Facebook has now launched their new service – Facebook Shops – and will be rolling it out across Instagram later in the summer of 2020.
As with all online stores, sales are driven by the visual content – the product photographs that speak louder than words.
As discussed elsewhere, your online sales success depends a lot on your product photography – read more about that here.
Facebook has several guidelines for photographs and other visual media which you may wish to upload to your store page; we have detailed these below.
Many eCommerce retailers decide that it is faster and often less expensive to pay a professional to take over the product photography and other visual media (such as video) for them.
Towards the end of this article, therefore, we will compare a few companies that offer product visual media services.
General Guidance
Facebook guidelines state that each product must have at least one photograph, although if you upload your product catalogue via a data feed file you can add up to another 10 per item (more information on that can be found on Facebook’s page here).
Each product photograph must be an accurate image of the product and is limited to an 8MB maximum file size.
There are various image size limitations depending upon where it will be used as follows:
For Instagram shopping, and for carousel ads, the image should be square (1:1 ratio) and be at least 500 x 500 pixels in size, although Facebook recommends 1,024 x 1,024 pixels.
For single image ads, however, the ratio of the image should be 1.91:1 with a minimum of 500 pixels along the shorter side; again, there is a recommended size, which is 1,200 x 628 pixels.
Additional recommendations
They also suggest (but do not insist) that for your main image at least, your product photographs have a white background and show the whole product (ie. no cropping).
Multiple images are encouraged that show your product from various angles and also make use of in-context (lifestyle) shots.
You can read separately about different styles of product photograph which can further help your customer to decide to purchase.
Facebook further recommends that your images do not include text, such as promo codes or time-sensitive information that will become outdated.
Do not use photographs with watermarks.
Finding a professional product photographer
For many eCommerce retailers, producing their own product photographs is not economically viable – either because they have no photographic experience or due to the amount of time it would take them to produce all the media.
Most online retailers, therefore, turn to professional product photographers to complete this task for them.
Professional photography services already know how to optimise the shoot and retouching for eCommerce stores, including Facebook, and will do this if you tell them where the photos are being used.
They will also complete the whole process faster than you can as an individual.
It’s worth looking around at a few companies as they all differ in service and pricing structure.
Pic-up.co.uk have varying charges for different sized items (and different categories); their prices generally start at around £12-£15 per item (one view), with a minimum order of £300.
Productphotography.co.uk have a lower-price package for £125, which includes 8 images (approx. £15 per photo).
Some services will also scale costs when a large number of items are being photographed; this is useful if you have multiple lines of products but can mean lower numbers are more expensive.
For instance, productphoto.com charge $25 per photo for a small number and scale down to $7 per photo for 700+ images.
A better alternative
For a refreshingly different approach, Splento’s pricing is based on a fixed charge per hour.
Their professional product photographers can be hired from just £99 per hour – and this includes retouching and delivery of the finished photographs within 24 hours (guaranteed).
Rather than scale price according to the size of your order, Splento has scaled their entire photographic process so that lower prices are available for everyone – regardless of the size of the order or number of photos you require.
For more detail about this unique approach, contact Splento today and see the difference they are making to the product photography industry.
Booking is simple through a straightforward online form and they are available 24/7 in any location – wherever you are.
Follow this link to see the latest examples of Splento’s product photography portfolio.
You are always welcome to contact Splento even if you just need a little more help or advice with your Facebook eCommerce product photography.
Contact Splento if you are in need of:
Event Photography and Videography
eCommerce Photography and Videography
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