“More than 22% of products sold online are returned because ‘items look different than the photos”. E-commerce owners understand how frustrating that is and this is where E commerce photography comes into the picture.
Professional photography for products to represent them in a glamorous yet realistic manner. All that glitters might not be gold, but it does glitter. And if your glittering product/service does its job of being genuine gold, then that calls for a guaranteed satisfied sale and a potentially loyal customer. But first, you need to make it glitter and make it noteworthy, only will people consider buying it.
Product photography or to cover everything selling on the internet, e-commerce photography is basically that, it makes sure that your gold looks all glittered up.
According to statistics from Justuno, 93% of consumers consider imagery to be the key deciding factor in a purchasing decision.
This does not discard the actual value a product or service is providing, but the fact is that people online are very visually driven, the rise of Instagram is a testament to that and that is why appropriate and effective e commerce photography is worth a thousand sells.
Why Photography Increases Conversions?
People love good photographs, especially when the internet is filled with misleading, low quality, low effort, and outright fake ones. So if you can inculcate good photographs representing whatever you are trying to sell, it goes a long way to serve your brand.
A strong-professional product photograph on your website, showcasing your product/service in full glory strikes as a very confident and classy move from the buyer’s perspective specially when it authentically represents your product.
E-commerce product photography is a prominent business in itself for that very reason, it is crucial to get it right. Good product photography which represents what you are selling in an accurate yet appealing manner will make that customer ‘buy now’ instead of ‘add to cart’.
Clicking a picture from your 13MP mobile camera would be sufficient to sell your 8-year-old Car on an online marketplace platform but not to convince a customer that you just lack the right product photography setup, but you make it up in the quality of the product/service.
Moreover E commerce photography is the biggest weapon your product has when standing trial alongside hundred others inside big retailers like Amazon or Flipkart.
So basically, photographs do the job of convincing better for you, you can put up 12 pages of description about your product/service and still, those couple of high-quality images of your e commerce photography from different angles will do far more than what text could ever do.
Even the avid fiction reader enjoys a picture describing as much or more than the paragraph it’s based on itself. So there is always an audience for product photography, in fact, everyone comes under that list. This is where the quality of your pictures comes in and acts like a signature for your brand.
The 2 Types of E-commerce Photography
A. White Background In-studio Photography
The white background, in-studio, high-quality images from different angles of a product is a very familiar and pleasing sight on e-commerce websites, it is a symbol of reliable goods and service. Pictures with set up backgrounds and proper lighting have their own charm but it is no match to what the white background in a professional studio setup does.
The standard practice of having these images on alongside the description makes your brand look professional and does justice to all the physical aspects of your product. And that can’t be supplemented by a mobile camera photo which is ill-lit and of a skewed angle.
The only focus in this setup for product photography is the product itself, no background, no accessories, just insight into how the product by itself looks.
The description along with it further facilitates a customer experience that is as good as physically being at the shop and having the product in your hand. But only if your e commerce photography is authentic and doing proper justice to your product.
B. In-context Lifestyle Photography
This is a more recent addition to the e-commerce product photography sphere, showing your product in the environment it is meant to be. But the trick with this is, it can’t be too removed from vanity and has to be based out of reality, which still evokes a sense of professionals’ work.
To hit the balance, you just need to look at the photograph as a customer yourself, does it look too good, a bit too fancy? Then you need to tone it down a bit by grounding it more in reality.
But it should not look dull either, so you need to understand what is pleasing yet genuine.
Although it is relatively newer in E-commerce product photography, for professional photographers it is a cakewalk. So it is as important as easy it is, so it should be done in good taste and for that, hiring a professional would always be worth it.
The Return on Investment of a well-done Product Photography setup is as rewarding as it gets. As the photos would not only speak for that particular product of yours but also sets a standard for your brand.
It showcases that you are all about quality and so you are ready to invest your time and money to make your product look sharp, which basically implies that you care. This directly affects the subconscious mind of the customer.
The customer might not actively realize it, but the subconscious effect of a relevant and good looking picture makes them trust you, and once you establish trust you just need to maintain it, which is no easy job either.
Must-Follow Tips for E commerce Photography
A. Pick the Right Camera
It is common knowledge by now that your mobile camera won’t work for product photography. Although smartphones today do offer 4k, still if not handled by a professional you need to resort to a proper camera, preferably a DSLR for ease of use.
The mobile camera has its own limitations when it comes to the quality of the image, besides that, a mobile camera was never meant to be used for E commerce photography. On the other hand, DSLRs are put together with the sole purpose of capturing things well.
Even when it comes to a professional camera, it is advised that you do not go with a random one, irrespective of whether or not you plan on hiring a professional, the camera should be well researched according to your needs.
From our little research, Nikon D7200 and Fujifilm X-T2 get the job done quite well, but we would still advise to put in some time into picking an ideal camera before everything else. We ourselves use the Fujifilm one in our e commerce photography studio setup in Delhi NCR and results are amazing needless to say.
