E-Commerce Product Photography: The 3 C’s To Your Success Online

Holidays always burn a hole in my credit card. Three relatives have their birthday in December, and then it’s Christmas. This is a lot of shopping or in my case a lot of surfing to know what to buy on the internet. That year, my wife wanted a pair of brown canvas shoes that I found at no less than seven different locations. How did I decide where to buy it? I chose the site with the best Product Photography, of course!

Maybe it’s just me, but I like to see what I buy. Yes, I do Photoshop to make a living. But it just gives me a lot more confidence in my online shopping if I can really see that the article is exactly what I wanted. Not all e-commerce websites seem to feel the same. During my purchases, I came across two websites that had product description “No photo available” on which the shoes should have been. Sorry guys, don’t even try it. The seller may not even have the shoes for sale.

Two other sites had product photos, but the color shown in the photo was incorrect. For the six available colors, only one picture of a black couple was shown. Who would buy a pair of shoes without knowing which color is blue, brown or red?

Well, that gave me three places to choose from. They all had a picture of the product. And as usual, prices were very similar in a few dollars. So it’s really about getting a full picture of the product to gain enough confidence to enter my credit card number and click on the buy button.

One location had a picture of shoes on a rocky ground with a kind of waterfall in focus. Nice shot, but I thought about my previous trips to NY and started to check the prices of the flights online to plan my trip. I completely forgot these shoes and the website.

Another location had a decent Product Photography of the shoes, but the picture was small. So small that I could roughly count the pixels as my eyes struggled to see the details of the shoes were exactly what I was looking for. Although some pictures on the site can be clicked to enlarge, this was not an option for this item. I think these shoes were not important enough?

And again, the last e-commerce was fair. His Product Photography of brown shoes had what I call The 3 Cs. The 3Cs qualities of the Product Photography make a big difference to the intelligent web buyer.

#1. The product Color: The right color was shown and it was as rich and bright as it should be.

#2. The Clarity: The picture was clear so I could see all the details and see if the item was exactly what I wanted.

#3. The Clean factor: The product was presented on a clean white background. There was nothing that distracted the eye from the shoes.

The 3 cs. That was all that made me choose one place, rather than the other e-commerce locations. Follow the Three Cs with each product image on your website, and buyers will soon be choosing your site instead of your competitors out there.