Amazon Product Photography: Getting it Right
When we are not wearing our seller/business owner hat, we are sometimes playing the customer role, shopping online, often on none other than Amazon. And if there is one thing that helps us the most in deciding whether or not we want to purchase a product, that’s the product’s images.
This behavior is consistent among a large majority of shoppers. According to Shopify, 75% of online shoppers rely on product photos when deciding if they want to buy the product or not.
Additionally, product photos are also one of the most important parts of retail readiness.
This is why it is critical for all brands looking to make it big on Amazon to prioritize product photos as a part of their business growth strategy.
In this blog, we will start by explaining why product photos are as important as they are and next, we will walk you through some Amazon-specific best practices to help you get the most out of the visual space Amazon offers.
Importance of Product Photos on Amazon
We live and shop in a digital world. But, as amazing as this digital world may be, shopping here does not have one important feature of the physical world shopping: the ability to physically assess how the product looks and feels. However, the digital world makes up for this lack of physical assessment capability with product photos.
Product photos play an important role in closing the deal with the customers. This is one of the most important areas of your listing.
The quality of your content can mean the difference between a closed sale and a missed opportunity. Therefore, you cannot afford to risk running your Amazon listings with mediocre content.
Product photos add value to your listing, and through them to your business in a variety of ways including:
Deliver Visual Information
Photos help deliver vital product information easily and quickly. Not just that, when delivered visually, this information is also more digestible for the customer. And so, well-designed and optimized images can help your prospects understand the product and its value better and be more likely to convert.
Leave a Better First Impression
Your product images, especially the main images are one of the first things that customers see when they search Amazon for relevant products. So, brand and reputation building start through images, well before the customer may have gone through the rest of the detail page.
And if the images lack the quality customers have grown to expect from reliable brands, your brand can miss out on leaving a good first impression, and because of that, maybe even a sale.
Therefore, high-quality, optimized images are vital to make a solid first impression and build trust, right from the start. Talking about trust…
Build Trust and Credibility
The reason why high-quality product images help shape a positive brand perception is because they help foster trust and credibility with the customer.
Imagine going on an Amazon listing that has just one image - the main one. Would you be more comfortable buying from this seller or from someone who has 6-7 eye-catching, informative, high-quality images uploaded? Given that all other variables (like reviews etc.) are the same, the latter of course.
Higher Conversion Rates
High-quality product photos help keep the prospects engaged for longer. Not just that, they also enable a brand to close more sales by increasing conversions.
This happens because optimized product images, while building trust, also help customers understand the product and its value better. And once that happens, it is easier for them to make sense of why they need to buy this product.
The ability to deliver better product understanding also brings another benefit:
Reduced Returns
Returns are costly, in terms of not just money but time and effort as well.
When a customer is able to understand your product better, they make an informed purchase decision.
High-quality product images make sure customers know exactly what they should expect from the product. This automatically reduces returns and helps brands save precious resources.
Now that you know why product photos are so important, let’s talk about how you can get them right on Amazon.
Best Practices for Optimized Amazon Product Photos
Amazon has a policy for everything and product photos are no exception. But besides the technical image requirements, there are certain best practices that brands often miss out on and can be valuable if you implement them. Some of these are:
Get the Right Photography Resources
If you are DIYing your product photos, make sure you take all pictures with a professional camera or any other device that can take similar pictures.
It is worth mentioning, however, that the best way forward may be to hire professional product photographers unless you are a professional yourself. This may be costly, but you will get high-quality content that will be better designed to help you reap all the benefits we talked about in the previous section.
Regardless of who takes the pictures, make sure they are high-resolution, clear, and compliant with Amazon’s requirements.
Choose the Right Background
Background matters a lot, especially when you are taking pictures for the main image.
Amazon requires that the background for the main image be white. But even for the additional images, make sure the background is neat and has the right contrast so the product and/or other image elements can stand out.
Demonstrate the Size of the Product
Remember, one of the primary goals of your product images is to help customers understand the product better. One of the ways you can get closer to this goal is through including images that demonstrate the size of the product.
This will help customers understand the scale of the product.
Demonstrating size may be critical for categories where size is more relevant, like home appliances, vitamins and minerals, kitchen goods, etc.
Include Lifestyle Images
Lifestyle images are the ones that show your products in action. These images are critical because they help customers get a feel of how the product would be in their life and enable them to envision using the product.
This helps you pace up the customers’ decision-making process, potentially increasing your conversions as well.
Make sure to choose the props and models carefully. And don’t forget to go through Amazon’s guidelines to avoid any suppression issues down the line.
Add Text and Make Infographics
Customers receive visually transmitted information better than they do textual information. This is why, adding text on your images and turning them into visually-attractive infographics can help you convey your product’s strongest features and benefits easily.
You can either dedicate one image to one benefit or consolidate all the features in a single image if you’d like to use the rest of the visual content space for other images.
Product Functionality Images
When you are claiming that your product offers a benefit, it helps to explain how. And there is no better way to explain how your product delivers a benefit it claims to deliver than through product images.
For example, this brand selling a mattress protector shows a rendered image of how the product is made to assure the customers that the product is, indeed, built to deliver the function it is being sold for.
Final Word
Amazon allows brands to upload seven (or six if using a listing video) images on their listing. This is ample space for you to help customers understand your product and all the benefits of shopping with your brand plus building a positive product experience.
However, sellers often don’t utilize this space too well and risk leaving money on the table or worse, potentially driving prospects to a competitor’s more visually appealing listing.
Consider giving your product listings a second look and see if you can implement any of the best practices we discussed above to improve the product experience.
Also, consider working with professional photographers or designers when trying to create new product images to make sure the images make your brand look reliable and contribute to a positive perception and experience.
At Accrue, we work with our clients to improve their listings and make sure we are seizing all sales opportunities for better conversions.
Need help growing your brand? Let’s talk!