E-commerce product photography: 10 foolproof tips for creating a great-selling product photo!
Looking to increase sales on your site? One good e-commerce product photo can make all the difference! Indeed, a well-done photo can arouse the interest of your potential customers and encourage them to buy. But how do you create a photo that sells? In this article, we present to you our 10 infallible tips for creating e-commerce product photos that will hit the mark every time. Whether you are a novice or an expert in photography, these tips will be of great use to you, so follow the guide!
1. Respect the main principles of packshot photography in your e-commerce product photos
For any e-commerce product photo, it is essential to respect the best practices of packshot photography, including here are some of the main principles:
- Represent the product faithfully, without artificiality, so that the customer knows exactly what he is buying.
- Avoid touch-ups and tricks that could mislead the customer and lead to returns.
- Use a neutral white background to draw and maintain attention to the product.
- Control the lighting to highlight the product and use a neutral color temperature so as not to distort the perception of the product.
If you want to know more, we invite you to read our Complete guide to packshot photography, a series of articles that we have written for beginners and less beginners. These articles cover all the technical aspects that are essential for creating quality product photos. You will also find practical tips to improve your photos and thus boost your sales.
2. Minimum 2 or 3 images per product
Online shoppers need clear and accurate information about the products they want to buy. To do this, It is recommended to have at least two or three images per product. By providing multiple photos, you also show that you have total confidence in your product. In this way, you prove to your customers that you are transparent and that you have nothing to hide. This transparency reassures buyers, who feel more confident when they have access to more information. In short: the more product photos you have, the more likely you are to gain the trust of your customers!
3. Remember to show your product from multiple perspectives
Since your customers can't touch or test products online, it's essential to show your product from different angles, so that the customer can get a clear idea of it. This includes the technical aspects of the product, but also the design, finishes, and specific details. 360 degree animation can also bring real added value to your product sheet!
4. Zoom in on the details in your e-commerce product photos
Some products, especially those with complex details, require more work to provide consumers with a complete view. So do not hesitate to make close-up views of some details, as if to show more closely the fabric of a garment or the delicate carvings on a pendant. The more details you can show the better. Zooming in on these details also allows customers to better understand the quality of your product. For example, by showing the stitching of a garment, customers can see that the product is well-constructed and durable. This can justify a higher price and convince customers that it's worth it.
5. Incorporate one or more lifestyle photos
Customers often need to see the product in action and understand how it can improve their lives before they make a purchase.That's where the lifestyle photography intervenes. This type of photo highlights the product in a very specific environment, in order to bring it to life and show it in a situation that could be real. For example, imagine a photo of a backpack carried by a mountain hiker. This photo highlights the usefulness and benefits of the backpack in a real situation, while making it more attractive and desirable for the consumer. With lifestyle photography, your customers can thus visualize how their life will be like once they have purchased the product. This helps them to project themselves and to consider the product as already part of their daily lives. Exposing your product in a real context also allows you to highlight its features and benefits. It's an opportunity to highlight the issues the product solves and convince customers to buy it.
6. Show how the product works or installs
As an extension of lifestyle photographs, Another idea to incorporate into your e-commerce product photos Is to Show how the product is installed if it is not intuitive, or How does the product work afterwards. In fact , it's completely possible to create a tutorial in the form of a diagram or a collage of images to be integrated directly into your product sheet. By showing how your product works or is installed, you will offer an optimal buying experience to your customers, reassure them and increase your chances of selling.
7. Inform about the dimensions of your product
On the internet, our perception can quickly be misleading: We can imagine a product bigger or smaller than it really is for example, without the seller's intentions being initially misleading. It is simply difficult to represent the real dimensions of a product that can only be seen in images. This is why it is essential to give clear indications as to the size of a product. You can do this in several ways:
- in a lifestyle photograph by placing it next to a model or an everyday object,
- thanks to a diagram representing its exact dimensions,
- using a size chart if you offer multiple options.
Giving this type of clear information to your customers will also avoid a lot of returns and complaints.
8. Optimize your e-commerce product photos for the web
Have you ever visited an e-commerce site and waited forever for product images to load? This is not only annoying for potential customers, it can also harm your business. However, it is an easily solvable problem, it is often enough to optimize and compress product photos for your e-commerce. By reducing the size of these files, you not only improve the loading speed of your site, but you can also save storage space for your host. This image optimization should not be taken lightly: it can considerably improve the user experience and thus increase your conversion rate. The JPEG format is the most commonly used image format on the web because it offers good image quality while being easy to compress. You can also optimize your product photos for your e-commerce directly on a retouching software like Photoshop, or you can also use free online tools such as TinyPNG.Have images with the right dimensions is also important for optimizing your website. An image that is too big will take longer to load than an image that is the right size. Check the dimensions of your images before uploading them to make sure they are suitable for your website.
9. Use them to boost your natural referencing (SEO)
Having photos of selling products is one thing, but having a e-commerce site that attracts many visitors from the search engines, it's even better! However, the e-commerce product photo that you are looking to optimize can also help you bring more customers to your site, thanks to the SEO (Search Engine Optimization). In fact, your images can also have a significant impact on the SEO of your site. Here's how to use your product photos to boost your SEO:
- Please fill in the Image alt tag by describing what it represents and placing relevant keywords in it. Google uses these descriptions to understand the content and context of the image.
- Rename your images Descriptively, it will also make it easier for search engines to index them.
- Download a Sitemap of your images to allow search engines to find them easily and thus increase your chances of ranking (many SEO plugins on Wordpress, such as YoastSEO or Rank Math SEO, allow you to do it easily).
- Optimize the size of your images, as we told you in our previous point (the loading speed of your pages is a crucial factor for Google!).
10. Choose quality equipment
Last but not least: The quality of your product photos is absolutely essential. Indeed, the first thing that online shoppers notice is the quality of your visuals. If your photos are not of professional quality, you risk losing sales, so it is imperative to use quality equipment to take your photos. You have at the very least need a good camera and quality lighting with a neutral white background.However, if you are looking for the best in packshot photography, we recommend that you invest in a automated photo studio. This type of studio guarantees you a extremely high quality standard, all with disconcerting ease. Thanks to an automated photo studio, you can produce professional quality e-commerce product photos in just a few minutes. This material is designed to make the easy, fast and accessible photo shooting for everyone. Even if you don't have any special photography knowledge, you can create flawless product photos. With an automated photo studio, you can adjust lighting, focus, and colorimetry without any difficulty. In addition, the integrated retouching software allows you to correct small imperfections that may remain, while providing you with images optimized and ready to publish on your e-commerce site So all you have to do is put these 10 tips into practice to boost your online sales. Remember that the quality of your photos is essential to make Internet users want to buy your products, so do not hesitate to consult our A more in-depth guide to packshot photography or at Ask us for information about our automated photo studios if you want to go further!