Amazon is currently the most popular eCommerce platform in the world. If you want to sell products online then Amazon is probably the right place.
Although there are a lot of competitions, but with the right marketing scheme and good product photography, you can do solid business on Amazon.
In this article, we will be sharing with you some of our valuable tips that will help you with your Amazon business.
What is product photography?
Product photography deals with showcasing a product in such a way that aims to increase the conversion rate of selling the product. It is required for any company that sells physical products.
Product photos are generally advertised on Billboards, catalogs, magazine ads, brochures, and online ads.
Good quality product photos are especially important if an individual vendor or company wants to sell on their own eCommerce store.
The better the product photos are, the better will be the brand’s status.
Why Conversion rate matters?
If your products are not converting; meaning, it is not being sold, then you will need to change your selling scheme or the products. Otherwise, you will end up losing business.
Knowing your product’s conversion rate is important to known whether it is profitable or needs to be improved.
Companies collect conversion rate data to determine their progress based on the current product’s data and website visitor information.
Getting Technical – Amazon Requirements
All eCommerce platforms will have their own guidelines that retailers need to follow in order to enlist their products for selling. We will be giving you some general guidelines that you need to follow.
- The image extension should be from the followings: TIFF (.tiff or .tif), GIF (.gif), PNG (.png), or JPEG (.jpg or .jpeg).
- Each image should be at least 1000px, either in height or width
- Image color profile can be either CMYK or RGB.
Some of the requirement needed to be followed for the Main Image:
- Illustrations or cartoons are not allowed.
- The image needs to be of the actual product and should be professional.
- Images should show the real color of the product and needs to have proper lighting and focus.
- Products must occupy at least 85% of the frame.
- Background needs to be perfectly white.
- Offensive scenes such as adult pictures are not allowed.
For more in-depth details, visit amazon’s actual website.
Things to know for equipment Setup
As per amazon’s rules; products need to be shot professionally and should be fully focused. For that, definitely avoid shooting with smartphone or point and shoot cameras. Instead, use DSLR or Mirrorless camera. These are industry standard and are required for any professional photography.
Avoid wide-angle lenses. It tends to cause distortion around the edges of the image. These lenses are great for outdoor or lifestyle photography, but for product photography; it is better to avoid it.
Instead, use a telephoto lens. These are commonly used by professional product photographers. You can find cheap as well as expensive options.
You can also go for a macro lens. These are great for shooting small objects. It will be more useful if you want to show tiny details of any product, such as showing the professionally crafted stitching of handmade leather bags.
Know your camera settings. If you are not very comfortable with going fully manual, then use the semi-automatic modes provided by your camera.
Common semi-automatic modes are aperture priority mode and shutter priority mode. You can also use the fully automatic mode, but that’s not recommended. You won’t have proper control over how your photos will look, as a result, more work needs to be done in post-processing, which will increase your cost. If you opt for outsourcing then visit Fix the retouch for cheap editing services.
Staying Consistent
There is a lot of competition on Amazon, so building your brand is very important. You have to be professional and make sure your brand is easily recognizable.
Have a consistent theme on how your photos are taken. Maintain consistent lighting, style, and color themes.
If you are a business owner, then know the color theory and see what suits your business and what catches your customer’s attention.
Set up your studio in such a way, where you can replicate the exact lighting and position of your product, to ensure maximum consistency. This will help you to develop a recognizable brand.
Importance of White Background
Amazon required vendors to use a pure white background, which is RGB (255, 255, 255).
Not only Amazon, but most other professional eCommerce platforms will require products to have a clear white background.
White background gives products a cleaner look and adds a professional feel. To eliminate shadows, use shooting tents. You may need to manipulate the position and intensity of your Key light, fill lights, and backlight to get a clean and sharp photo.
In case you are using a paper or cloth sweep, make sure it doesn’t have any crease or wrinkles on it. Otherwise, it will show up behind your products.
Resolution and Quality of product shots
Products won’t be sold if it looks dull. Photos need to be of very high-quality; it cannot have any blur or gloomy light.
Make sure it is lit properly and not overexposed.
You need to show customers how the product looks in reality, which will help them judge better whether they want your product or not.
Don’t add any special effects to make it look appealing. Once the customer receives the product and finds out that it is not what they asked for; you will get bad reviews. It will lower your brand trust. So, keep it real.
Use Tripods for steady pictures
Consider tripods to be a must-have tool for professional product photography. It will keep your camera steady and avoid camera shakes. This will eliminate motion blur, giving you a clear image.
You can buy tripods that let you adjust the height of your camera’s position and you can use the same setting for multiple photos, enabling you to have consistency through the shoot.
Include variations
Give customers more choice of selecting the product they want to buy. Add multiple colors and style variations of the same product. If they don’t like the first one then they might prefer another one that you are offering.
Also, having flat images doesn’t look attractive. Shoot from multiple angles. It will give a different perspective look to your products.
Your brand and site’s reputation matters
Amazon is considered to have a very well reputation amongst its customers. They pay close attention to the type of product you are selling and whether it is offending any particular group of people.
Don’t put immodest pictures to get customer’s attention, it will simply get rejected by Amazon and may cause you a penalty.
Whatever product you are selling on Amazon, make sure to not offend anyone with the product’s design choice. If you think it will cause conflict, then it is best to not sell it and lose your brand status.
Editing Product Photos
This is probably one of the most important things that shouldn’t be missed. It is very likely that images won’t be perfect, so you need to edit them. Get started by doing smaller adjustments like color correction, brightness adjustments, contract and vibrance adjustments, etc.
If there are spots or dust on products then definitely get those removed. Make sure the product looks pristine.
If you don’t know how to edit photos then consider outsourcing it from Fix the retouch. It will save you time, that you can invest in doing something important. Investing in an in-house editing team will be very costly, so outsourcing will be the best option. Also, fix the retouch has a professional team capable of doing any kind of photo editing tasks. And can also manage bulk editing services very easily.
Conclusion
Your aim should be to grow your brand and gaining customer’s trust. To do so, you will need to be more professional in terms of how you represent your company and the products. Always remember not to disrespect any community by selling immodest products. You will need to do a lot of analysis by selling and reviewing your product’s performance to see what works best for you.
