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Key Takeaways

  1. E-commerce businesses often struggle with providing detailed, high-quality product images, affecting customer trust and purchase decisions.
  2. Apimio PIM simplifies image management, ensuring clear, informative visuals across all online platforms.
  3. Implementing Apimio PIM leads to increased sales and operational efficiency, enhancing the overall e-commerce experience.

Did you know that 75% of online shoppers rely on eCommerce product images when deciding on a potential purchase?

Hence, you can say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and in ecommerce, it’s worth a thousand sales.

High-quality visual content and product images for ecommerce can make or break a sale for online businesses as customers rely on visuals to make buying decisions.

So, in this blog, we’re going to help you make your online store even better. We’ll unveil eight transformative strategies to elevate your ecommerce product images, turning browsers into buyers and clicks into conversions.

Let’s dive into these smart tricks to make your product images not just look awesome, but truly stand out.

Let’s get started!

What are Ecommerce Product Images?

E-commerce product images are the visual representations of products in an online store.

These images are crucial because they are the first thing a customer notices, heavily influencing their buying decisions.

These images need to be clear and informative, showing the product from various angles and accurately representing its features.

These details help customers understand the product better, reducing doubts and leading to more confident purchase decisions.

However, it is important to note that Apimio’s Product Information Management (PIM) software is a game-changer for e-commerce businesses, streamlining the management of product data across various online channels.

It excels in organizing and optimizing crucial product details, including images and videos, ensuring they are consistently presented and easily accessible.

This centralization not only improves product visibility and accuracy but also enhances the overall shopping experience for customers.

With Apimio PIM, businesses can efficiently manage their digital assets, leading to increased sales and operational efficiency in the competitive e-commerce landscape.

What are the Ways to Enhance Ecommerce Product Images?

We’re going to talk about simple and easy tricks to make ecommerce product images in your online store look super awesome.

We’ll show you how to turn plain images into ones that tell stories and make people excited to buy.

ecommerce product images

1. Display Every Color and Style Option

Offering a variety of colors and styles in your product images significantly enhances customer satisfaction.

It allows shoppers to see exactly what they’re buying, catering to their specific preferences.

This visual clarity not only aids in making more confident purchase decisions but also reduces the likelihood of returns.

Customers are less likely to return items when they receive products that accurately match their chosen style and color.

By showcasing all available options, you not only meet customer expectations but also build trust in your brand, leading to higher satisfaction and fewer returns

This makes your product detail page even better and can really help your online store sell more things.

Example

Famous apparel brand SHEIN does this effortlessly, showing each of their products in each color available.

This allows the customer to visualize each product in their preferred color or style and boosts their conversions. 

Source: Shein

Product Images for eCommerce store are an important part of your complete Product Content management strategy. Check out our PCM tool that helps optimize your images in bulk.

2. Provide Zoom In Option for Details

Enhancing your product images with a zoom-in feature significantly improves the online shopping experience.

By zooming in, shoppers can examine textures, materials, and craftsmanship, gaining a deeper appreciation of the product quality.

Consequently, this clarity in viewing details not only boosts buyer confidence but also reduces the likelihood of returns.

Essentially, a zoom-in option bridges the gap between online and physical shopping, leading to greater customer satisfaction.

Example

Shein’s product images are zoomable, allowing users to have a closer look at the texture of the clothes and the material. This increases the likelihood of the customer going through with a purchase because they get all the necessary information they need. 

product-clothes-images

Source: Shein

3. Observe the Basics of Image SEO.

Enhancing your product images for SEO is crucial. Use descriptive, keyword-rich filenames instead of generic ones.

For example, ‘blue-cotton-summer-dress.jpg’ is more effective than ‘IMG001.jpg’. This helps search engines understand and index your images better.

Also, add relevant keywords in the ‘alt text’ for each image, aiding search engines in identifying the content, especially when images can’t be displayed.

Keep file sizes in check to avoid slowing down your site, as this can impact SEO. Opt for JPEG for quality photos, PNG for images with transparency, and GIF for animations. These simple yet effective SEO practices can significantly boost your online visibility and traffic.

Furthermore, optimizing product images for SEO is crucial for online visibility. Apimio PIM simplifies this task by helping manage the SEO aspects of your product images.

It ensures that your images are not only visually appealing but also optimized for search engines, enhancing your e-commerce site’s reach and effectiveness.

Curious to transform your product images?

Schedule a demo and explore how Apimio PIM can enhance your product images.

4. Use a White Background for your Products

A white background not only makes your products stand out but also ensures consistency across your online store. This approach simplifies editing and meets the requirements of major marketplaces like Google Shopping and Amazon.