Product photography is not just dependant on the camera, of course, it involves a lot more skills and pieces of equipment, but as they say, first things first, if you don’t get the camera right none of it is going to fall into place anyway.
B. Take Advantage of Natural Lighting Along With Studio Lights
There is just no way around it when it comes to lighting, you just have to get it right in order to make your photographs look professional and appealing.
Now the guidelines of E-commerce photography are just there to help you out and make your job easier, but after understanding what is expected of you, you can pull off the unexpected. So unconventional but appealing photographs are not out of the question ever, at the end of the day, we want eyeballs and subsequent ‘buy now clicks’.
But the fact about lighting in the Product photography setup is that it has some standards that need to be strictly maintained to get that professional look and the bar is set too high for anything else to be acceptable. That is where a budget friendly and industry proficient studio setup comes into the picture who can get your product photography job done in the best way possible.
So make sure you do not compromise on the lighting, it is what gives the product a sharp-studio look if done right. There is a common misconception that lighting is costly, industry-standard lighting, maybe, but not the one you would need.
And it is easily available too, you could order it right off amazon, the entire basic setup that you would need, just under Rs.50,000/-. But that is not the tough part, the most expensive guitar does not guarantee the best of the tunes, that you need to master yourself.
So just switching on those lights won’t do the magic, you need to be more artful about it. Lighting is a whole craft in itself, a visual can be defined a lot based on its lighting, it sets the mood and tells the viewer about how they are supposed to feel about it, to a certain extent.
C. Use a Tripod for Stability
Shaky, distorted and skewed, just as unpleasant these words sound, they look even worse in images. You may have stable hands, strong enough to handle a decently heavy camera, between all the light setup but this is no place to prove your strength.
A tripod is a very essential part of product photography setup, undoubtedly. The conventional tripod was very limited with movement too. Now you can place the camera however you want, whichever angle you want without risking the image being distorted.
And a tripod is an investment that goes a long way, just choose the appropriate one according to your budget and your camera and you are good to go.
So when it comes to getting that professional look it really becomes essential to have that tripod setup for product photography. Additional investment would be getting a gimbal for stability aspect.
A gimbal is not absolutely necessary for your product photography setup but as its the age of videos, it certainly helps out for videos and gives you the edge. Online marketplaces have started to showcase their products along with videos already.
And the video may not feature an actual tutorial or anything but just a video shot around the product, smooth and classy. And people believe in videos more than images, although videos can be altered too, the authenticity is rarely doubted.
A gimbal will help you capture that video in an orderly fashion, keep it classy and most importantly it will help you keep the motion steady.
D. Prepare Your Products Before Your Shoot
Your studio is all set now, but don’t assume that your product is. Your high-quality studio will capture its high-quality flaws, at least visual flaws that are.
Your products need a touch-up, even the finest of the models need it. Now the touch-up varies product to product if your product happens to be something like a burger which may taste great but it might not look great on camera in its natural form.
It’s a known secret that food photography involves using motor oil as sauce and glue instead of milk, it looks great while it may not be edible.
You may not have to fake it to this extent, just a bit of glazing it up, making it extra stuffy for the camera would do the trick of keeping it as real as it can be while making it look great too.
That is just for the food business, each and every product out there has its own set of ways to give it a touch-up, for furniture just polishing might do the trick. And so respectively for each of your products, you need to do the needful to achieve that magical final e commerce photograph that your product so deserves.
It is not about misrepresenting the product but more so about keeping it professional. What might not catch the eye will be captured by the camera, be it a scratch on the wooden table or a speck of dust on the headphones.
This might not be your product’s flaw, but as mentioned above it is about how a picture influences a customer’s psychology, and so that speck of dust comes off as lack of care or dedication on your part. So it is very important to prepare your product, all neat and sharp ready to be captured in high quality and of course best bet is to let the professionals do it for you.
E. Keep the Product as Your Focal Point
These guidelines are supposed to ease your process, streamline the entire thing but some of the guidelines would be much more helpful if you follow it as a rule.
The issue with photography in general, let alone product photography is that it is a form of art. And so when art meets with business, usually art loses or the other way around which isn’t ideal either, in this case, you need to maintain a balance to make it look good and make sure that it helps you in increasing the conversion rate.
What often happens is that the point of e commerce photography is overlooked to achieve artistic standards. The white background in studio photographs is a good example that how norms help you do what you are supposed to do.
So if you are afraid of going too creative and messing it up, you can stick to the standard white background template and doing that neatly would be enough to strike that professional look. Instead of different frames that don’t even have the product in focus.
There is no issue with experimenting as long as you know what you are going for. As business is involved here, you can not afford to be too artistic and get pictures for your portfolio instead of the picture.
Having that white background is not necessary at all, you can shoot at your desk with good lighting or at the beach with only natural lighting, the product is what matters and that should come across by all means.
