Amazon has an eCommerce marketplace share of 37.8% in the USA, according to a study. In this highly competitive marketplace with 9.7 million sellers, you need a proper strategy and professional photography of your products to make your brand stand out.
Thus, the Amazon product photography is one of the most crucial parts of the whole strategy. Compared to lower quality, higher quality product displays have 94% higher conversion rates. The more realistic and fine-tuned your product photos are, the better user experience you can create in the first place.
So, put your best efforts into Amazon product photography to win the challenge in the first impression.
Why Is Amazon Product Photography So Important?
Photography is a universal medium that can express emotions, stories, and particular messages without any help from words. Here are some reasons why professional Amazon product photography is so important in the Amazon marketplace:
- First Impressions: In the eCommerce world, first impression is everything. Those who fail to gain the audience’s trust in the first impression, fall. In Amazon, the first impression comes entirely from product photography.
- Visual Decision-Making: Great product photography can make a strong emotional appeal within a fraction of a second, highlighting its core features and benefits.
- Trust and Credibility: A poor-quality product photo seems amateur and needs more perfection, while a high-quality product display positions your product as premium.
- Differentiation: High-quality Amazon product photography aims to showcase unique features to give your customers reasons to choose your products. Good photography includes creative close-ups and lifestyle imagery to make your brand stand out.
- Reduced Returns: Clear photos allow your customers to see exactly what they get. It reduces surprises and returns, resulting in good customer experiences.
- Improved Conversion Rates: Compared to poor-quality, high-quality product photography has 94% higher conversion rates.
Best Practices for Amazon Product Photography
Quality Amazon product photography is not just an attractive visual, it is the powerhouse of conversion in the Amazon marketplace. It persuades customers to purchase by showcasing the uniqueness of your products. Good photography also helps you place your products at the top of Amazon’s search results.
Here are some ideas and best practices for your Amazon product photography.
Understanding Amazon’s Image Requirements
First, let’s be aware of what Amazon recommends.
- Image dimension: The image size should be within 1,000 pixels to 10,000 pixels. Amazon advises to use 2,000 x 2,000 dimensions.
- Ratio: Images should have a 1:1 square ratio.
- File size: The file size should be 10 MB or fewer.
- File type: Amazon supports JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PNG, etc. However, it is highly recommended to use JPEG files.
- Number of images in a listing: Amazon allows you to upload up to nine images for a specific product. Seven images can be shown in the Amazon carousel, and the rest will be stored in the gallery.
- Other guidelines: Useful infographics can be used along with images, but logos, trademarks, or other elements that can misguide the users are prohibited. Besides, contents with offensiveness, nudity, or racism are not allowed. Lingerie, swimsuits, or related product photos must not be seductive.
Preparing Your Products
Suppose you are attending a formal meeting. What preparation would you like to take first? You might not wear dirty clothes that can ruin your impression. The same goes for your product photos in the Amazon marketplace.
That is, you must clean your product thoroughly before photo shooting. Remove any tags, dust, fingerprints, or other obstacles that could misguide your audience. A distraction-free product photo can persuade its audience at its most, driving them to make a purchase.
Prepare your product to shoot from different angles, as it will give your audience a clear idea of the product.
Choosing the Right Background
Background plays a vital role in evoking feelings that match your products. It also helps you focus on the products your prospects are looking at.
So, consider choosing the right background that represents your brand.
Amazon marketplace highly recommends using a pure white background. The white background is the most distraction-free element to showcase your product. You can easily remove any spots on a white background. It also allows you to reduce the file size without compromizing the quality of your product photo.
On the other hand, pure black evokes the feeling of an elegant and luxurious look. If you have a business of jewelry or other rich goods, a black background can be your choice.
You may also put a colorful background for the Amazon product photography. Using the color wheel can make it easy to find the opposite color that matches your products. In this case, you must choose your branding color for the consistency.
Want more uniqueness than just using a solid background? If you sell products that invoke themes like nature or coziness, natural elements like wood, moss, leaves, stones, marvels, etc. can be your background. But, this way can be complicated to maintain the consistency of your branding strategy.
