Product Photography: It's in the Details! 4

When it comes to product photography for online store fronts and e-commerce businesses it can very easily become all about the details.  We know the main goal (other then making money) for an online store is to provide the shopper with an experience similar to one they can achieve in a physical store.  And the most powerful way to do that is with your photography.  You want to make that product feel as real as possible for the shopper and before you know it, they'll be buying it!  But how do you go about creating product photography that makes the online shopping experience as "real" as possible you might ask?  The Details!

It's all in the details!  When putting together an online store, most businesses feel they only need one photograph of their product, a photograph that shows the item overall and what will show up at the shoppers doorstep.  But when your shopping at a physical store, do you just look at that awesome looking cell phone without picking it up?!  Or is your first instinct to grab it and check out all it's cool features and details?  I would be willing to bet the more options you have to examine the details of the item the more likely you are to buy it.  Whether your actually holding the item in a store or just checking out detailed pictures online, the more informed you are about the product the more comfortable you'll become with the idea of purchasing the item.

So how do you go about presenting the product details online?  Well there are really 3 options.

So, remember, it's all about the Details.  You want to create an online shopping experience as comfortable as possible for your shoppers.  A shopping environment that is as real as possible.  The easiest and most effective way to do so is to give your shoppers the details.  Allow them to "hold" and see the details of the product they are about to buy from you.  The more informed your shoppers are the more likely they are to buy your products.

It's in the DETAILS!

Happy Selling From Products on White.

We recently had to photograph some Iphone cases for an online store called x-doria.   Notice how the client asked us to photography this angle twice, once for an overall view of the Iphone case and then another closer image to show the detail of the case and how it fits the phone.

                                                                                              OVERALL SHOT                                          DETAILED SHOT

How To Create Dynamic Rich Content For Adwords Ads 3

Just like you, POW is a small business trying to make it in this mixed up crazy world.  Recently, I've been working on creating a better GDN (Google Display Network) ad.  You may have seen the blog article where I shared some Indesign templates that I created to make the process easier.  I was inspired and excited when I saw the Google Adwords Creative Corner: Case Studies and realized that where as the still-motion images are good, I could have bigger, better and more exciting!

I started searching and finally came across the website http://4delite.com/  and it's pretty awesome.

It's a layout site that helps create Rich Content ads with motion and video.  It easily resizes content, animates, it's easy to use and pretty affordable!

Finally, don't forget about Products On White if you need some great content for those new amazing ads your about to create.

Quality Product Photography + Quality Web design = Quality Sales (and Trust) 3

A beautiful website + quality product photography =  $$$$$$$

                Now I may be preaching to the choir, but we can’t stress enough at Products On White what quality product photography and web design will do for your online sales.  Countless studies have shown that taking the time and money to produce quality imagery and an online store front for your e-commerce website will help drive sales and convert shoppers from just browsing to shoppers just buying.  I’m not just saying this because that’s what we do here at POW! I’m telling you because as a small business we understand how important it is to drive sales and convert those “just looking” customers to buying customers.  Providing a quality designed website and quality product photography is the ultimate task in creating a trusting shopping environment for online shoppers.

                Unlike a brick and mortar store, online retailers unfortunately don’t have the added advantage of allowing costumer to feel and touch the items they sell.  So even before the doors open at an online merchant there is one big strike against them.  The biggest and most important way to compete with brick and mortar store fronts is to sell customers with quality product photography and web design.  The overall design of your site as well as the overall consistency and quality of your product photography will determine sales.  No one wants to shop at a poorly designed site, with poorly lit product photography.  In fact most shoppers won’t even trust browsing an online merchant that doesn’t provide a trusting and well designed website visually.  The most efficient and cost effective way to create a trusting online store front is to provide the shopper with a beautifully designed site and with quality images.

Using product photography correctly

                Time and time again we have come across clients that hire us at Products On White to photograph their products for their online store, and time and time again we only later discover that the wonderful imagery we have created for them just goes to waste. 

·         Images that are stretched out. (see below)

·         images that are improperly uploaded to their store front.

·         images too small.

·         images that are pixilated.               

