5 ways to boost e-commerce sales with product photography

Why are outstanding product images so important for your e-commerce store?

They draw attention to the product

It's no secret that people buy with their eyes. And a good image can perfectly show the fabric's softness in a sweater, the rough edges of a leather jacket, or the thick material of a white cotton t-shirt. 67% of consumers say product photos are crucial when purchasing something online. That's a fact that can't be overlooked.

They boost SEO

Optimized, high-quality photos are crucial if you want to succeed online. They not only look good, which can lead to more sales and increase brand awareness, but also significantly impact search engine optimization (SEO). Plus, good images improve the user experience. UX, in turn, positively impacts the time spent on the site, bounce rate, and CTR, and provides an excellent opportunity for your e-commerce business to rank higher on Google.

By optimizing your images, you get to improve the page load time and, thus, get a better position in Google and, most importantly, attract organic traffic. The same goes for Google Images, but here, apart from optimizing the image, it’s also a matter of the right naming of the image, like alt text, file name, or title tag.

Insider Intelligence estimates that 49% of shoppers start searching for a product on search engines like Google. Without SEO, you cannot get into the organic rankings, one of the best ways to engage potential customers.

5 ways to increase sales online

Now, let's talk about what you can do to increase online sales thanks to product photography. There are 5 ways to do that.

Catch attention

Photos of products are unbeatable when it comes to drawing website visitors' attention and making a sale. Think about it. An eye-catching shot is a great first move to encourage customers to stay on your e-commerce website longer and actually click on the link to the product’s page.

You can also capture attention with colors. This has to do with color psychology, which studies how colors affect our perception and behaviors. In terms of marketing and branding, it's about how colors impact consumers' impressions of a brand and if they can be used to persuade target customers to buy something from us.

In fact, a proper color can distinguish your product from other e-commerce stores in the online crowd. According to WebFx, 84.7 % of customers consider color as the main reason to buy a particular product. Surprising, right?

So, depending on the color you use, you can evoke various emotions and create a different perception of a product or even the whole brand. As you can see, photos are great for shortening the customer journey and making quicker sales.

Use high-quality photos

In 2023, we have such a range of fantastic tools for photography that high-quality product images are a must. It doesn't matter how much money you spend on marketing campaigns or how smooth the website's user experience is; if you have bad-quality pictures, it can all be for naught. 

Customers now have more expectations of the e-commerce experience. They want it seamless and quick, with immaculate visual content. With your online store, you have to meet or exceed those needs if you want to increase your e-commerce sales.

Provide multiple views

Detailed photos are great for filling the gaps in the descriptions of products. They are more informative and provide customers with many more insights, like scale, texture, or product use.

Images

When it comes to images, show your product from different angles and close-ups. My advice? Give them more than 3 simple packshots. You can also provide them with a zoom option, which is a great way to let the audience focus on details and scrutinize the quality of the material. Let the product speak for itself.

Another advice? Engage your audience. A great source of high-converting content can be outfit photos from customers posted on social media platforms, which you can also add to your product page. This is actually one of the things that many online brands do to increase credibility. Plus, you celebrate your existing customers. All in all, it's a form of customer feedback that can show how a product looks on different figures. This can drive even more customers to your online store.

Rich content

Nowadays, rich content is the way to go. That's why, apart from images, you should also think about product videos and 360 spins.

Creating high-quality product videos will help you boost the shopping experience even more. HubSpot reports that 73% of people watching a demo video have purchased the product or services. That's the power of video product demonstrations.

360 spins are also highly engaging. Spin photography includes deep zoom 360 spins, 3D spins (multi-row spins), product animations, and product tours. This way, your customer will get to know the product even better. Plus, the spins also eliminate all the roughness of product images. Thanks to them, the shoppers can see the item from all sides, how the material behaves, and more. The result? Boosted user experience and improved conversion rate.

Models

Do you want to improve the experience even more? If you're in the fashion or beauty business, provide images with a human model. This way, your shots will represent how a given product looks on a person - the size, scale, and distinctive elements. Learn more about how to photograph models from our article.

And if you present it in a 10s video? Well, it's another level of information because now the customer can see the product 'in motion' - how it behaves, the texture, etc. All those characteristics will allow them to decide if they're the target group for this particular style, especially in the case of clothing/beauty products.

As you can see, videos will help you simplify the decision-making process, since the customer can decide whether it's the right fit for them. Plus, showing products on models is a fantastic opportunity to link to your other products. It's a subtle hint but also a powerful marketing move that makes the most of the chance. And just like that, you generate sales.

Be consistent

E-commerce is about product presentation and first impressions. Because let's face it - people like harmony. And that also applies to product photography. So, operate within similar color palettes, especially in the case of a photo background. But remember that some e-commerce platforms have a white-background-only policy, so choose your e-commerce platform carefully.

You should also be consistent in product arrangement, lighting, angle shots, or camera settings. In other words, create the foundation for shooting photos and embrace it. Following the rules will strengthen your branding and make you stand out from the crowd.

Be real

Online buyers expect better and more faithful-to-reality content. And this is exactly what you can give them with product photography. Just like I said before, show the overall product and its details.

Use zoom technology, proper lighting, or even entire virtual product tours to highlight the structure of a product. That's how you'll provide the most realistic online shopping experience. And finally, keep the post-production to a minimum. You don't want to overdo it. Not to mention that if you correct your product images too much, you may get a lot of returns. It's all about being authentic.

Automated photography process - is it for you?

Let's face it - producing content alone takes time and effort. Outsourcing may seem like a good idea, but it can be costly, and it may be hard to agree on one vision (which means going back and forth with touch-ups). 

This is when automated product photography comes in. You make one investment, and with that, you have more packshots, better quality product photos, and lower costs. With our solutions, like Orbitvu's Alphashot series, you get to streamline the whole process - from content creation to post-production and, finally, publishing. This means a shorter time-to-market. And isn't that something that every e-commerce business owner wants?

Thanks to the cutting-edge photography process, you don't have to share your know-how with anyone (you do it all in-house), which means you do it faster, more efficiently, and consistently with your vision. This will help you to grow revenue, be more competitive and create a group of loyal customers. And minimize the number of returns.

Sell more, process fewer returns - how to do it?

Now that we’ve mentioned returns, let's talk about them briefly. One of the main challenges of online stores is reducing e-commerce returns. Because of climate change, the e-commerce industry is undergoing a fundamental transition - to be more environmentally friendly. That means no unnecessary returns or additional costs connected with delivery or packaging.

Automated product photography can be one of the means to achieve that. It gives authentic content, product tours, and fast and effective content production and distribution.

How to increase e-commerce sales - the summary

You can use these few easy product photography tricks to increase e-commerce sales in your online store. And the best part is that you can do it much more efficiently with a single investment.

At Orbitvu, we want to relieve you of all the monotonous tasks connected to product content creation. With our innovative solutions, we want to ensure quality, consistency, and faithful-to-reality visual content so that online sales are made more consciously (and, thus, more sustainably). With that, we want to help in mitigating the number of returns. We don't want to waste resources.

And remember, if anything connected with product photography seems too complex, you don't have to do it alone! Reach out to us - we'd love to talk to you about the possibilities of product photography for your e-commerce business.