That’s why using a pure white background is the best practice, as it reduces the file size along with other complications.
Amazon requires a pure white background for the main photo of your product that is presented in the first place.
Lighting Techniques
Lighting makes your product photography outstanding. There are three key elements in lighting:
- Direction of lights: The light direction determines the shadow and highlights your products. It influences the overall mood of your product photography.
- Intensity of lights: Adjusting the intensity of lights enables you to take control of the brightness and contrast. It ensures details and optimal exposure of your product photo.
- Quality of lights: The quality of lights, whether it is softer or harsher, determines the appearance and texture of your product, and the intensity of the product shadow.
Softer light aims to create a soft and defused shadow, while hard light creates a sharper one. Soft lights are suitable for cosmetics and clothing-related products mostly, as they minimize imperfections and present products more appealingly.
Hard lights can represent jewelry, electronics, or similar kinds of products with stronger contrast and bold presentation.
Although many choose to use natural lights for photo shooting, artificial lights give you full control over the direction, intensity, and quality of lighting.
Editing and Retouching
After shooting your product photos successfully, edit and retouch them for the best presentation. You can’t always shoot the perfect photo that requires no retouching and editing, and that is ready to upload on the Amazon marketplace.
Editing product photos is not that easy for non-professionals. That’s where the product photo editing services come in. But, if you are confident enough to handle it on your own, here are some best practices for you.
- Change any confusing background and replace it with pure white ones.
- Sharpen blurred outlines, enhance contrasts, and hide unexpected flaws and stains with photo retouching.
- Determine which area of your product needs the main focus.
- Resize and crop if necessary, as Amazon requires at least 1000 pixels with a 1:1 ratio. It is highly recommended to use 2000 x 2000 pixels for the best view. Though, you can upload up to 10,000 pixels on Amazon.
- Reduce the file size for the fast loading speed, without compromizing its quality. The pure white background is helpful here.
- Pick an image that fills approximately 85% of the image frame.
- Fix faded colors, restore natural colors, and adjust neighboring colors to create the best appeal.
Testing and Optimization
After photo shooting, editing, and retouching, you need to complete one more task, optimizing your photo.
Amazon listing has seven slots to showcase your photos. But, you can upload more than seven product photos. Your audience can see the rest after visiting the detail page.
It is worth mentioning that most people won’t navigate to the detail page and will miss the detailed information that might make their mind to make a purchase. So, it is best to put the key bulletin in your product photos.
Point to be noted that the main photo should be on a pure white background with 85% filled up of the image frame, which must not include any text or bulletin.
If possible, represent your audience’s perspective with your product photos. Let’s say, you sell premium kitchen goods. In that case, use a premium kitchen as the background of your products.
FAQ
Can I use lifestyle images for my Amazon product listings?
Lifestyle images aim to represent the audience’s real-life situation, events, or milestones artistically. It evokes emotions and urgency for the products and persuades your prospects to buy from you.
So, of course, you can use lifestyle images in your Amazon product listings.
How many images should I include in my Amazon product listing?
Amazon lets you upload up to nine images, but only seven will be displayed on the product listings. The rest can be shown when they navigate to the product detail page.
Do I need to hire a professional photographer for my Amazon product images?
It is not always necessary to hire a professional for Amazon product photography. If you are confident enough to shoot your product photo, you can hire professional photo editors to fine-tune your product photos.
But, hiring photographers always ensures the quality.
Can I sell photos on Amazon?
Yes, you can create a photo booking option or calendars to sell your service on Amazon. You can also include selling prints and sell them on this platform.
What are Amazon product photography standards?
Amazon product photos require at least 1,000 pixels and at most 10,000 pixels within 10 MB of file size. Fulfilling this requirement allows you to make your photos zoomable and quickly loaded.
Wrap-Up
Clear and appealing product display is the major key to success in the Amazon marketplace. A high-quality product photo captures your audience’s attention within moments, arousing interest in your product.
So, consider the best effort in product photography for the Amazon marketplace.
