This one feature can enhance the operations, sales, and customer satisfaction rates of your ecommerce store by a huge margin. Ecommerce stores have the disadvantage of selling from behind a screen and not having a tangible product to show your audience. Brick and mortar stores too need great product photos if they want to appeal to the customer who is yet to visit the store.

So the common denominator for a retail store’s success in this visual-obsessed world is how good your product photos are. If you can interest the audience in the first five seconds, you get to pitch your business, otherwise; they scroll or move to another window. 

But how easy or hard is it? What makes a great product photo, and how can you make the most of it for your brand?

We answer all these questions in this blog by Kimp. 

The impact of Product Photos on Sales and Engagement

In our introductory section, we told you that product photos can change your brand’s trajectory. Now, you may wonder if this is a statement based on our perception, or if there is evidence to back it up? 

Well, the evidence exists, and it seems to agree with our assessment too. Before we get into statistics mode, let’s consider this. 

Across all your marketing material, what do you feature the most? Product photos, right? Besides your store and digital presence, where do you feature your branding the most? Again, we are guessing it is product photos. In brochures, flyers, ecommerce stores, posters, billboards, social media posts, and advertisements, product photos are always the focal point. 

Since product photos become the most popular and easily accessible customer touchpoint, it deserves a lot of attention and thought. 

Next, comes an important question. Does the quality and design of the product photo impact the purchase decision? Apparently, customers say it does. Smartphone users account for a majority of shoppers in ecommerce. And 83% of such users say that they find product photography as influential in their purchasing decisions. 

In particular, 60% of American shoppers browse through an average of three to four images during online shopping. 

The more you have, the better for you. Over 33% of shoppers want to see four or more images before completing a purchase, and 75% of shoppers base the final decision on the product images. 

Good Product photography enables you to: 

• Compete with Brick and Mortar stores 
• Reduce your return rates by avoiding any misconception on the actual product 
• Improve conversion rates 
• Enhance customer satisfaction 

7 Types of Product Photos your brand needs + Design Ideas 

Now that we know the many benefits of good product photography, it is time to understand it to leverage it well. It is not as simple as it seems, as every brand has different requirements for different functions. As per your marketing intent, the product type, and the marketing channel, the product photography approach will change. 

To choose the right product photography style for your brand, it is important to know the options at hand. 

And to make it easier for you, Kimp brings a curation of all the major types of product photography for your brand. This blog also includes the design ideas for each of the product photography types for your quick reference. 

So sit back and get ready for the lowdown on product photography. 

Let’s dive right in. 

1. Individual Product Photography Shots 

Starting from the basics, let’s focus on the simplest type of product photography – the individual shots of the product. This is a mandatory product image for both purely ecommerce brands and offline brands with a semi-active website. 

This is the first image a customer sees on an ecommerce website and has to present a favorable picture of the product. The first image must focus completely on the product and be present against a plain/non-busy background. 

Some also call it studio product photography, wherein the photographer composes an aesthetic shot with different backgrounds. Now, while this may not be completely necessary, it is definitely an advantage. 

We mentioned an ecommerce brand must display individual product images at the start itself. But a plain image may not connect deeply with the customer. And manipulating the product image is not possible. So, studio shots play up the background to tap into customers’ emotions. 

Kimp Tip: The individual product photography shots also make great social media posts, carousel ads, and even billboards. It all depends on how you style the images. If you plan to repurpose them into marketing collateral too, then work with the designer on angles, background color, and styling. Color psychology tricks can come in handy here too. 

Looking to upscale your product photos with edits and repurposing? Try a Kimp Graphics subscription to get all your edits and designs done for a flat fee! 

This Nike individual shoe photo shows us that even a static photo can be made engaging with creative ideas and engaging. 

2. Group Product Photography Shots 

After the individual product photography, we move on to the group product photography shots. Often, the same product is available in over one color, style, and design. Since customer attention spans are less than 8 seconds, they may move on from the product listing because the first product photo does not attract them. 

So why wait for customers to scroll and discover the variations? Why not present them with all variables stylishly and elegantly? And there you have it – the reason group product photography is popular. Since they depict a set of products, we also refer to them as set product photography shots. 

Our brains process images faster than text, but this also has a downside. Too much information can confuse the brain and raise the urge to move on.

The key to a good group product photography shot is the balance between: 

• Negative space and products in the composition
• Product and background colors 

You want customers to understand they have options and explore them. Do not bombard them with information and detail at the beginning itself. 

Kimp Tip: Group product photography shots work well on social media, product catalogs, and other marketing mediums. The key is to get the aesthetics right. You can always edit it to bring the perfect lighting and detailing, however, the choice of product is important. Choose colors and styles that resonate well with your target audience for best results. 

