How can you avoid common mistakes in e-commerce product photography?

1 Use proper lighting

One of the most common mistakes in e-commerce product photography is using poor or inconsistent lighting. Poor lighting can make your products look dull, unappealing, or even misleading. Inconsistent lighting can create confusion and distrust among your customers, especially if you sell similar products with different colors or features. To avoid these problems, you should use proper lighting that highlights your products' details, textures, and colors. You can use natural light, artificial light, or a combination of both, depending on your product type and style. However, you should always avoid harsh shadows, glares, or reflections that can distort your product's appearance.

2 Choose the right background

Another common mistake in e-commerce product photography is choosing the wrong background. The wrong background can distract your customers from your product, clash with your product's color or style, or make your product look unprofessional or low-quality. To avoid these problems, you should choose a background that complements your product, matches your brand identity, and creates a clean and simple look. You can use a plain white background, a solid color background, or a textured background, depending on your product type and style. However, you should avoid busy or cluttered backgrounds that can confuse your customers or compete with your product.

3 Show multiple angles and details

A third common mistake in e-commerce product photography is showing only one angle or perspective of your product. Showing only one angle or perspective can limit your customers' understanding of your product, reduce their interest or curiosity, or make them miss important features or benefits. To avoid these problems, you should show multiple angles and details of your product, such as the front, back, side, top, bottom, close-up, zoom-in, or in-use. Showing multiple angles and details can help your customers get a better sense of your product's size, shape, functionality, and quality. It can also help you showcase your product's unique selling points and advantages.

4 Use consistent and accurate colors

A fourth common mistake in e-commerce product photography is using inconsistent or inaccurate colors. Inconsistent or inaccurate colors can make your products look different from their actual appearance, create confusion and dissatisfaction among your customers, or lead to returns or complaints. To avoid these problems, you should use consistent and accurate colors that match your products' real-life colors. You can use tools like color calibration, white balance, or color correction to ensure that your colors are consistent and accurate across different devices and platforms. You can also use color swatches or charts to help your customers compare and choose the right color for their preferences.

5 Optimize your images for web

A fifth common mistake in e-commerce product photography is not optimizing your images for web. Not optimizing your images for web can make your images load slowly, consume more bandwidth, or affect your site's performance and SEO. To avoid these problems, you should optimize your images for web by reducing their file size, resolution, and format. You can use tools like image compression, cropping, or resizing to reduce your file size and resolution without compromising your image quality. You can also use web-friendly formats like JPEG, PNG, or GIF to ensure that your images are compatible and responsive across different devices and platforms.

6 Test and improve your images

A sixth common mistake in e-commerce product photography is not testing and improving your images. Not testing and improving your images can make you miss opportunities to enhance your images' appeal, effectiveness, or conversion. To avoid these problems, you should test and improve your images by getting feedback, analyzing data, or conducting experiments. You can get feedback from your customers, peers, or experts to identify your images' strengths and weaknesses and make adjustments accordingly. You can analyze data from your site's analytics, metrics, or reports to measure your images' performance and impact on your sales and traffic. You can conduct experiments like A/B testing, multivariate testing, or split testing to compare different versions of your images and see which ones work better for your goals and audience.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?