Do you really save money by doing your own photography?
If you have an online business selling products, you need to have photos of them to put up online. Now, to save money and promote your goods you might find yourself saying, “I’ll get the digi camera out, take a few pics and put them on the website. They’ll soon sell.”
Or will they?
NEED PHOTOS OF YOUR PRODUCTS?
HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER TAKE THEM YOURSELF
If you have an online business selling products, you need to have photos of them to put up online. Now, to save money and promote your goods you might find yourself saying, “I’ll get the digi camera out, take a few pics and put them on the website. They’ll soon sell.”
Or will they?
Most digital cameras these days take a fairly good photograph, with their higher and higher pixel rates and vibrant colours. But is this enough to make people want to buy your goods?
People think that if it looks OK on their computer screen, it will look OK on other people’s computers and they’ll want to buy. That may well be true in a few cases. But if your competitor is selling the same product for the same price, but is shifting four to five times as many products as you, the question to ask yourself is why?
The answer is simple. Good photography sells.
Your competitor has almost certainly invested in a professional photographer to get the best out of their products. By looking at the photos, their customers can see exactly what they are buying, like they were actually in the shop with the product in their hand.
When people look at photos of products online, here’s what they are looking for:
A good representation of the product
All round views
Close up details
Accurate colour representation
Size of scale
Texture
Clarity
With this in mind, it’s not good enough just to take a photo of your product from three feet away with a digital camera and hope to capture all these aspects.
Customers shopping online want to use the zoom tool to zoom in and examine the product more closely. But when you take a photo from a distance with a lower quality camera and then zoom in on various parts, the image becomes grainy and unsightly.
Whereas the professional photographer with his or her knowledge and expertise would know what to look for straight away, and would take separate shots of each area to get the best possible image they can.
And this is only one aspect of photographing products. You also have to consider your target audience. Are you aiming your photos at men, women, young, old, teenagers, doctors, builders, medical professionals – they will all need a different approach, style and mood which the professional photographer will know how to create using lighting, props and so on.
All in all, there is a whole range of things to think about when photographing products and an experienced pro will discuss all of these with you before taking a single picture.
But don’t just take my word for it!
Here are a couple of examples where people have taken their own photos to sell items on their shop websites, set against simple images taken by a professional photographer.
Shoe A
Shoe B
These two pairs of shoes are very similar and cost around £189 each.
Based on the photos, which would you buy?
Shoe A: No detail and it’s hard to see the stitching. The lighting is poor and the shoe looks slightly blue in colour.
Shoe B: Well lit. You can see all of the details and stitching. Colours are accurate.
Or how about these two high spec laptops costing from £1,500 each?
Laptop A
Laptop B
Based on the photos, which would you buy?
Laptop A: Photographed on a distracting background. Angle unattractive and if you look carefully at the screen, you can see the man taking the photo in his underpants!
Laptop B: Clear image. Good screen display. Better angle showing the depth and sleekness, including the ports on the side.
This is why you should book a professional photographer to shoot your products. The small initial investment will soon be repaid many times over in higher sales (and lower returns).