The Importance Of High-Quality Product Imagery In eCommerce

In the world of eCommerce product imagery plays a huge role when it comes to attracting, retaining and even converting new visitors. After all, modern consumers have much more control and power over their decisions and they tend to get quite picky when shopping online.

Considering the fact that so many people nowadays spend a lot of time browsing the web in search of products to buy, it comes as no surprise that the images an eCommerce business decides to use in either its product descriptions or product promotions need to be stellar.

That being said, the process of creating the perfect product image has a lot of moving parts, so achieving this goal can sometimes be easier said than done. The key is to not only make a great first impression but also convince consumers to convert into paying customers.

Planning out the photo shoot, finding and hiring the right experts and ensuring everything goes smoothly and according to plan are just the basic steps the eCommerce business will need to take. Luckily, with the help of Creative Force’ planning software for large scale eComm photo shoots businesses can nowadays ensure they stay on the right track during the process of imagery creation and production.

With that in mind, let’s see why image quality matters so much in eCommerce and what are just some of the ways in which having high-quality imagery can help your business.

Why Does High-Quality Imagery Matter?

As mentioned earlier, in eCommerce, the better the quality of your product image or video is, the more value it will bring to your store visitors.

When buying products, consumers get the most value from being able to touch them, inspect them closely or even try them on before they make their purchasing decision. However, this is not exactly possible in an eCommerce setting. Therefore, it’s up to the eCommerce store to try and create a similar experience for their customers and visitors in a virtual setting.

For instance, if you’re running an eCommerce store selling jeans, you’d want to ensure that you showcase as many models – and on as many different body shapes – as you possibly can. That way, your store visitors can get a general idea of how your jeans will fit them, especially if they manage to find an image of their body shape or size being represented. Now, such a photo shoot would require a lot of time and effort to execute correctly. So you can use something like this KPI guide to help you stay on the right track.

In addition to doing photo shoots, using tech innovations like an image background remover can be a great help in this process. It’s a handy tool that helps in facilitating an instant BG removal from your product pictures, thus allowing more focus on the product itself. This way, you achieve crisp, distraction-free images that provide your customers with more detailed visuals. It not only simplifies your work process but also significantly improves the aesthetic appeal of your eCommerce store.

Additionally, it’s crucial to realize that in this day and age, where technology has advanced so much, there’s simply no excuse for having sub par imagery. This will not only make your business look unprofessional, but it will also deter customers, as the majority of them won’t even bother to try and figure a poor-quality image out.

What Are Consumers Looking For?

Considering everything we’ve just discussed, it’s obvious that quality product imagery will also help your customers find what they’re looking for more easily. Product descriptions bring huge value to your customers, especially when they’re detailed enough, but when paired with a quality photo(s) or video, the value only becomes greater.

What’s more, an eCommerce store can also invest in making promotional videos for their products where they can showcase the product being used. That way, any potential consumer can get as much information as possible about your product which will help immensely with shaping their decision. And, considering the fact that high-quality imagery has the power to improve the perceived value of the product, it’s safe to say that it’s also more likely to make the decision a positive one for your business.

This is particularly true if talking about products that are somewhat of a bigger investment that consumers don’t really make on a daily or monthly basis, such as buying a new PC for instance.

In case you’re selling PCs in your eCommerce store, you should include high-quality pictures of separate components, PC rigs, monitors and other products in their description. Additionally, you can also create a video where an industry expert will test the gear and give some overall commentary on its performance.

How To Ensure You Meet Expectations?

We’ve already established that consumers have certain expectations when browsing products online with the intent to purchase. But how do you, as a business, ensure that you meet those expectations?

To start off, make sure you do some competitive analysis and see well your competitors are performing. This will help you identify things that are working in their advantage, as well as those their audience finds to be lacking. Of course, you can then use this knowledge to improve your own operations and even potentially attract a completely new audience to your eCommerce store’s proverbial doors.

Furthermore, customers love to be shown respect and that they’re being valued, so why not ask them directly for feedback?

Ask your customers if they are satisfied with the current quality of your photos and videos, and what they would do to improve them. Do know however, that you’ll most likely get a ton of feedback and – realistically – you won’t be able to address or implement everyone’s wants and ideas. But as long as you get at least some valuable feedback, you can consider your mission a successful one.

What Else Can You Use The Imagery For?

The good thing about insisting on high-quality imagery is that you don’t only need to use it as product photos to fit into your product description.

Instead, you can also use it for marketing. You can share the photos and videos on social media platforms, include them in your newsletters, reach out to influencers for some additional promotion and even hire affiliate marketers to help you out.

Since influencer marketing is still going strong, especially in the beauty and fashion industry, you can even send out your products to interested influencers and ask for a review in return.

This way you can both get the value from an influencer promoting your product to their audience and have your product showcased in high-quality picture or video format, depending on the platform and the influencer you’ve reached out to.

Building A Brand Persona

In the end, high-quality imagery can also help your eCommerce business establish a unique business persona more easily. This is especially important for online stores that are in the process of developing a brand.This will not only help you establish your business in the market, but it will also make your customers more likely to develop a deeper, longer-lasting relationship with your brand.

Good quality images and videos can help establish your brand identity and showcase your unique persona not only to your audience but other experts in the industry as well. Considering just how crowded and competitive today’s online market really is, every online store must leverage any advantage and opportunity they get to stay ahead of the competition.

Closing Words

Since there are so many products available online today, modern consumers prefer to take their time and browse for the best deal possible in terms of both product quality and price. For this reason, eCommerce businesses must provide detailed and visually appealing product descriptions using high-quality imagery and videos. This is precisely why the process of creating such visuals must be well-planned for.