Product Photo Checklist: 10 Ways to Perfect eCommerce Product Images

Did you know more than the majority of e-commerce shoppers consider product photos to be ‘extremely’ influential in their purchasing decision? In fact, product photos were ranked as more important than product descriptions, specs, and even ratings or reviews. In e-commerce, seeing is believing.

But there’s an art to the perfect product photo—and just as a good photo can sell your product more effectively than almost anything else, a bad photo can turn potential customers off. Careful editing brings out the best in your photos and helps your products shine in the busy, crowded world of e-commerce. Whether you’re an e-commerce specialist or a photographer, this image editing checklist will help you create irresistible, attention-grabbing product photos. 

First Steps for Perfect Editing

Shoot in RAW

The editing process is always more straightforward when using RAW photos. Why? Because RAW files contain more data and are of higher quality, it’s easier and more efficient to make adjustments. Editing JPEGs results in some damage to the original file, but RAW files can be edited without reducing the quality of the images.

Start with a thorough plan

Any project should begin with a well-rounded, detailed roadmap, and product photography is no different. Here are the things you should do before ever picking up your camera:

  • Define all the kinds of product photos your website needs
  • Identify the kinds of imagery that your audience finds enticing
  • Research current trends and take styling tips from successful product photography
  • Make sure you have all the necessary equipment like a lighting kit, LED ring flash, backdrops, clamps, pins, etc.
  • Choose an editor

The 10 Step Checklist for Perfect E-Commerce Image Editing

1. Choose your best photos

Not every image we capture is destined for greatness, and when it comes to e-commerce, you only want the best photos to represent your products. Cull your photos with an editor’s mindset, knowing that only a few will make the cut. Don’t know how to narrow down your images? Start by cutting out photos with anything less than razor-sharp focus.

Once you have your best photos in hand, it’s time to start editing!

2. Lens correction and straightening the horizon

Start the editing process with lens correction. This step is crucial if you use wide-angle lenses to shoot your product photos. Lens correction can help to correct chromatic aberration if images near the horizon have green or purple hues.

Make sure to straighten any tilted photos.

3. Color correction

Color correction is a challenging but mandatory step for image retouching. If your store has products of different colors with the same pattern or design, you can apply the recoloring feature to the RAW images. This time-saving step allows you to represent your whole catalog of colors without photographing each individual product.

The color correction feature also helps to enhance color tone, vibrancy, contrast, saturation, and more. However, the images after correction should always be representative of the products in real-life transparency will lead to trust and retention with your customers.

4. Remove intrusive elements with background removal

Background removal eliminates distracting or unwanted elements in the background of your photos. Backdrops can be replaced to make your product images look more consistent. You can also remove loose threads, flyaway hair, etc., for a polished look. AI-enabled software like autoRetouch offers automatic background removal and customization. To make the backdrop removal process hassle-free, we recommend placing the product against white cloth or sheets.

5. Fix imperfections

Imperfections can come in many forms, from blemishes on your model’s skin to specks of dust in the background. However, that doesn’t mean the photos must be discarded: today’s editing tools have mind-blowing corrective features, and these issues can be solved in seconds.

6. Creating depth with shadows

Without shadows, products may look unrealistic, but not all shadows are visually appealing. For example, shadows falling on the model’s face should be removed in the editing process. On the other hand, shadows cast by the model will give more depth to your photos. Viewers may not consciously notice the shadows, but they provide a sense of the 3D geometry of the item.

7. Choose cropping dimensions

Many editors skip this step, but it’s one of the essentials in editing product photography. On the bright side, it’s also simple and quick. Cropping removes the unwanted areas of the photo and brings more focus to the subject, letting you hone in on what’s relevant. Cropping usually only takes a few seconds.

8. Create 3D product photos

2D photos are flatter and less representative of the true dimensions of the products being sold, while 3D or 360° images can be very appealing to shoppers. 3D images are actually made up of a bunch of composited pictures taken from different angles. We recommend using Adobe Bridge to generate professional-looking 3D photos. This helps customers get a tangible sense of your product.

9. Remove the mannequins

Mannequins are a great way to display clothes and apparel, but they can be visually distracting as well. Keep the focus on your products by removing the mannequins from your photos. This can be a tedious task, but tools like autoRetouch automatically remove the dummy from apparel with the ghost mannequin feature.

10. Bulk edit your images

Selling products online means dealing with tons of product pictures at once, and making your photos consistent can be tedious and difficult. Fortunately, today’s dynamic AI-powered software allows stock or bulk photo editing, applying the same effects to 100+ images at once. Online shoppers are inclined to trust websites with visual uniformity in pictures, and batch editing helps your photos look professional and legitimate.

Bottom Line

Competition in the e-commerce world can be intense—and having exemplary images keeps you a step ahead of the rest. This 10-step checklist can help you delight your customers and create a powerful, appealing visual presence for your products.

