Not getting enough sales in your e-commerce store? The problem might lie in your product photos.
Sixty-three percent of customers said that product photos are the most important factor when shopping, even more than product descriptions or user reviews. If your photos are low-quality, blurry, or dull, you’ll risk having many customers scroll past your products and lose out on potential sales.
If you’re running an e-commerce business, that is something you cannot ignore. In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of high-quality product photography and share tips on taking better photos – one that will make your customers click that “Buy Now” button.
How Great Product Photos Can Boost Your E-Commerce Sales
Product photos serve as your virtual salesperson in the e-commerce world. Unlike in physical stores where customers can see, smell, or feel a product, one can only rely on product photos online.
However, simply having a product photo is not enough. It needs to be high-quality. This means the photos are taken from multiple angles, are well-lit, and in high resolution.
Some benefits of great product photos are:
Provides Clear and Detailed Product Information
What does the product look like? What would it feel like? How does one use it? High-quality product photography can help you provide that information.
First is how the product looks. If you provide multiple angles, a customer can “see” the product better and easily visualize how it will look.
Next is how it would feel like. High-resolution images are the key since a customer can zoom in and inspect the finer details of your product, such as the texture, fabric, or stitching. This can also help convey the quality, giving customers more confidence to buy your product.
Last is how the product will work. Photos of the product in action, seeing before and afters, or providing contextual lifestyle images can help customers see how the product works and how it will fit into their day-to-day lives.
All of these can help provide a better understanding of your products and thus increase conversions.
Enhances Perceived Value
Beautiful product photos can elevate the look of your product and make it look more premium and high-quality.
Let’s say you’re planning to purchase a laptop. One is shot in a dark room with a messy and dirty background. The other one is shot in a sleek studio with professional lighting. Even if the first laptop has better specs or is more expensive, you’ll likely find the second laptop more appealing based on the pictures alone.
People are psychologically wired to want beautiful and valuable things. Increasing your product’s visual appeal will boost your sales.
Builds Trust and Credibility
Be honest – will you buy a product if there’s only one photo of it? Or if it looks dark, blurry, or grainy? Probably not. You’ll even assume that the store is a scam.
Customers expect legitimate businesses to have the resources to provide high-quality photos, especially in our technologically advanced world. Anything less than that can make you look untrustworthy.
High-quality photos can help assure your customers that your store is legitimate and credible. They can also assure buyers that the product they’ll receive will be high-quality.
Reduces Product Returns
Surveys found that 22% of product returns are due to the products looking different in person.
Clear and accurate product photos solve this problem. By showing every detail, such as the size, color, material, fit, or functionality of your product, you set your customer’s expectations right from the start and lessen misunderstandings. This will help you avoid the hassle of handling product returns and lost sales.
Boosts SEO
While your product photos may not have a direct technical impact on SEO, they can still positively influence it.
High-quality product photos increase the chances of people clicking on your site when they see you in search results, driving more organic traffic to your e-commerce store.
Great photos also improve user experience and engagement. Since customers can get all the information they need from your photos, they stay on your page longer, which reduces bounce rates and signals higher engagement.
All of these factors can help contribute to a higher SEO ranking.
But if you want to improve your SEO, optimizing your photos should be next on your list. This means compressing your photos, saving them in the right format, following size guidelines, and enabling lazy loading.
These improve your page speed, which is a huge technical factor for SEO. Combine that with keyword-rich image descriptions, well-written product descriptions, plus a branded domain name, and you’ll have a stronger SEO game which will in turn increase sales.
Tips for Taking Better Product Photography
By now, you know that high-quality product photos are essential. But how can you take great ones?
Try the following tips:
- Pay attention to lighting – Lighting can greatly affect the quality of your product photo. If you take it in a too-dark room, your customers won’t be able to see the finer details of your product. The sharp contrast can hurt their eyes if it’s too bright. Try to strike the right balance.
- Have simple backgrounds – Clean backgrounds ensure that your product is the star of the shot. Avoid clutter, mess, or excessive decoration that can cause distraction. While a plain white background is a typical choice, you can still experiment with colors or texture so long as you keep it simple and neat.
- Provide multiple angles – According to e-commerce giant Shopify, stores should provide an eye-level shot, a high-angle, a low-angle, and a bird’ s-eye view. These four perspectives should give a customer a better idea of what your product looks like.
- Provide various product photography styles – A clean studio shot is not the only photo type you need. Ideally, you should also have:
- Lifestyle shot – This helps customers visualize when, where, and how they can use the product.
- Group shot – This shows customers other products in the product line or variations of the same product. (Ex. show that this conditioner is part of a body care set, or show that the t-shirt comes in five other colors)
- Scale shot – This shows customers how big or small your product actually is.
5. Edit wisely – Minor tweaks, such as adjusting brightness, exposure, contrast, or colour, can help make your product photo look better. However, avoid extreme editing, as you can end up misrepresenting what your product actually looks like.
6. Consider your branding – Your product photos should ideally reflect the aesthetic and vibe of your brand. For example, Dior provides glamorous, high-fashion lifestyle shots to reinforce their chic and luxurious branding. Meanwhile, soda brand Poppi takes studio shots with colorful neon backgrounds to reflect its fun-loving brand identity.
7. Use the right tools – You don’t need the latest, most expensive tools to take a great photo. But you do need at least some basic tools. These are:
- Camera
- Table
- Lightbox
- White background
- Tripod – To avoid blurry and pixelated shots
- Light reflectors – For diffusing too harsh lights and avoiding shadows
Conclusion
High-quality product photos have a 94% higher conversion compared to low-quality ones. To make your e-commerce store successful, you’ll need to invest in better photos.
If you want to ensure your photos are the best they can be, consider hiring professional photographers. They have the right equipment, skills, and know-how to get the results you are looking for.
Ready to elevate your product photography? Book a Splento photographer today!