How to take product photos for your marketplace listing?

A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it? It is definitely true in the case of a marketplace where your images will make a huge impact when it comes to selling your product.

You don’t need fancy equipment to take great photos, but they have to be real, professional, and in focus. So let’s see some golden rules on how to take product photos for your marketplace listing.

WHY IS PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY SO IMPORTANT FOR POTENTIAL BUYERS?

Before diving into more details, let’s start with the basics. What is product photography? It is basically photography with a commercial purpose. You want to sell your product online, so you want to present your product from the best angle possible. We want it to be attractive for the customer so that we can beat our competitors.

So why is product photography so important for the customers? It’s easy. We all shop online, we know how it works. It has plenty of advantages but there is one important drawback – you don’t see the product before buying it. You need to decide based on the product description, and, of course, based on the product photos.

A good product photo has plenty of advantages:

• Customers will have a clear image of the product they will buy
• A good product photo will increase your conversion rate
• You build trust in the customer – not just your product but your overall brand as a seller will benefit from it

HOW TO TAKE PRODUCT PHOTOS FOR YOUR MARKETPLACE?

A good first expression is essential. If you want potential customers to check out your online marketplace listings, you can follow the below tips.

Make sure the item is ready

When we talk about online marketplaces, we often talk about second-hand products. But it doesn’t mean that your product can’t look good. Make sure you clean it, polish it, or wash it – whatever your product needs to shine and look good.

Whether you’re selling clothing, a piece of furniture, or your phone, it can’t be dirty.

Take photos in natural light

Of course, you can always use your phone’s flash to take a photo, but the result won’t be the best.

If you want to take really good product photos for your marketplace listings, you need natural light. So take your photos in a room with lots of daylight or simply outside. The colour of the product will show off more realistically, without glare or dark shadows.

If you still want to use artificial light, you need to invest in a very good lighting kit.

Use a tripod for focus

You want your product photo to be sharp and be in focus. In order to do that, you will probably need a tripod. The camera will need to be fixed in order to avoid blurry product photos.

On any marketplace, there are hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of users. So you have to do everything to make sure your product stands out and draws the attention of potential buyers. Sometimes a tripod makes all the difference, so don’t hesitate to invest in one. As an online marketplace seller, you will have plenty of occasions to use it.

Though most phone cameras are now equipped with anti-shake features, a tripod is always the best choice for steady photos.

Never use stock photos

Whenever you sell something online, you need to provide real photos of your products. Any potential buyer will be able to see the difference between real product photography and a stock photo, almost right away.

Remember one of the drawbacks of marketplaces – customers can’t see the product so they have to rely on what you are providing for them. Using stock photos doesn’t build trust at all, and later on, you will face an uphill battle earning credibility with your potential customers. So it’s better to avoid them for good.

IT’S A GOOD IDEA TO STAGE YOUR PRODUCT

Find a background that will highlight your product. A white background often does the job, and if you can’t find an even surface, a backdrop will probably be the ideal choice. Remember that our main purpose here is to stand out from the crowd.

EDIT YOUR PHOTOS

We want the product photos to be real, but there is nothing wrong with some improvements – as long as they are subtle. All you want to do is just to enhance them slightly.

Whenever you edit product photos for your online marketplace listings, make sure that you use your laptop instead of an app on your smartphone. There is nothing wrong with them, but at the end of the day, your smartphone screen is a lot smaller than your laptop screen so you can easily make mistakes.

You want to see what the customer sees on every device, not just on the smartphone app. Editing your photo on a laptop is a safe choice to make sure that the image is sharp and bright enough without any extremes.

So how can you edit your photos without altering them?

• Sharpening: If there are any details on your product, such as labeling information, that cannot be seen properly, it might be a good idea to use a sharpening tool.
• Removing the background: Sometimes we realize that we couldn’t eliminate all shadows of our marketplace product, so we would like to remove them from the picture to make it look more professional. In this case, background removal can be the optimal choice. (Usually, if you use appropriate lighting equipment, shadows won’t be an issue.)
• Colour correction: Only use this tool if you think that the product photo doesn’t reflect the true colours of your items.

Before uploading, remember to name your image files

Before uploading your photo, you want to make sure to name your image files correctly. Instead of having random file names such as ur398593875193orfjgj3385, you probably want to use something more meaningful.

The best practice here is to match the image name to what the image really is, for example, blue-child-blanket. Make sure that you only use lower-case letters and the words are separated with hyphens.

Take more than one shot of your marketplace product

If you have the opportunity, showcase your marketplace product from many angles so the customer knows what to expect when their orders arrive. Remember, details are very important features in the case of online marketplaces.

Closing thoughts

Whether you’re selling your products in your own e-commerce store or through an online marketplace platform, product photos are critical for your listing. You are competing with thousands of vendors selling similar, sometimes even identical products. So it’s really important to differentiate yourself from their items.

If you can’t stand out, you can’t attract customers and you won’t be able to unlock all the potential a marketplace offers. So take product photos that sell.