It pains us to see product photography that we work hard to make beautiful go to waste.  Items need to be properly presented in an online environment, it’s the only way customers will trust the shopping experience at your store.  It begins with web design and ends with a POW! with your product photography!

Check a couple blogs by shopify photography and it’s importance to sales.

http://www.shopify.com/blog/4468702-is-your-awful-product-photography-losing-you-sales

http://www.shopify.com/blog/3353042-ecommerce-pro-tips-2-learn-from-some-of-shopify-s-top-stores  

Small Business Saturday Discount 0

American Express Small Business Saturday

    As everyone knows, Thanksgiving has now become synonymous with Black Friday.  If anything, in these tough economic times, Black Friday has sadly taken on more importance than Thanksgiving for some.  That's why Products on White is glad to announce that we have embraced and support American Express Small Business Saturday this Saturday November 26th and will be offering 10% on all orders placed on the 26th at Products on White.  Just use the code SMALLBIZ10.  

    The main goal on Small Business Saturday is to have shoppers take control and help support the foundation of our nations economy with Small Business.  There are almost 27 million small businesses in the United States and they account for almost half of all sales in the US.  Now imagine if everyone bought just one item from all those businesses and what it could do for our economy.            

    Small business is the root of our economy and is a simple away for the US to get a boost in its national job growth.  Small business have been responsible for roughly 60 to 80% of all new job growth in the US and in most states small businesses account for roughly 30% of all economic activity. 

    Products on Whites main goal is to provide easy and affordable quality product photography for small to medium business.  So in an effort to help and promote American Expresses Small Business Saturday, we will be offering 10% off all orders placed on Saturday, Nov 26.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

10% off code SMALLBIZ10

Product Photographers 0

POW is a daring new business model; simple, clean imagery at half the price a traditional professional photographer.

We can offer professional quality imagery at half price a traditional commercial photographer, with the same quality because we have a workflow that is geared specifically to these simple looks.  We understand that many businesses just need simple, beautiful images of their products on a simple background to post on their commerce websites, layout in their catalogs, send to potential buyers and distributors.  

We admit it, what we do is not fancy compared to our local commercial/advertising photographer friends.  A professional commercial photographer will give you any background you want, place it in an environment with models and action, they can make it explode with splashes and pepper it with garnish and style it to with all sorts of custom things.  

The Creative Vs. The Catalog

Looking at the Aveda website, for example, the local pro-photographer's image is on the splash page, it sets a mood and gives the essence of the products and the companies.  However, when you click on a category to actually shop for something like shampoo, that's when POW comes to town and saves the day with those simple product pictures that you need to sell those individual products.  

POW is a great cost cutting way to get the most out of your budget by dividing up the highly creative images that brings in the customers (Them) and the great catalog imagery (POW) that closes the sales.

We don't think of ourselves as competition with our local pro-photog friends, let them have all the fun with the creative things. We focus on one thing, catalog/ecommerce product photos for the masses and we do that one thing very very well.

The Shopify Network...priceless! 1

WEBSITE DEVELOPEMENT

Products On White opened its doors almost 7 months ago, but before launching we spent countless hours debating on what platform to launch on.  How could we provide our service to the masses easily both for our customer and us?  We even toyed with the idea of hiring a developer to create a site and backend solution from the ground up.  After countless hours of working with a developer and hundreds of dollars we begun to realize there had to be a better solution, something that was already established we could build off of.  That’s when we stumbled upon Shopify.

THE SHOPIFY NETWORK

We quickly ditched all efforts to build our own e-commerce solution from the ground up and signed up with Shopify.  We teamed up with a web developer and Shopify and customized our Shopify site to our specific needs hoping to make our site even easier for our customers.  After several months and several test runs, we finally launched our site with some mild success.  It was then that we realized that Shopify provides its customers with much more than an e-commerce solution; it provides a whole network and community of like-minded business owners.  We began utilizing Shopify’s forum for advice and promotion.  We even wrote in the “Just Launched” forum, which to date is one of our biggest traffic links.

WELCOME TO SHOPIFY

To my business partners credit, one of the smartest moves we made since establishing our business model has been going with Shopify to provide our platform.  Not only for their e-commerce store front solution but almost equally important, their Shopify Network.