridays and Saturdays. Note that the review of vector and raster images occurs in separate queues, so a separate decoy should be uploaded for each queue. After that, it’s essential to take a break of about a day, usually until Sunday, before uploading the main batch of images to the Shutterstock microstock. Now, we wait for the decoy to be reviewed, and at that time, the other uploaded works will also be checked. Following that, indexing of the images on the stock agency will take place before they go on sale, which typically lasts about a day. After that, we can start reaping the rewards from Shutterstock.
The key to the decoy theory is to try to calculate the average acceptance time and estimate the approximate indexing time on Shutterstock. If you manage to hit the Shutterstock database update (indexing) with recently uploaded works, your photos and illustrations will appear on the first pages of the stock agency when customers sort works by novelty.
As far as I understand, a couple of years ago, the decoy theory was something of a trump card for experienced microstockers regarding maximizing earnings on Shutterstock. Now this theory or strategy for optimizing image sales on Shutterstock is known to most microstockers, yet it has not lost its relevance, as I constantly confirm while working on the Shutterstock stock agency.