Regardless of what product you’re selling, Amazon is a great platform to reach a range of buyers with minimal effort. With 200 million Prime members worldwide, they are bound to be some of your target audience browsing the website and app in search of what you sell.
This makes it an ideal platform whether you’re a first-time seller or branching out from your current selling platforms. However, before your products receive views and are purchased, there’s an element of setup required. This can affect their visibility as well as how appealing they are to browsers.
In particular, your Amazon images hold a lot of responsibility for convincing customers to add the product to their cart. A good picture can present your business as official and trustworthy, convincing customers to invest in your items.
What is essential for a product image?
If you’ve sold online before, you’ll already know this, but if you’re scaling your business and moving onto e-commerce platforms, it’s worth clarifying.
A product image clearly displays your product to attract and inform customers. This is the cover photo for your item page, meaning it shows up when it’s listed in Amazon searches and is the first image browsers see on your product page. It shapes a viewer’s first impression of what your product is.
Other types of photos can be helpful to include, but they should be displayed after the product image. These may be infographics or lifestyle images, for example. Although these do show your products, they aren’t suited to browsing through.
For customers who show an interest, these additional photos can provide further information and context regarding the product and how it’s used, convincing them to purchase.
So what are our best tips to create Amazon Product Photography?
Once you know what you’re looking for, finding and creating optimized Amazon product images is easier than it seems. As with any other referral marketing platform, though, it does take some planning to get the perfect shot.
Ensure that the images you use display your products at their best and appeal to potential customers by using the following tips:
1. Follow the Amazon guidelines
Amazon doesn’t leave you in the dark about what photos they want for your product images. Our biggest tip is to follow Amazon’s product photography guidelines which are quite often overlooked.
Their guidelines not only specify the size and the file type of your image but that you should use white backgrounds and fill 85% of the frame. Likewise, they suggest you don’t fill your image with extra objects that could become confusing, and stick to the cover art for CDs or DVDs.
A full list of requirements is available on Amazon’s website to ensure your image accurately represents your product. Ignoring the requirements will prevent you from uploading your image and may stop you from being able to list your items. The requirements are less specific for other e-commerce product photography, but for your main image, always check what Amazon asks for.
2. Prepare your shoot
To get professional-looking photos of your product, both for the main and additional images, take the time to set up your shoot. Instead of worrying about why calls keep dropping or other admin tasks, focus on the photos you want to take and how you can make them high-quality. For example, consider your lighting i.e. taking photos in well-lit locations or using extra lighting to compensate.
While your main product photo should have a white background, other images don’t have to. Plan where else you want to take photos, such as using the product in a relevant location. If you’re selling a surfboard, it’s great to see it being used, so invest in a waterproof camera and find a nearby beach. This may also involve hiring models or using props.
3. Show product features
In your additional images, focus on specific features of your product. If it’s waterproof, show it being used in a setting where this is useful. Alternatively, if it has extra cameras or high-quality zoom features, display these through before and after photos to compare the difference these features make to the user. The inclusion of such images can also be useful when redesigning your website.
For browsers who end up on the page, this makes it easier for them to see the benefits of your product. Although they can’t try it out, the images show other people testing it, providing buyers with some reassurance of how it works. This allows browsers to see the benefits without reading a chunk of text.
4. Use text
Infographic images are useful to include within your additional images. This allows you to highlight key features, provide information on how the product works, and/or tell customers useful facts. Any text used in your images should be concise and short, letting the image do the main work and annotating where necessary.
Indeed, Amazon browsers are more likely to look through your photos than read long descriptions. That’s why this is a clever way of getting important and convincing information across. Likewise, infographic images can answer some of the frequent questions directed to your sales team. This can engage potential customers and make them to read more of your product page.
5. Pick the main photo with care
From your selection of product photos, picking the main image is very important. There are lots of differences between social media and retail, including the sort of images used.
On Amazon, your main photo shapes browsers’ first impressions and has to follow specific requirements. It doesn’t necessarily need to show off any features or demonstrate how the product is used.
Your main photo should display the whole of your product, so there’s no confusion surrounding what your customer is purchasing. Other photos you use on your product page can provide the rest of the information and more context.
Don’t worry about it being too simple – it’s supposed to be. Check out our article on how to optimize your amazon product images in 5 simple steps.
6. Check how images present
Just because you’ve nailed the setup and taken some great photos, doesn’t mean they’ll present this way on all devices. Many online shoppers will be using their mobile, so your images need to be optimized for this type of viewing. These screens are far smaller than on computers, so intricate details or text may get lost or become unclear.
Before uploading images to your product page, view them on different devices. Also, review the accompanying text and get a business phone number to direct customers to along with your web address. This helps to guide mobile customers through the purchasing process, as well as make clear where they can find additional support.
7. Test Your Photos
Where possible, it’s important to test anything you’re going to use to win potential customers. Doing so can make your product images, marketing campaigns, and website design data-driven rather than experimental.
Ask your existing customer base for feedback on your product photos, particularly which ones appeal to them and are most informative. This will help you to compare similar photos and choose the best one.
You can also use your online community by sharing photos on social media and asking followers to vote for their favorites. This gives customers a preview of your products and identifies the photos that are more interesting to your customer base.
The more you test your photos beforehand, the better the idea you’ll gain of how well they represent and sell your product.
8. Hire a Professional
If you have the resources available, the best way to get quality photos of your products is by hiring a professional. Photographers specializing in product imagery will already know and understand the requirements for your photos, as well as what images will stand out online. They have the equipment necessary to get the right shot.
For startup businesses, this may be too expensive, but there are other options available. Working in partnership with a photographer could enable you to get quality images while promoting their services and giving them a commission fee. Alternatively, you can take the photos and use a professional editor to improve them afterward.
Better yet, you can try Cherrydeck Branded Stock Amazon which saves you time and money through an effortless process. All you have to do is send out your products. Then, you’ll get a library with hundreds of images featuring your products in accordance with the strict Amazon guidelines.
Review Your Amazon Product Images
By following our Amazon product photography tips, you can easily improve your images, leading to more viewers on your pages and a higher volume of purchases. Make your images more informative and appealing, and lead customers to be sure in their decision to add your item to their basket.
Soon you’ll be better able to recognize successful photos for both online selling and social media. Product images can constantly be updated and refreshed, so you can always adjust them for better ones.
Be aware of the style of other businesses’ product photos and popular setups, particularly those in a similar field to yours. This can help inform your decisions of which photos are most appealing to your customers.
Lastly, remember to have fun with it. It’s your product and you know how to portray your items in their very best light.
Did you like our Amazon product photography tips? Make sure to check out the Cherrydeck blog for more insights on product photography.
Jessica Day – Senior Director, Marketing Strategy, Dialpad
Jessica Day is the Senior Director for Marketing Strategy at Dialpad, a modern business communications platform that takes every kind of conversation to the next level—turning conversations into opportunities. She is an expert in collaborating with multifunctional teams to execute and optimize marketing efforts, for both company and client campaigns. She has also written for other domains such as Startups Magazine and Codeless. Here is her LinkedIn.
