The days when global e-commerce brands organised traditional studio photo shootings to create professional product photos are long gone. Leading brands have switched to 3D product photography and the process for producing photorealistic product photos has completely changed. Today, by leveraging virtual product photos, it is easy for ecommerce brands to create a complete product catalogue cost effectively. Time and money can be saved as neither a photo studio nor a photographer are required any more! Taking product photos is now merely a process of designing hyper-realistic product images with the help of software applications. This is particularly interesting for e-commerce brands.
There are many reasons why online stores benefit from virtual product photography. Some of the most important ones are:
Remembering pixelated computer games back from the 90s you may doubt the quality of 3D product photos. Another common concern is around costs. You may be worried that 3D product photos are more expensive than standard product photography. Well, as a matter of fact the situation is completely reversed!
As mentioned above, virtual photographs are produced using software applications. This means that physical product samples are not necessarily required (typically we work with smartphone snapshots of a product, but depending on the product type we can also create 3D photos based on CAT files). It is possible to create realistic images of any product before production has started or before a product has been made available to the market. No need to wait for a launch event or a photoshoot to launch a product! Now imagine how much time and effort this can save you in terms of supply chain management. Samples do not need to be shipped from one location to another. Furthermore risks associated with product launches can be minimised. Also market reception for a new release can potentially be gauged even before the product is manufactured. A real boon for Kickstarter brands!
A common misconception is that 3D images are more expensive than traditional product photos. In fact the opposite is true. One of the most common reasons why clients choose to work with us on 3D product photos is the fact that we are able to help them reduce their photography costs – depending on the quantity and complexity of the traditional photoshoot by up to 50%. For e-commerce brands another factor is important: More, high quality product photos will impact consumer purchase decision making. On e-commerce sites such as Amazon, it is typically recommended to upload 6 images per product listing to boost your conversion rate. Depending on how many colour, size or material variations you offer, this can result in a staggering amount of photos that you would normally have to take (and pay for!). With virtual photography, product colour, for instance, can be adjusted with just a click. So virtual product images can reduce costs and increase conversion rates.
One of the many benefits of generating a product image with a computer is that factors such as lighting, colour saturation and so on will be optimised for the human eye. Rather than having to retouch imperfect photos taken with a camera, the initial output – a computer generated file will be flawless.
In addition to that changing the lighting of an image, or even adding or removing props is a simple process – just one more click.
Every e-commerce manager knows that consumer behaviour can shift dramatically and trends come and go. Speed to market is therefore critical so seize opportunities as they unfold. At Impala we use proprietary software applications and have an in-house team of 3D imagery experts at your disposal. This enables us to support large organisations at scale and to support the launch of new products at rapid speed. We also offer complete project management and communications spanning your entire supply chain by directly liaising with your factories and delivering optimised product images that will fuel your growth.