White backgrounds are standard in almost every online store, and there are a few very good reasons for that:

  • Your products will stand out on a white background.
  • Your images will look consistent on product pages.
  • You will save money and time in editing.
  • You can easily reuse or replace the background on any of your photos.
  • Marketplaces like Google Shopping and Amazon now have made it mandatory to have white backgrounds.

To achieve a perfect white background, consider these simple yet effective tips:

  • Lighting: Good lighting is key. Use soft, diffused lighting to avoid harsh shadows. Natural light works well, but if that’s not possible, softbox lights can be a great alternative.
  • Editing Tools: For post-production, tools like Adobe Photoshop or the more user-friendly Canva can help you achieve a clean white background. These tools offer features to adjust brightness and contrast, helping to create a uniform look.
  • Consistency: Maintain the same setup for all your product photos. This consistency in lighting and editing will give your product pages a professional and cohesive appearance.

By following these tips, you can easily create high-quality product images with a white background, enhancing the visual appeal of your online store and making it more inviting to customers.

Example

Pandora uses a white background for all its ecommerce product images, which elevates the product and maintains consistency.

Source: Pandora

5. Boost Page Speed with Image Formats

It’s easy to just choose the default save option when you’re creating your ecommerce product images, but knowing the difference between file formats and settings can have a massive impact on your site.

The three most common formats used for ecommerce product images in e-commerce that are supported by most ecommerce platforms are ;

  • GIF
  • PNG
  • JPG/JPEG

I. GIF

These images have a lower quality and take up less space in files. If you’re making an image for small icons or tiny pictures, then using a GIF is a good idea.

GIFs are the only type of image that can move or change over time, like a mini video. But when images get larger, GIFs don’t work as well for showing lots of colors.

II. PNG

They can show more colors and are the only kind of image that can have transparent backgrounds.

But, this advantage means the file size is bigger. If you have to change a picture many times, it’s better to save it as a PNG file.

III. JPG/JPEG

These are the most common formats used by digital cameras and online.

They can show lots of colors, and the way they compress images lets you find a good balance between how clear the picture is and how much space it takes up.

We’ve covered these Image Formats in more detail in our blog: E-commerce Product Images: Best Formats. 

6. Consistency with Each Image

To make your brand stand out and give shoppers a unified experience, it’s important to keep things consistent in your online store.

Whether you’re using flash effects or not, having a background or not, using models or mannequins, the choices you make should be the same for all your products.

A smart way to make things look the same is to get all your product photos from one source.

Most business owners do this in three ways:

  1. Use pictures provided by the manufacturer.
  2. Get a professional photographer to take your product photos.
  3. Take the photos yourself.

Getting images from the manufacturer will make everything look the same and accurate on all your product pages.

But hiring a photographer or doing it yourself also works well. It depends on what fits your business needs, time, skills, and budget.

7. Use 360° Views or High-Resolution Videos

Incorporating 360° views and high-resolution videos into your product pages can dramatically increase customer engagement and sales.

These interactive features allow customers to explore products in detail, providing an experience akin to handling the item in a physical store.

Studies show that products with 360° views can increase conversion rates by up to 27% compared to static images. High-resolution videos, on the other hand, have been found to boost engagement by keeping visitors on the page 88% longer.

For instance, a leading electronics retailer reported a 30% increase in sales after implementing 360° product views. Customers were able to get a comprehensive understanding of the products, leading to more confident purchasing decisions.

Integrating these features becomes seamless with tools like Apimio PIM. Apimio’s Product Information Management system allows you to efficiently manage and distribute high-quality images and videos across various platforms.

This ensures that your product presentations are not only engaging but also consistent and accurate across all channels.

Example

Check out how this Delta seller on Amazon provides a 360° view of their faucet.

It allows consumers to see each angle of the product, and envision it in their own use. Something like this is guaranteed to increase conversion rate for your store. 

Source: Amazon

8. Optimize your Thumbnails

Thumbnails play a pivotal role in e-commerce, often serving as the first point of interaction for customers. These small images can significantly influence buying decisions, making their optimization crucial for both user experience and upselling.

  • Balancing Size and Quality: It’s essential to strike a balance between file size and image clarity. Thumbnails should be small enough to ensure quick page loading, which is vital for SEO and user experience, yet clear enough to capture customer attention. Aim for file sizes under 70 KB without compromising on the visual appeal.
  • SEO Optimization: Properly named thumbnails with relevant alt attributes are key for SEO. They help search engines understand the image content, contributing to better visibility in search results. Use descriptive filenames and alt text that reflect the product accurately.
  • Effective Tools for Optimization: Utilize tools like Adobe Photoshop or online image compressors for resizing and optimizing thumbnails. These tools help maintain image quality while reducing file size, ensuring your thumbnails are both attractive and efficient.

