You should never overlook the importance of product photographs.
I’ve worked on more ecommerce websites than I can recall over the years. Each time I try to draw a list up, the following day I’ll remember another that I worked on and had forgotten about. However, what I’ve learnt about them all is the importance of product photographs and how few businesses fully understand the power of them.
Invest in professional product photography
Ecommerce website owners are often surprised at the cost of high-quality photography services. In my experience, it is one of the most important investments any business will make outside of the primary development cost of their site. Penny pinching isn’t something you want to be doing when it comes to commissioning someone to take the photographs.
There have been several surveys in recent years that put the importance of product photographs into context. In this blog, I’m going to look at a few of them and recount some of the stories I can tell about websites and their product photographs.
Product photography and CRO
When I’m engaged for CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation) services, product photographs are always examined. They are a critical component in the User Experience (UX). They’re the outside world window into the very thing you’re trying to convince people to buy. A good product photograph can be the difference between a visitor converting into a customer, it is that simple.
Amateur v Professional product photographs
Let’s go back to my point about the cost of product photography for a moment. I cringe, respectfully and inwardly, when a client tells me they’re going to take the photographs themselves. It doesn’t matter if their son, daughter, wife, husband or second cousin has a DSLR camera and can take a half-decent landscape shot. They’re not a professional.
Nor does it matter if they’re going to spend £50-100 on a few gadgets and a fabric photo-booth cube from Amazon. That makes me begin to worry even more. I’m not going to say it is impossible for an amateur or enthusiast to take a reasonable product photograph, it is. However, in my experience they’ll never match or get anywhere near the quality of a professionally shot photograph.
Watching a master at work
That said, the standards I’ve seen in the end results from professional photographers vary immensely. I recall two days when I was in the presence of the guys that do the product photography for Greggs (the UK bakery company). Their attention to detail and the experience they demonstrated in getting the perfect photographs was a privilege to witness.
On the other hand, I also spent a few hours watching a professional photographer take shots for a clothing brand. It was evident they hadn’t dealt with clothing in the past, let alone managing a company employee as a stand-in model. They might have shot a few small products in a box previously, but the end result of the clothing shots made it very clear that was the limit of their skill. The variance in lighting from one item of clothing to the next was akin to night and day.
Post-photoshoot product photography skills
My advice is to choose a professional photographer that can demonstrate experience with products of your type.
The post-photoshoot production process is something else I never cease to be amazed by. I was able to sit with one of the Gregg’s photographers for a while and watch a master at work. The adjustments he made to each and every photograph turned a good image into a superb image. I’ve always been of the view that, whilst anyone can use Adobe Photoshop, you need to see a true expert at work with it to appreciate the skill involved in getting a perfect photograph.
The sad thing is that you probably don’t appreciate any of this when browsing a high-end ecommerce site. We take so much for granted nowadays, but there is a subliminal impact on your brain and it can be the difference between buying a product and leaving a website without a purchase.
That brings us to why good product photography is so important and the part it plays in the CRO process.
The power of good product photographs
Here’s a great fact for you – MIT discovered that the average person can process and recognise an image in 13 milliseconds. That’s fast! According to the International Forum of Visual Practioners, your brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text.
CRO statistics with product photography
Images are far more appealing to people than written text.
75% of shoppers will make their purchasing decision based on the product photographs. So, no matter what your price, or how much time and effort you’ve put in to curating a brilliant description, the product photograph is the deciding factor.
The disconnect of SEO v CRO
This is where there can be a disconnect between SEO and CRO. Ultimately, SEO is the process of getting visitors to your website. What they do from there is out of the control of SEO.
That’s where the importance of a CRO service comes into play. I won’t be the only consultant that has had to speak with clients about their tens of thousands of website visitors, as a result of high-quality SEO, and their frustration with low conversion rates because their website needs CRO performing to remove barriers to sale.
Low v High quality product photography conversion rates
If you thought the 75% statistic was convincing enough, here’s another. If you replace a low-quality photograph with a high-quality photograph, the average conversion rate will increase by 94%.
Return rates of good quality product photographs
There is also a very important factor in respect of product returns. Products with excellent photographs, that reflect what the product will look like when the customer receives it, have a far lower return rate. Indeed, 22% of all product returns are because the product looked different to how the customer expected.
