In our never ending e-commerce drive towards Increasing ecommerce conversion ratio’s most of us have focused our efforts on content (and rightly so) yet there is another component which may be just as important, and that is the product image. After all, when you are surfing very quickly through sites, looking for something, it is rarely the content that initially makes you pause and take notice, it is usually a photograph. Of course content has to be unique and relevant but a high quality, relevant photograph can grab a visitor and have him reading your content in under a minute.

Think of a customer in a regular brick and mortar retail location. He normally walks in, heads towards the section he is interested while glancing at products along the aisle. When he eventually gets to his destination he will begin to scan the area for the specific product he wants. When he finally finds a candidate what does he do? He picks it up, hefts it, turns it all around and views it from different angles and if it’s something he can wear, he’ll look around for a mirror to see how it looks on him. Once convinced, he makes a purchase.

In the e-commerce world it is impossible to have a visitor handle a product (unless it is software). Increasing ecommerce conversion ratio’s requires providing a site visitor with the next best thing which is plenty of unique content and lots of high quality product photos to help him completely visualize it in his hands. One photo, with one unique angle simply will not do. Your site must have as many photos as the product has angles, all but one in thumbnail format. A light box can be used to display the high resolution versions with all product details clearly visible. You want your visitor to feel he has seen everything there is to see about the product and can now make a purchasing decision.

Below are some tips to consider when choosing your supplementary product photos:

  • Check Your Shopping Cart Platform – Make sure it supports multiple images and ideally, has a built in light box or a zoom magnifier.
  • Use High Quality      Images – Poorly lit, out of focus or improperly framed photos says a lot about the professionalism of your website and can lower instead of raise conversion rates.
  • Use Alt tags – These are the descriptions you see when you mouse over an image. The last thing you want to show is a simple file name. Make sure you use either a short description or at least some keywords associated with the image. This will also help your search engine rankings.
  • Use Human Models – Showing a pair of earrings on a flat white background is good, but seeing them being used is even better. Product images with humans tend to make the visitor imagine himself using the product, a critical pre-cursor      to making a purchase.

Although the power of the written word is well documented, in e-commerce the power of multiple product images is under rated. Increasing ecommerce conversion ratio’s is as simple and inexpensive as adding more images, yet you may want to start slow and conduct a test. Choose a handful of your top selling products and run an A/B test with multiple images for a statistically significant period of time. The results will speak for themselves.

Adding multiple images to your entire catalog can be a daunting task, but Able Commerce makes it simpler with its built-in easy to use interface. Please contact us for additional information.