Technical Aspects of E-commerce Product Images

Now that we’ve discussed the creative aspect of ecommerce product images, let’s dive into the technicalities of product images for your e-commerce stores. 

technical aspects of images

1. Dimensions And Resolution

The dimensions of your product image should be a perfect square. All e-commerce platforms follow this format:

  • Less than 100 kb
  • Square images

Square images are important as they work with each platform, and ensure that images look the same no matter what device they’re displayed on. 

Moreover, the resolution of your product images should ideally be 1500 x 1500. This will ensure that the resolution is consistent across all of your retailers’ platforms.

So no matter which eCommerce platform they are using, your products show up the same way on all of them.

  • The ideal size would be 1500 x 1500. 
  • The minimum size should be 1080 x 1080

2. Image Background

Having your brand’s product images with a simple, bright white background helps you stay consistent on all your retailer’s platforms. The background color helps the product stand out.

If the background is a loud color or has a pattern, it becomes distracting to your customers and pushes them to look at products other than yours.

Curious about how Apimio can transform your product images?

Schedule a demo and explore how Apimio PIM can enhance your product images.

demo

3. File Size

There’s a huge difference between “image size” and “file size”. Usually, people tend to mix them up. When talking about “image size”, we’re referring to the dimensions of an image, for example, 1080 x 1080.

But when we talk about file size, we are referring to the amount of space that the image will require on your server. File size can have a direct impact on your page load speed. 

It can make or break the performance of your site because every single image must be downloaded each time your site is visited. 

Your goal is to keep your images at 1 to 2 MB in size. An image can have large dimensions and still be 2MB or less.

The smaller your image size, the faster your load speeds, meaning a lower bounce rate and happier customers. 

4. Image Filename

We know it suits most of us to just type in a random name to save our images. But this can be detrimental to your SEO.

You have to make sure that your keywords, or at least a variation on them, are included in your image filename, which should be descriptive.

Don’t stuff keywords into the image filename. Only one variation on a keyword should be included, and filenames shouldn’t get cumbersome in length.

Make sure the filename is legible. Meaning; that you should use hyphens or underscores in between words in your filename in order to ensure that the search engines see the individual words.

Don’t leave spaces in your filename, because these will show up as “%20” instead, which may make the filename illegible.

5. Image URL

The advice for image URLs is quite similar to that for image filenames. You might think about using a variation of your keyword in the URL, but overall, the advice remains consistent.

Make sure you have a good structure for your image URLs.

A common folder like /images/ is okay, but if you really want to boost search engine performance, create subfolders for different image types. For instance, you could use something like /images/pants/men’s/.

Using a well-organized hierarchy in your image URLs can help search engines understand your images better. This can result in more relevant search results.

5. Image Alt Attribute

The alt attribute of an image should contain your keyword, but in most situations, it should offer more than just that.

Remember, the alt product attribute isn’t the same as a meta keywords tag, despite how some SEO experts treat it.

The alt attribute is designed for screen readers to help people with visual impairments understand the image. It also acts as a stand-in for your image on browsers that can’t display images.

If you wouldn’t want the alt text to appear as a substitute for your image, visible to your readers, then you might be using it incorrectly.

Use the alt attribute to provide a descriptive substitute for your product image that includes your keywords. Don’t just cram it with keywords as if it’s a dumping ground.

6. Compress Images

Ensure your images are compressed to maintain quick loading times. Slow-loading images can drag down your website’s speed, potentially impacting your SEO.

Google keeps small images handy, but larger ones load from your site. If your image takes too long to load on Google Images, users might not click to see more.

Google usually doesn’t show duplicate images in search results, although it indexes them. Having unique ecommerce product images on your product pages helps with this issue.

While it’s not always possible for every product, consider adding unique images to high-performing pages. It’s even better if your image stands out in search results.

7. Use CDN to increase the Speed of Image Delivery 

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a network of servers that allows you to increase the speed of image delivery time.

These servers are located around the world to deliver multimedia, such as videos/images to other networks.

Since, CDN reduces the number of network points between the server and the user therefore, it becomes possible to quickly deliver the content that is crucial if you want to load the images or different types of multimedia content. 

Conclusion

Images hold the potential to make your online stores stand out and leave a lasting impression on your customers.

If you’re able to merge all the points we’ve listed above, you’ll be sure to create one good-looking online store that converts users. 

Create an image strategy for your e-commerce site, and deliver the best possible graphics to your users. 

What to do next?

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why are product images important for e-commerce?

Product images are important because they help customers visually understand products before buying.

2. Are unique product images important for SEO?

Having unique images enhances SEO, as Google avoids showing duplicate images in search results. Unique images improve user experience and search visibility.

3. What’s the best image format for e-commerce?

JPEGs are commonly used due to their balance between quality and file size. PNGs are great for images with transparency, while GIFs support animation.

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