There’s a saying that goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Since online shoppers can’t see the actual product, pictures are the most intuitive, authentic, and valuable information for them to understand. Moreover, pictures determine consumers’ first impression of a brand. Before consumers read product descriptions or even reviews, they will look at product pictures first. According to Shopify, an e-commerce website building platform, “More than half of online consumers believe that product pictures are more important than product information, reviews, and ratings.” Even though sellers must comply with strict image requirements to sell products on Amazon, there are still some strategies to use product pictures to boost sales.
Every product on the Amazon platform needs to be accompanied by one or more product pictures. The main picture of a product is called the Main Picture. The Main Picture of a product is displayed in search results and browse pages, and is also the first picture that buyers see on the product detail page. In addition, the Main Picture should be accompanied by some additional pictures that show the product from different angles, show the product in use, and details that are not shown in the Main Picture. Sellers should follow the above image standards to ensure the quality and consistency of all product pictures. Product pictures are very important to consumers, so their quality cannot be ignored. Sellers should choose clear, understandable, informative, and visually appealing images. Amazon also has very strict and complex requirements for product images.
Let’s take a look at the standards for Amazon’s general product images.
①The image must accurately display the product and only display products for sale.
②The product and all its features must be clearly visible.
③The main image should use a pure white background (pure white can blend in with Amazon search and product detail pages, and the RGB color value is 255, 255, 255).
④The main image must be a professional photo of the actual product (not a graphic, illustration, mock-up, or placeholder), and cannot display accessories that are not for sale, supports that may confuse consumers, text that is not part of the product, or logos/watermarks/embedded images.
⑤The image must match the product name.
⑥The image is at least 1000 pixels. Images that meet this minimum pixel requirement can implement zooming on the website. It has been proven that zooming can increase sales. When zoomed to the minimum, the seller’s image must reach 500 pixels on the longest side.
⑦ The longest side of the image shall not exceed 10,000 pixels.
⑧ Amazon accepts JPEG (.jpg), TIFF (.tif) or GIF (.gif) file formats, but JPEG file format is preferred.
⑨ Amazon’s servers do not support animated images in GIF format.
⑩ The image must not contain information that violates public order and good morals.
Next, let’s focus on the main image of Amazon products. In addition to complying with the above general image standards, there is a set of more stringent standards to comply with. The following points are the content that is not allowed to appear in the main image of the product.
① The main image of the product cannot contain any Amazon logo or trademark, variants of the Amazon logo or trademark, or any content that is confusingly similar to the Amazon logo or trademark. This includes but is not limited to any text or logo containing “AMAZON”, “PRIME”, “ALEXA” or “Amazon Smile” design.
②The main image of the product cannot contain any mark used by the Amazon e-commerce platform, a variation of the mark, or any content that is confusingly similar to the mark. This includes but is not limited to “Amazon’s Choice”, “Quality Choice”, “Amazon Alexa”, “Working with Alexa”, “Best-selling products” or “Hot-selling products”.
③The main image must not contain information that violates public order and good morals.
④Children’s and baby underwear or swimwear must not be worn on models for photography.
⑤The main image of the product must be clear and must not have mosaics or jagged edges.
⑥When the longest side of the main image is enlarged to the maximum allowed size, the product should not occupy 85% of the screen.
It is recommended that readers read the above standards in detail, especially to show them to the company’s art staff. If we violate Amazon’s requirements for images when uploading products, Amazon will force the product to be removed from the shelves and require rectification until it is modified to the appearance it requires. Because the main image must meet these requirements, the main images of many products look very similar. For example, the suitcases in the following picture are sold by different retailers, but the main images are very similar.
After reading this, do many people think that Amazon’s regulations are too strict? Do you think that sellers have little room to play with product pictures? In fact, sellers still have a lot of room for innovation. In addition to the extremely strict main picture requirements, each product page can have up to 8 additional product pictures, and Amazon’s supervision of additional pictures is much looser than that of the main picture. In addition, we can also upload product videos directly. The effect of dynamic videos is definitely much better than that of static pictures.
Whether selling clothes or kitchen equipment, sellers should show consumers how to use the products. Because consumers cannot choose to try on clothes or test other products online, sellers need to use pictures to show consumers how to use the products.
Even if sellers open stores in North America, Japan, and Europe at the same time and sell the same products, they must adjust the product picture style according to the preferences of consumers in different sites. For example, American consumers prefer simple, comfortable, and practical style pictures, while Japanese consumers prefer cute and warm pictures.
Before officially making pictures, I hope that readers will refer to the pictures taken by competitors, collect all pictures of competitors, and then learn from others to reflect the attributes and characteristics of the product as much as possible to meet the needs of target consumers. As for whether to take pictures by yourself or outsource them, it depends on the specific situation of each company. Smaller sellers can choose to outsource the shooting, and larger sellers mostly have their own photography and art teams. Amazon also provides corresponding product picture shooting and production services. Readers can go to Amazon’s third-party service mall to learn more!