Amazon Product Photography 101

Product photos speak louder than words and are arguably the most persuasive component of your Amazon product listings…or any product listing for that matter. High quality photos are indicative of a high quality product. They’re also the first thing that customers see, so it’s extremely important to have them optimized if you want the customer to click through your listing. Lastly, having high quality product photography will undoubtedly increase your conversion rate.

“Your images represent your product’s perceived value and quality” – BigCommerce

Here’s an example of great product photography:

Here’s what makes this an excellent product photo:

• Pure white background
• Lighting
• High quality, clear photograph
• Graphic effects (optional, but certainly add a nice touch)

White Background

Your images need to be high-resolution with a clean, white background and the main image cannot show any text (other than text on the product itself or the packaging). The product should consume approximately 85% of the photo.

If you’re embarking on the product photography journey yourself, you’ll want to use a white sheet, a white poster board, or something of the like. Next, create the backdrop by pinning the top half of the sheet against a wall and pulling the bottom half flat to create a “U’ shape against the wall and floor.

Keep the product within the frame and leave some space for cropping.

If you’re photographing smaller, hand-held products and would rather invest in a professional lighting tent, we recommend this one, which leads us to our next point…

Lighting

“It’s not you, it’s me” – Lighting to the Camera

Many people will consider buying a new camera to increase the quality of their product pictures when a simple adjustment to their lighting could be far more effective, even when using a smart phone as your primary camera.

If you’d go with more reliable studio-quality lighting, we recommend using this lighting kit. A diffusion panel can helpful with proper light dispersion as well.

Now that you have your white backdrop and lighting assembled, let’s discuss graphic effects.

Graphic Effects

If it suites your product, graphic effects are great way to differentiate your listings from your competitors. Water splashes, smoke and fog, glow, shine, etc. If done right, it will make your product pop and will increase the perceived value.

Graphics are set, now let’s start snapping additional angles…

Angles and Additional Pictures

Having a single product picture will not cut it. Again, the more pictures, the better. Amazon allows 7 total pictures. You want the consumer to get comfortable with your product, so try to take 7 quality photos if you can.

The additional photos don’t necessarily need a white background and don’t have to be 85% consumed by the product. We recommend using these additional photos for action and lifestyle shots, close-ups and different angles, packaging, info-graphics, and before and after/benefit shots.

Below are great examples of additional product pictures:

If you sell a large catalog or plan to sell a large catalog, you may want to consider doing your product photography in house to ensure consistency across all SKUs. If you sell a small catalog and are pressed for time, it may be easier to outsource the photography.

Here’s a DIY guide put together by BigCommerce.

If you’re like us and you’d rather outsource product photography, we’d recommend checking out these guys: https://virtuousgraphics.com/amazon-new-product-photography

Additionally, you should be A/B testing your product photos to identify your money shots. We recommend using a service like Splitly which makes split testing as easy as can be. Some sellers have increased revenue by well over 100% due to Splitly. It’s not too expensive, either.

Here are Amazon’s Product Image Requirements