Protecting your brand
Product photographs also represent your brand identity. They represent your effort, your quality, attitude and professionalism. It is counter-productive to put time, money and other resources into developing a brand if you’re going to destroy it with poor quality product photography.
CRO and social media with product photographs
A good quality product photograph is also far more likely to be shared. We all understand the importance and power of social media today, and having engaging product photographs has been shown to increase the possibility of your products being shared by a factor of x40.
The more shared a product is, the better it is for CRO. The product is far more likely to sell.
You v Competitors product photographs
Having a great product photograph, or several of them, is an opportunity to set yourself apart from the competition, particularly if you’re reselling the same product. If I can see a product on their website and the same product on yours, but your photography is far more professional and engaging, your competitor isn’t getting my business.
Stock product photographs from manufacturers
I worked with a company reselling the same products as hundreds of other across the UK a few years ago. They were using manufacturer provided imagery, stock photography that the manufacturer gave to every retailer in the country.
The photographs were very good. Their quality wasn’t a problem. The issue was the fact that every retailer used them. There was no differentiating factor from one website to the other. You can probably think of a lot of websites that do the same. However, in this particular case, the client website prices were 10-30% higher than those of their competitors.
The client marked products up because of their higher levels of customer service and brand name. That didn’t sell the products in this instance. They had extremely low conversion rates on all products where stock or manufacturer provided photography was being used.
Introducing CRO and bespoke photographs
That changed when they invested in professional photography for the product. Suddenly, it looked different to that being offered by everyone else. Their conversion rates improved. They didn’t go into the stratosphere, but they certainly had a noticeable impact. The customer could see more of the product they’d receive and it felt far more ‘real’.
The trust factor of good product images
There are several other factors to consider. One is the important of trust. Companies that invest in good product photography have far higher trust ratings. There is a conscious message being received by the potential customer – you’re far less likely to have scammed them, the product looks far more appealing, and you actually care about how your offer is perceived by them. Trust is portrayed by high-quality imagery.
More product images increases sales
High quality product photography also increases the visitor attention span. They stay on your product page for longer.
The number and size of product photographs you show is another important element of converting website traffic into sales.
Products with multiple images enjoy up to 22.5% increased sales than when displaying a single photograph. If a product photograph can then be made larger or ‘zoomed-in’ on, that adds an average of a further 22.9% in sales. That is a 45% increase in sales by having more and larger product photographs.
Ebay revealed a remarkable statistic a few years ago. Every additional image added to a product listing increased the chance of the product selling by 3%. That’s a 30% greater chance of achieving a sale by adding 10 product photographs.
There’s also the small matter of more images keeping visitors on your website for longer, something that Google takes notice of.
360 product photography and videos
Nowadays, retailers have a couple of other options available to them when it comes to how they display their products – 360 product photography and videos.
Surveys in the USA revealed that 360 degree product photography resulted in a 50% drop in returns. Given the cost of returns to a business, that is a significant saving for retailers.
360 degree photography also increases the conversion rate on products. Statistics show this can be between 25-30% more sales compared to standard photography, although some retailers have reported 40% higher conversion rates by using 360 degree product images.
Product videos have been shown to have an even greater impact on sales, with some retailers saying they experienced 45-50% rises. There is no doubt that a video shows far more of a product than a 2D photograph can, even with multiple angles and shots, and the consumer popularity of channels such as YouTube is a factor.
Again though, you’ll see a difference in conversion rates between videos shot professionally and those thrown-together by in-house staff – and it isn’t what you are expecting to read.
Professional v Amateur product video
There is an interesting footnote when it comes to videos of products – the difference in conversion rates between professionally shot videos and those produced by in-house staff is nowhere near as large as it is with standard photography.
This is where the ‘real life’ aspect comes into play. Consumers tend to prefer less glossy videos where there is a real-life feel to them. The same applies to product reviews, where the average viewer likes to see someone they can relate to, such as a member of the public, reviewing a product. It is, in many respects, the opposite of consumer behaviour where traditional 2D product photography is concerned.
Summary: Invest in good product photographs
Professional, high-quality, product photography can be a defining factor in taking a low or average performing ecommerce website to new heights. It is a core part of any project where CRO is concerned and not to be ignored.
Feedback
I always welcome feedback, whether in agreement with me or not. I like to hear differing opinion and experiences, so please feel free to leave a comment.
Leave a Reply