By Sarah Reed
Today’s shoppers expect and demand that online stores provide the same realistic in-store shopping experience. The two best ways to do this is through video and photography.
Hiring a professional photographer to photograph your products may seem like too high of a cost for your budget, but in reality, it will save you money in the long run.
“The photograph is almost always the first element in any ad that connects with the buyer. It is the handshake, the first impression, the thing that cuts through the visual clutter to capture the buyer’s attention.” (Gar Benedick)
We are a visual society, and if something looks better, we are going to be more apt to choose it over another product of equal quality. After all, a picture is worth 1,000 words and you want all of them to be sending the right message. Having professional photos for your shopping cart will help to send this message.
If you try the “do it yourself” method of photography and take the photos in your bathroom or garage, it’s going to cost you more to try to fix those photos and make them look professional than it would to hire a good photographer. There are many wonderful tricks that can be done with Photoshop or Lightroom that can make a badly lit, off-angled, poor background photo look like a crisp professional photo, however, you’ll need to hire an expert who knows how to use these programs to achieve the right results.
Compare the investment of photography versus the time spent editing the image. It takes hours (per image) to silo (cut out) an image and correct lighting problems, shadows or off-angles. The cost that you’ll end up paying the designer to fix these problems will far exceed the cost of hiring a good photographer in the first place.
If you skip all of these options all together and simply use the home photos on your website, your sales are going to suffer. In a world where identity threat and online security risks are very real, customers want the reassurance that they are making a purchase from a reputable and professional company. Having professional photos and a professional website are the top two ways that you will be able to convey this to your customers, and your bottom line will reap the benefits.
You’re so right. Product photography needs to be done properly or else I move on to a site that looks more reliable. I tell this to my clients as well.