How Excellent Product Photography and Videos Increase E-Commerce Sales
Even if a photo is clear, customers will likely want to see the product from various angles; and if they can't do that, they'll go to a different site where they can.
Think about when you walk into a brick and mortar store and
you see a product you want to buy. You don't just look at it on the shelf and
make your decision. Whether it's a demo model or the real thing, you pick the
product up, turn it around, turn it upside down, feel the weight of it, check
out all the details, and generally size it up against similar products you've
looked at.
When you have excellent-quality product photos on your
website, you allow shoppers to (virtually) do just that kind of assessment.
They can zoom in on details and really get a feel for a product even if they
can't physically feel it. Add 360-degree photography and video into the mix,
and it's the next best thing to being able to handle the products.
Good photos will get people into your e-commerce store;
excellent photos will get people buying your products.
Video Usage = Stacks and Stacks of Cash
E-commerce site Stacksandstacks.com uses both manufacturers'
videos and their own in-house product videos to sell houseware items. According
to the company's marketing director, Cathy McManus, shoppers are 144% more
likely to add a product to their cart if they've watched the product video than
if they haven't.
The company pays a flat monthly fee to video production
company to create and host the videos; comparing the videos' impact on
sales to the monthly fee, McManus says the company is close to getting a
10-to-1 return on investment.
The products that are best for the video treatment, the
marketing director says, are the ones that have any complexity related to them,
like installation, or ones that are able to fold or move in a way that is not
apparent in photos or text.
McManus also expects the videos to cut down on the rate of
customer returns and complaints, because customers better understand the
product prior to purchase.
Fashionable Photography
Amazon is so dedicated to stellar product photography that
the online shopping behemoth has a 40,000-square-foot building in Brooklyn that
has been transformed into a giant photography and videography studio for taking
fashion photos and creating videos for its three clothing-specific stores:
Amazon Fashion, Shopbop, and MYHABIT.
Broken up into 28 individual bays, the space includes
styling areas, photo and video studios, and editing suites that all work toward
making Amazon's fashion offerings appear more glossy and less like they came
from a stock photography site. On average, about 19,000 photos are shot there
every day, of which about 2,400 end up on the Amazon sites.
President of Amazon Fashion Cathy Beaudoin says high-level
photography is so essential that she likens the photos and video to virtual
sales associates.
Zulily Does It In-House
Like Amazon Fashion, e-commerce site Zulily believes so
highly in amazing product photography that it does virtually all product
photography in-house in 35 mini photo studios sprinkled throughout its office
space.
The company employs its own photographers and uses its own
employees and their children as models. Having 35 mini photo studios isn't
going to work for every company, but professionally done product photography
should be an investment on every e-retailer's priority list.
Due Maternity Turns It Around
Even better than a lot of photographs from various angles is
a 360-degree representation of a product that customers can turn in any
direction via their mouse or screen. This is the virtual equivalent of being
able to pick up a product and turn it every which way so you can see it from
whatever angle you want.
The true beauty of the 360-degree experience is that the
customer is the one who controls it. Customers don't have to rely on your
photos to see the product the way they want to.
They can view it from the angle
they want and check out the details they deem important. Giving them the
ability to view it the way they want empowers them as shoppers and gives them a
sense of ownership of the product that they don't get from merely looking at
photos.
DueMaternity.com reported a 27% increase in sales when it
implemented a feature wherein product images would start spinning slowly when
hovered over with a mouse, giving a full 360-degree view of them. That little
dynamic element increased sales 27%.
That's no surprise considering that an Adobe Scene7 survey
found that a whopping 91% of people want to be able to virtually pick up and
handle a product.
Snap36, a company that specializes in 360-degree
photography, claims that products accompanied by a 360-degree photo result in a
30% increase in sales and equate to a 32% increase in time spent on your site;
plus, it says, customers are 85 times as likely to leave a positive review than
a negative one because they can more clearly see the product prior to purchase.
Beautiful, professionally shot product photos and videos
increase sales, cut down on returns and complaints, and turn customers into
repeat customers.
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If you need help with your email, web site, video, or other presentation to promote your company, product, or service, please give me a call at 440-519-1500 or e-mail me at john@x2media.us.
X2 Media can help you target your content and get your message to the audience in a way that it is not only seen and heard, but remembered.
Until next month….remember, “you don’t get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression”. Always make it a good one!
From X2Media I would like to thank you for your time.
John E. Hornyak
X2Media, LLC
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