5 reasons why product photography can positively impact your ecommerce

26 October 2021

Author: Yen Padrajas

Introduction

Your success in ecommerce depends a lot on the images you present on your platform. In order to provide the best experience and create a good impression, you need product images that speak more than your product descriptions.

Since people are visually wired, we are able to understand and process information faster based on what we see. Images, after all, are easier to comprehend, recall, and are more persuasive. This is the main reason why product photography is important in ecommerce and should never be underestimated.

A professional photographer’s ability to capture product images that are compelling, and the way their images are able to convey the vision of your brand is invaluable. The resulting photos will reflect the quality of your product and will serve as valuable leads and assets to your eCommerce store.

What is Product Photography?

Product photography focuses solely on applying specific techniques to capture product images that are aesthetic and at the same time, complies with the message expressed by a brand. It is one of the effective ways that help with product advertising and is used to convince people to buy them.

Website visitors usually only skim through your site content. Thus, they are more attentive and give more time in observing images than reading written content. This is where product photography becomes very important. Good product photos will keep people scrolling and coming back to your ecommerce store.

There are two types of product photography done for ecommerce:

1. Clean Background and Product-only Images.This way of product photography involves only taking images of the product from different angles. In this example from Office Desk Mat, the image is placed on a plain, white background or edited to be placed on a white background to give focus only to the product itself and its details.

2. Lifestyle or In-Context Product Photography. This is the way of taking product images that include elements other than the products intended to give people a better idea of how a product looks when in use.

 

Every ecommerce store must be able to provide both types of photos for each product. Consumers love variety and this strategy is way more convincing and informative to prospective customers.

Here are 5 reasons why product photography greatly impacts your eCommerce.

1.    Good Product Photos Influence Customer Purchase Decisions

Given the current stand of the retail market due to the pandemic, many people are reliant on purchasing products online. While they are not able to visit marketplaces physically, images provide the best alternative for buyers to take a look at the products.

 

Without images, a sale will not be possible in ecommerce. However, this does not mean that you can just provide just any image you want, taken in any place, and at any angle. A survey from Weebly found that 75% of ecommerce shoppers’ purchase decisions are influenced by product photos. Thus, good product photos will develop trust, and for this reason, you need to have professional product photos taken and displayed on your marketplace.

2.    Image Aesthetics Attract Buyers’ Attention

First impression matters and providing your visitors with good-looking images will definitely help build a positive impact on your ecommerce. It only takes about 50ms for users to decide whether they will leave your website or not. So providing them with good-looking images will make them want to give it time to observe it.

 

Finding an ecommerce website with good-looking banners and aesthetic product images makes them stay for a little bit longer. This, as a result, exposes them to a lot more products that would also possibly result in a decreased bounce rate.

3.    More Images Increase Sell-Through

Aside from good-looking images, customers love details the most. A single, good-looking image won’t work or convert at all. It takes 4-5 more images of a product from different angles to convince a buyer to make a purchase. In fact, statistics say that customers expect an average of five images displayed for each product while shopping online (source: Statista). This shows that customers are interested in looking at product details first before making a decision.

 

Having a zoom function, enabling users to see the product in 360 degrees, and even using mockups or real models will also increase conversion. All these must be well-considered when managing an eCommerce shop. You need to add more convincing elements that will help customers decide that your products are worth buying.

4.    High-Quality Images Decrease Return Rates

Many product returns happen because customers are disappointed with the product they received compared to what they were presented when making a purchase. In fact, 22% of returns happen because the product received by customers looks different in person. This is usually due to bad photography skills, over-editing, and intentional hiding of product defects.

 

Hiring or outsourcing professional product photographers will help you get the best images for your ecommerce site. Professionals know better how to capture the textures, colors, and important details that need to be presented or displayed in your website or marketplace.

At the same time, hiring professional picture editors will ensure that the important details of your products are highlighted, and your product images are edited perfectly so it pleases customers enough without the need to change their features.

There are still a lot of factors that influence product return rates. But being honest about your products in the first place will decrease its possibility significantly.  Rectify your mistakes by improving because customer trust and satisfaction are the most valuable factors that will lead your business to success.

5.    Product Images Influence Engagement Across Other Platforms and Sales Channels

According to Venggage, 63.2.% of businesses rely heavily on visual content as part of their marketing strategy. This is because images are more engaging and attract more attention compared to written content alone.

 

The use of visual content applies a lot to ecommerce businesses as well. Ecommerce businesses tend to reuse and/or include their product images a lot when advertising on social media and publishing content on their blogs. Using great lifestyle product photos or using the products in memes are effective for marketing campaigns that will surely encourage engagement.

Improve Your Ecommerce with Product Photography

Product images provide your prospective customers with an incredible amount of information. Your images are valuable assets that you need to manage well because they represent your products and your values as a brand. Having professional product images is not just about the appeal, but they can further become a part of a wider effort, aimed to build a community surrounding your business/brand.

Improve your eCommerce with product photography. Backed with honest marketing and proper optimisation, this strategy will surely get more conversions and brand influence.

 

With our thanks to Yen Pedrajas for creating this article for POP

Yen is an ecommerce and digital marketing enthusiast, based in Singapore who loves to share and write new insights and perspectives about marketing and growth hacking for business. Yen works as full-time Lead Editor at Removal.AI – an AI tool used for image background removal and processing photos for ecommerce, web and app development.