Optimizing Your Amazon Photography

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture can even be worth the price of its subject. This is especially true in the world of ecommerce, when photography nearly always accompanies a product listing on a marketplace such as Amazon.

People only remember 10% of information three days after hearing it, and on average, adding a picture can improve recall to 65%. This means consumers value the product’s image quality more than any specific written information found in the reviews or product description – making it imperative for an Amazon listing to not only include a photo, but to ensure its usefulness.

Ensure Your Photography is Trustworthy

The most important aspect for brands to show on Amazon is the legitimacy and trustworthiness of their products. The marketplace is getting increasingly inundated with knockoff products, cheap alternatives, and substitutes in every category. Now more than ever, customers are relying on the visual aspects of a listing to inform their buying decisions. If your listing features high-quality, well-lit, well-staged, and intentional-looking photography, that will go a long way in helping the Amazon shopper feel confident in your item and ultimately complete a purchase. 

Three types of photography found on Amazon:

• White background shots are exactly what they sound like – pictures of a product on a plain white background. Typically, these white background shots are the only kinds of photos that a brand could expect from a third-party agency partner, unless they were willing to pay an additional fee to receive other options. SupplyKick doesn’t charge extra for supplying a full breadth of white background, lifestyle, and graphic imagery.
• Images of the product in use, that are usually shot outside of a studio, are called lifestyle images. These help a customer see a product in context and allow them to determine scale and functionality.
• Graphic photos are becoming increasingly common on the Amazon Marketplace. These are images in a progression accompanied by visual callouts, copy, and other design elements placed on the image to enhance the customer’s browsing experience and understanding of the product. Graphics greatly increase a shopper’s likelihood to convert.

SupplyKick partner SPLENDA Naturals is a perfect example of a brand that incorporated quality images to accompany a brand listing.

Tailor Imagery to Amazon

Now that you have an understanding of the different types of images found on Amazon listings, it’s important to ensure any photography uploaded to a listing is in full compliance of Amazon’s guidelines.

Amazon is strict and requires brands to be much more cognizant of its Product Image Requirements than other ecommerce platforms. If there are photos included that do not adhere to the rules, Amazon will suppress the listing until the issue is resolved.

In addition to Amazon’s overarching, site-wide rules, there are also category-specific rules. For example, in the clothing category, you are allowed to have images of clothing on a model, but you are not allowed to have images of clothing on a visible mannequin. These variations in requirements can be frustrating for brands with existing assets that have been fine for other online marketplaces.

Invest in the Right Images

To best represent a product and drive success on Amazon, you must utilize a full, professional studio. This includes multi-point lighting, white backdrops, access to models and lifestyle setups, a DSLR camera that can shoot in lossless formats (like RAW or TIFF), and photo editing software like Lightroom or Photoshop.

It is also key to have a knowledgeable photographer to ensure that a product is properly staged and optimally photographed. Photographers can also complete an Amazon competitor audit, taking into consideration the type of photography that appears on other product listings in the same category as your product. A photographer or editor must also create a clean edit with color accuracy and lack of blemishes.

While there are many factors such as creating A+ content or executing keyword optimization that can improve a listing, there is no doubt that photos help drive sales conversions. SupplyKick has a full-time photographer on-site that is able to execute all types of photography for thousands of different products.