Need helping making your products shine in group product photography and repurpose them for other mediums? Sign up for the Kimp Graphics design subscription for unlimited editing and design services. 

3. Lifestyle Product Photography Shots 

Many agree that seeing the product in motion helps make the purchase decision. Yes, the shoe looks great on the screen but is it comfortable? How high does the shoe come when worn with pants? How will you look when you walk in them? These types of questions can often hamper the sale on an ecommerce website. 

To combat that, ecommerce product photography now features a separate shot as the lifestyle product photography shot. This captures the product on a real-life customer and shows the customer an accurate depiction of the product in use. This works for every product category and is always a sure-shot winner. 

Now the important thing to note here is that the product must be in focus but not the model. So the product photography composition is of prime importance. Choose the color, lighting, and props with care so you can control the output. 

Kimp Tip: Lifestyle product photos look amazing in print and also shoppable social commerce content. Customers are more likely to tap the product if they know how it looks in action against a white background. 

Looking to enhance lifestyle product photography shots for social media or print? Sign up for the Kimp Graphics unlimited design subscription, and we will take it from there!

4. Scale Product Photography Shots

How many times does a return request come with the size-mismatch comment for your brand? What is the cost per item to your company in such return requests? Reducing return rates will make a significant impact on every ecommerce brand’s bottom line. And scale product photography shots can achieve that with ease. 

Now, there are two major types of scale product photography shots: 

Regular sized 

Scale product photos depict regular-sized products with other products to show their actual size for the customers. Reading metric measurement is not a simple task, and leads to confusion. However, when the product photo has an object size reference, you can more easily understand this. 

Now, keep in mind the products you choose for comparison must be in line with your brand identity and be aesthetically pleasing. 

Large product 

Large product photography involves oversized products and needs to be shown in the right manner for best results. Alternatively, you can also showcase regular products as large products for aesthetic and branding reasons. 

Kimp Tip: Choose the right props and settings to bring out the best features of your products in scale photography. The colors and design style of the props matter a lot as always. Create a mock design before you go for the shoot.

5. Detailed Product Photography Shots

In complete contrast to the individual and group product photography shots, detailed product photography shots call for more detail and less aesthetic. For detailed product photography shots, we recommend using the macro mode on your cameras.

These product photos also have notes that explain the details about the various features of the product. This way, the customer does not have to read the long product descriptions and can get the information they need with ease. 

Detailed product photography also allows you to create infographics for social media, blogs, and SEO purposes. Infographics are instantly shareable and easy to understand for customers. 

Kimp Tip: Most of the time, the details your product photographer has captured have to be enhanced so that customers can view them on their mobile screens. Mobile optimization and enhancement using editing skills can bring a better product photo. 

6. Packaging Product Photography Shots 

In our unboxing obsessed world, the packaging is as important as the product inside it. Packaging design has evolved beyond a safe container for the product and become a medium of marketing and communication. 

So the product photos on packaging designs will make the difference between a customer picking or not picking a particular product. However, the major point to pay attention to here is that, unlike most other product photos, packaging product photography goes into print. Hence, the color selection, lighting, framing, and overall composition must be in line with the packaging design.

Packaging also has branding and other text on it, so the product photography shot here has to accommodate those too in framing. 

Kimp Tip: Converting a photo into a packaging design is a challenging task. To make it easier, ensure you work with your design team so that you can design the shot even before you click it. It makes designing easier and more effective all around. 

For the packaging product photography to shine, the packaging design has to be completely amazing. Not to mention the perfect match to your brand identity and the current market trends. If you too want your packaging to be worthy of photography, then try a Kimp Graphics design subscription now! 

7. Process Product Photography Shots

This is a unique product photography shot that has become popular on social media. Customers like to see the behind-the-scenes action behind any product and the process product photography shots enable that. 

For brands, incorporating a BTS video is not exactly the branded content they want to project on the internet. Especially for their ecommerce sites. Hence, these process product photos come to their rescue. You can aesthetically capture the behind-the-scenes action and help customers understand the value of your creation. 

Kimp Tip: These product photography shots work the best for social media so we recommend sizing and optimizing them for social media rather than ecommerce sites as a rule. 

Design your Product Photography shots with Kimp 

The ecommerce business is hard. Nailing down the factors that help you sell and removing the factors that take you into a negative slump is an everyday battle. So when there’s a tool like product photography at your disposal, don’t wait to take action. 

We get that it can seem daunting. Clicking the images is one thing and presenting them on print and digital media is a completely different playground. 

Thankfully, Kimp Graphics’ unlimited graphic design service is here for you. With unlimited design requests, revisions, and more, your job is now easier than ever. 

So sign up for the free trial now and get started.