You know what they say, Picture Says a Thousand Words! And when it comes to product promotion in the world of eCommerce, Amazon, eBay or Etsy, it cannot be any more accurate.
The fact is, eye catching photography is the very first thing an online marketer has to focus on when it comes to product promotion. Since First Impression is the Best Impression, you cannot cheap out or overlook this “Hero Shot” moment.
So why killer product photography is that important?
Think about it. You are promoting a product that your prospective buyers cannot physically see, touch or feel. Only way they can just the product is by looking at the product photography. A product shot in a low light environment with a smartphone will just not cut it. If you want to survive, you must either shoot professional quality product photos or hire a commercial photographer to do the photo shoot for you. These product photos then go to the clipping path service provider company for various types of editing and retouching.
If you are still thinking that you can get by with those iPhoto product photography images you did over the weekend, here are some stats for you:
Research shows that people remember 80% of what they see and only 20% of what they read. Source: ViSenze
93% of the costumers said that visual content was a deciding factor in their purchasing decision. Source: Justuno
22% of the products sold online were returned as they differed from the product photo.
How to take that Hero Shot of your Product
There are few thigs to look at when it comes to shooting a product photography that sells.
First, you have to identify your sales volume: Where are you promoting and selling your product? Is it only a few items you are selling on Amazon, eBay or Etsy? Or hundreds or thousands of pieces being sold on your eCommerce platform or Shopify shore?
If it is only few pieces of items you are selling on consumer retail sites, you can either shoot the product photos yourself or hire a commercial product photographer. If you shoot it yourself, most important thing you need to focus on is the light. Most people think about a good dSLR camera and spend a ton of money on a good camera to take good quality picture. But that is actually overkill. Smartphones these days are equipped with good quality cameras and any midrange smartphone will be able to shoot a high-resolution product photo for you.
However, again, the most important part is the light. Make sure you have enough light. Not almost always, is 100% of the time where the natural light or regular home lighting will not work for your product photography. You will need those photographer’s light stands that you see being used in the studio environment. You can pick up one at Amazon for as low as $20. Or you can find some DIY Light Box tutorials if you are a handyman and shoot your products in that light box.
Once the photography is done, here comes the need of product photo editing. You will need to remove the image background, perform ghost mannequin editing, sometimes you will need to do a little retouching to make your product photo stand out and be eye catching. While photoshop is a licensed photo editing tool, there are free ones out there like Gimp and few others you can use to edit your product photography. Or you can always find a freelancer who can edit your product photos for a few dollars which would be a good investment.
If you are an eCommerce seller by the way and selling hundreds or even thousands of items on your eCommerce platform, then there is no way you can shoot all those photos by yourself. You need to hire a commercial product photographer and professional photo editing company to do your product photo and editing.
Conclusion: Your product photography is what represents your products online. Buyers see the picture of your product and make a purchasing decision. It is extremely important to have high quality and high resolution product image to sell your products. In most cases, some photo editing is also needed to brighten up the image and eliminate imperfections from the product to make it look attractive.