How to Sell Clothes Online Using a Reselling App

We’ve created this ‘How To Sell Clothes Online Using A Reselling App’ guide to help entrepreneurs up level their ecommerce business in short easy steps. The reselling – or  upcycling business as it is also referred to – has seen a boom with more people buying, selling and trading previously owned items online. In fact, Vogue Magazine called upcycling “the biggest trend in fashion…from Balenciaga to Miu Miu, creating new clothes out of old materials is finally being embraced by major luxury brands” wrote Vogue UK Fashion Editor Emily Chan recently. You can be successful selling clothes online due to the increased interest in upcycling over the last two years. In fact, this trend is fueled by consumer behavior demanding more fashion-forward sustainable options. Furthermore, reselling app marketplaces empower digital shop owners enabling them to make incremental income from home or anywhere. In addition to this shift in behavior, the pandemic brought to light just how important supply chain, sourcing materials and sustainable production practices are. Moreover, consumers are actively seeking out upcycling fashion finds online. In addition, traditional brick and mortar stores have had to pivot toward a digital-first and direct-to-consumer model (D2C) to meet this demand over the last year. Listed below are tried and true best practices to employ when considering how to sell clothes online using a reseller marketplace app. We’ve also highlighted helpful information as it relates to the most popular reselling apps on the market right now and the unique features that they offer.

How To Be Successful Selling Clothes Online

The first step when considering how to be successful selling clothes online is simple. Take great product shots on the reselling app of your digital storefront! Optimized product photography is critical to the success of your online business. Ensure that all product imagery is clean, uncluttered and has a uniform look and feel. Fashion reselling app storefronts can easily lack a polished look. When images are haphazardly uploaded with bad lighting etc., potential customers notice.  High bounce rates, low click through rates and minuscule conversion rates are not success metrics. In order to be successful selling clothes online your product imagery needs to indicate through high-quality visuals, the clear value-proposition offered with the potential sale.

Reselling Apps: Product Photography Best Practices

  1. Remove backgrounds that are distracting and cluttered
  2. Ensure that all images in your storefront have some sort of consistency and uniformity 
  3. Shoot product photography images in well-lit places
  4. Include several angles of the product
  5. Showcase lifestyle imagery of the product (i.e., in a ‘real situational’ setting) but always. lead with a clear product shot
  6. Utilize the ghost mannequin feature on garments as needed
  7. Smooth skin with natural skin retouching
  8. Ensure that product page item descriptions are detailed and include items like brand name, color, size, and category

How To Sell on Poshmark and Other Fashion Reselling Apps

Launching your reseller app marketplace online is easy. Several reseller apps focusing on direct-to-consumer have made it turnkey for resellers to create their optimized digital storefront with ease. Please see our hand-picked favorite turnkey fashion reseller apps listed below. We like these because of their targeted market saturation and popularity, ease of use and efficient workflows. Each of these options is slightly different and caters to a specific audience. Depending on how you plan on marketing your vintage goods, you may even consider creating several storefronts across one or multiple fashion reseller apps.

How To Sell on Poshmark

Poshmark has been around a little bit longer than some of the other popular reseller apps and caters to a more mature audience target (i.e., millennials). Pre-loved fashion items and accessories inclusive of high-ticket luxury garments, shoes and accessories account for a substantial amount of Poshmark transactions. Items in your fashion marketplace will populate on search engine results so ensuring that your text copy is search engine friendly is key. For all sales under $15, Poshmark takes a flat commission of $2.95. You keep the rest. For sales of $15 or more, you keep 80% of your sale and Poshmark’s commission is 20%. The community-focused functionality of Poshmark enables sellers to host “parties” virtually to mingle with other community members, welcome new sellers, interact with listings with the end goal of creating a beloved eCommerce store.

How To Sell on Depop

Depop can be best described as the “Instagram of the fashion reseller market”. The website mission statement reads “Depop is the fashion marketplace app where the next generation comes to discover unique items. With a global community buying, selling and connecting to make fashion more inclusive, diverse and less wasteful. This is what transforming fashion looks like.” Depop’s reseller audience target is cool and unique and are typically Gen Z. Furthermore, Depop will charge a 10% fee on the total amount of your listing once it is sold, which includes shipping costs. The platform has partnered with PayPal to secure transactions.

How to Sell on The Real Real

The Real Real is the ultimate luxury fashion reseller app. As the name suggests, this fashion marketplace concentrates its efforts in reselling real and authentic luxury goods. Online sellers ship second-hand items to Real Real locations where items are authenticated, photographed, priced, processed, uploaded onto seller profiles by The Real Real associates. The Real Real also processes returns. With these added services, come increased fees when items are sold. The percentage of each order that it keeps as a percent of revenue, is 50% which is considerably higher than other consignment reseller app competitors in the market. There is also an option to directly sell your luxury goods to Real Real before an actual customer buys it from the digital shop.

How to Sell on Etsy

Then there is Etsy, the seller app for unique, hand-crafted and vintage goods. Etsy is the reseller marketplace known for diverse, one-of-a-kind fashion and art finds. Etsy charges $0.20 per listing and the listing will stay active for four months or until the item sells. A 5% transaction fee, 3% + $0.25 payment processing fee will be included as part of its commission once the item sells. Lastly, Etsy charges 15% for ‘Offsite Ads fee’ if an advertisement generates a sale. Etsy regularly includes paid media as part of their marketing strategy to get their item to sell.

autoRetouch makes it easy and quick to optimize product photography. It utilizes artificial intelligence to optimize ecommerce product imagery in seconds. Try the app for free today and launch your fashion digital storefront in minutes!