Multichannel retailers: What about images?
There is no doubt that images sell products, here are some tips on how to get images for your website
Q. I am launching an e-commerce arm to my retail business. I am wondering about the software required to present the product shots on my store website. Is this part of the job of the company who provides the web-design?
A. Website design companies would not usually include product photography in their quotes for website design. It is usually up to the retailer to provide these. Most eCommerce website systems provide tools for you to add your own photos and upload them to the relevant product page. You have several options for sourcing the photographs:
1. Use the suppliers’ images. Many suppliers will provide images for retailers to use on their websites either by CD or download from a website.
2. Employ the services of a professional photographer. There are specialists like Fresh Pak www.freshpakphoto.co.uk, but most local photographers could provide high quality product shots. Once complete the retailer should let the photographer know the size and aspect ratio the images need to be for the website. That way the photographer can provide the right sizes and the retailer just adds them straight in.
Some web design companies may offer to do the photography. If this is the case I would advice checking samples to make sure they are specialists and not hobbyist photographers.
3. Take your own photographs to save money. To do this will need a good camera and good lighting. There are some low cost tools available which help get the lighting right. Cubelite (www.cubelite.co.uk) is worth looking at, their prices are reasonable.
Once the photograph has been taken it will probably need reducing in size, and maybe the aspect ratio will need changing to keep it consistent with other product shots on the website. The professional tool for this is Adobe Photoshop. However it is not cheap and really is overkill for a task like this. I would suggest using Google’s Picasa which is free to download from Google.
A. Website design companies would not usually include product photography in their quotes for website design. It is usually up to the retailer to provide these. Most eCommerce website systems provide tools for you to add your own photos and upload them to the relevant product page. You have several options for sourcing the photographs:
1. Use the suppliers’ images. Many suppliers will provide images for retailers to use on their websites either by CD or download from a website.
2. Employ the services of a professional photographer. There are specialists like Fresh Pak www.freshpakphoto.co.uk, but most local photographers could provide high quality product shots. Once complete the retailer should let the photographer know the size and aspect ratio the images need to be for the website. That way the photographer can provide the right sizes and the retailer just adds them straight in.
Some web design companies may offer to do the photography. If this is the case I would advice checking samples to make sure they are specialists and not hobbyist photographers.
3. Take your own photographs to save money. To do this will need a good camera and good lighting. There are some low cost tools available which help get the lighting right. Cubelite (www.cubelite.co.uk) is worth looking at, their prices are reasonable.
Once the photograph has been taken it will probably need reducing in size, and maybe the aspect ratio will need changing to keep it consistent with other product shots on the website. The professional tool for this is Adobe Photoshop. However it is not cheap and really is overkill for a task like this. I would suggest using Google’s Picasa which is free to download from Google.
