Picture This: Imagery Boosts Sales

If anything should be clear to new and not-so-new ecommerce merchants, it’s that there are no shortcuts in virtual selling. The wide swath of seemingly limitless buyers offered up by cyberspace is an automatic win for vendors who don’t have a physical presence or an unlimited ad budget, but that means the market is open to millions of others in the same situation.

An emphasis on actualizing goods to attract buyers is growing, and technology is keeping pace. Shoppers increasingly rely on digital devices for purchasing at a time when internet bandwidth is a competitive factor among cellular companies.

But this raises an issue among small-time sellers who aren’t up to speed on taking advantage. Hi-resolution photos, enticing videos, and other elements used to peddle products require effort. The goal is conversion.
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Conversion is the process of attracting interested buyers andturning their interest into sales. It’s not a new concept in commerce, but in ecommerce, it’s that much more challenging. If you’re already in business, you have a functioning web site. A good start. But not enough.
Beginners and mid-level merchants should focus on the following areas if they want to play with the big kids. Mastering these will pay off through increased sales, and will build your skill set to a point where you may expand with more creativity through simple imaging.

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• Product images
  Consumers are hungry for a near-lifelike representation of what they’d like to buy. Upload hi-resolution, high-quality images from different angles when you list products. You may need to invest in pro-grade product photography, illustrations, and videos. But skip the investment in Adobe suite applications unless you plan to use them for other purposes; online tools such as AutoClipping offer functions tailored to product presentation.
  
  
• Lifestyle images
  Today’s consumers are pampered with ever-increasing quality in all imagery they see online, so expect them to embrace it as they shop. Lifestyle photography positions your product in an actual usage setting, lending a feel for how it will enrich their lives. Get creative in shooting photos of your inventory in action. This collection of product images on an Amazon listing is a great example.
  
  
• Instructional images
  Maybe not as sexy or alluring, instructional images instill confidence in buyers unsure of how they will assemble or set up a product. Simple photos are sufficient, and perhaps even preferable. If a potential buyer sees an easy route to using your product, you’ve won half the battle.
  
  
• Videos
  For both instructional and demonstrative purposes, nothing beats a video. Patient shoppers are moved by moving pictures, and a well-produced video goes a long way toward personalizing a product, offering a lifestyle-inspired visual, and allowing friendly voice-over content to pitch a soothing message. Try working with a demo yourself.
  
  

General consensus shows that consumers are visual creatures hoping for visual cues. In physical stores, they may see, feel, try on, and experience a chosen product or good. But modern commerce has shifted in large part to virtual shopping. It can’t deliver an actual product, but with some effort, imagination, and adequate tools, it can offer the next best thing.