Product photos and videos: the key role in PDPs and catalogs
Few things matter as much in a digital storefront as product photos and videos. Why? And how do you ensure that catalogs are populated with valuable, high-performing digital assets?
The correlation between quality media and conversions
When it comes to catalogs, whether in the more traditional sense of the term (paper or PDPs) or in the more current sense (PDPs and PLPs of e-commerce sites and marketplaces), the lowest common denominator is multimedia content.
This is especially true online, where product photos are the beacon that guides the customer journey for 3 out of 4 buyers (Weebly). On the Web, 60 percent of shoppers consider image quality the most important factor in their purchasing decisions (DeepImage).
Clips also make a difference: the presence of product videos, in fact, can increase PDP and landing page conversions by 80 percent (Renderforest).
Product shooting: freelance photographer or agency?
The impact of item videos and photos on online business makes the role of product shooting, the process by which multimedia content representing the assortment is created, central.
One of the key decisions, in particular, is whether to outsource the product shoot to a freelance photographer or a professional agency.
For small projects or one-off campaigns, the flexibility-as well as the personality-of a freelance photographer can be excellent allies. In the specific case of videos and photos produced for PDPs and catalogs, however, it is the agency that proves to be the only viable solution.
5 reasons to entrust a product shooting to a professional agency
1. Consultative approach
By outsourcing the product shoot to an agency, the photo shoot is the result of a workflow that, from the brief, involves several professionals with multi-sectoral experience.
2. Consistent quality
An agency, especially a structured one, has dedicated sets and quickly replicates the shooting conditions established in the brief, even at different times. This allows for photos and videos of consistent quality and with consistent characteristics over time.
3. Mix of creativity and expertise
An agency team works on multiple projects every day, taking in insights on current trends and the effectiveness in terms of conversions of certain types of shots, capitalizing on them in new briefs with a view to continuous improvement.
4. Zero sunk costs
The quote for a product shoot provided by a professional agency includes more than just the shoot itself.
Lights, equipment, space, post-production, speed, in addition to the aforementioned know-how, are necessary resources for quality video and photos product; the absence of which, can present steep bills in terms of customer experience.
Or, often, in the case of shoots done by freelance photographers, appearing only later, somewhat like an iceberg when the sailing is going well.
5. Additional services
Unlike a freelance photographer, an agency goes beyond product photos. At WARDA, for example, we partner with 1PHOTO, a shooting agency with 20 years of experience in fashion & luxury.
Together, we offer the complete solution for product catalog management, amplifying the quality and efficiency of the entire catalog management flow.
1PHOTO & SeeCommerce: the complete solution for your catalogs
The goal of our partnership with 1PHOTO is to offer virtuous brands a one-stop solution for creating, managing and propagating catalogs.
The highest quality video and product photos produced by 1PHOTO, combined with SeeCommerce’s Product eXperience Management performance, multiply sales performance on every digital channel, elevating the ROI of any PDP.
How does the 1PHOTO-SeeCommerce product video and photo stream work?
Once the brief is defined, the items – even in multiple small batches – are shipped to 1PHOTO’s professionals, who, after a product check, produce videos and product photos in one of 20 dedicated sets in the more than 2,000 m2 photo studios.
The shooting and post-production flow is rote: after items are received, in no time the media are shared with the customer and, automatically, loaded into the product views in the catalogs managed in SeeCommerce.
From our PXM to B2B and B2C touchpoints, the step is short. In fact, instantaneous, thanks to the APIs that connect SeeCommerce to e-commerce marketplaces and CMSs.
Not to mention natively managed Brand Portals within our PXM: 100% customizable web portals that make media and product data exchange with any stakeholder (such as partners, sales and PR) immediate.
Benefits of a single solution to manage catalogs
Choosing an end-to-end catalog management flow means multiplying both the benefits from quality-media PDPs and automatically created and propagated catalogs.
Together, in fact, a PXM software and a professional video and photo product shooting agency enable:Â
- Cutting down time to market: minimizing manual labor for various activities, such as making, organizing, and uploading product videos and photos online or enriching and translating product sheets
- Reduce the number of returns: thanks to PDPs rich in both accurate multimedia content as well as accurate, multi-language and consistent data across every touchpoint
- Elevate the customer experience: through quality and optimized media to make each web session flawless, enhancing SEO performance through lightweight sites and e-commerce complete with every piece of information needed.
Let us unveil the potential of your catalog management flow
Click here and let’s arrange a no-obligation chat with one of our experts.
We will evaluate together your company’s data, video, and photo product management flow, reasoning about possible room for improvement from optimizing the catalog management flow: from shooting to PDP.
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