F. Don’t Forget Post-Processing!
Not as simple as adding a filter to your selfie, but the concept is the same. Beautifying is not lying, it’s just making it more appealing for the eye.
You can have the best product, camera, and lighting but still, you will need lightroom and photoshop to add that extra pizzazz to the picture. Now post-processing does not imply overselling your product but simply smoothening up the rough edges which could not be done by you physically in the first place.
Color correction goes a long way in giving it the feel that you want it to be having, the warmth or the coolness. Or maybe just fixing what did not come out quite well in the product photograph itself, be it the lighting or whatever messed it up.
Editing will help you do everything that you couldn’t do to the product itself and much more than that.
It doesn’t hurt to make it look good too, not too good mind you, people on the internet are smart enough to differentiate between glorification and glamorization. There is no need to glorify your product anyway, just smoothen the rough edges as mentioned earlier and thats what makes it so captivating.
G. Consistency on all Images
If you are shooting your product from 4 angles, it would have to be consistent by all means. Your product photography setup needs to have the same lighting throughout, the same tripod setting and the configuration on the camera for the shot should not be changed. Most importantly the product isn’t to be tampered with.
Even replacing the product with an identical one won’t be advised, as minor details which might miss the eye will not be missed by the camera and especially the customer.
Now consistency isn’t just comprised of using the same lighting or the angles and settings, it is basically about having a couple of photographs which belong with each other, which makes the customer feel that these pictures were shot together and with that single particular product.
Every art form offers the leeway to express their own creativity while following the guidelines, and it is because of which you are often able to identify works from different artists just by identifying how it is done.
So you need not have the white background photoshoot and can even shoot in parks and malls, the only thing that you should be keeping in mind is that the framing should be such that the product stays as the focal point and looks consistent throughout.
Now that you do have the liberty to make it look however you want, you can have the lighting, angles, everything according to your aesthetic understanding but the only thing to keep in mind is that if a photograph is reflecting your unconventional style, you better follow that through with all the subsequent photographs.
H. Hire a Professional
Second last, but certainly not the least would be hiring a professional, the whole package. E commerce photography is a legitimate market now, there are thousands of professionals available locally or can be sourced through the internet.
As you may have observed, right from choosing your camera to post-processing, those are all jobs that require a professional knack. These are skills that can be learned with practice and consistency of a couple of years, which you may not have the time to invest in.
It would be ideal to get a team that you can outsource the whole process too, just have your product ready and tell them your idea of how the photographs should look.
These professionals would have a fail-proof setup for product photography that can be customized according to your needs.
Hiring a professional team would help you save a lot more than what it would cost to do it by yourself, and hiring would be of course worth it anyway, the results are something you cannot bargain for.
It will also favor your budget as marketing companies who take up product photography, offer all-inclusive services which will bring down the compound price down.
For e-commerce owners based in Delhi NCR, we are housed right in your locality and armed with a 3400 Sq ft e-commerce studio photography setup to get that done for you. Plus if you’re just starting out with your products for Amazon and Flipkart listing and have no clue of how it should be done, all you need to do bring your products to us in our studio in Delhi NCR and our best in class e-commerce photography setup and team will get it done for you.
I. Optimizing Your Images for SEO
You can have the best of setups or teams to get you the best of photographs but if people can’t find it, if it doesn’t show up in their search results all efforts would be rendered worthless.
Now there are two aspects of optimizing your images for SEO, before clicking the image itself make sure to have your product in focus, whatever you are going to put up as the caption against it should be there in the image in full glory.
Now comes the heavy-lifting part, after getting the photograph you need to optimize it in such a way that it meets all the internet standards. What exactly are these internet standards?
- High-Quality images make you look professional and it shows up well in front and center in the search results.
- Low-size images load faster and are easier to access than something which is over 25MB in size, but this does not mean that you need to sacrifice the quality of the image, you can always compress the image without losing the quality.
- Add relevant captions which would be something you would search for, use words that are exactly about what is in the image and what anyone would search for.
Good SEO would help you out in an external way too if the images that you put up are relevant to what people are searching for. They might not just use that image for reference but also go onto its source, that is your website, hence inviting a prospective customer to your page.
Product Photography is not an Expense, it’s an Investment That you Must Make to Sell Your Products
Return on Investment is guaranteed with product photography if you get it done right. It is not that tough to get it right either, you just need to research a good marketing service provider who offers product photography according to your budget.
The need to get it done by professionals is often overlooked but it is a key factor when you want to venture out into product photography which is synonymous with being professional. After all would you still like to deal with 22% of your products returned back to you because of your e commerce photography not being upto the mark or would you prefer to have your customers happy with the product they have received.
Moreover the fun part of having professional e commerce product photographers deal with this is that your product will look like a million bucks without actually spending millions, that really would favor your brand image as it showcases your dedication and attention to detail, plus have that character reflected in your products and services as well.