“A picture is worth a thousand words.” This famous proverb coined by Confucius perfectly sums up the current thinking of e-commerce players who generated over 1,500 billion euros in turnover worldwide in 2014 (data from the FEVAD, Federation of e-Commerce and Distance Selling).
E-commerce, a constantly growing and competitive sector
The figures are astonishing, the facts are striking. Throughout the world, e-commerce websites are being created on an average of… once every 30 seconds! In France alone, according to FEVAD’s 2015 figures, there are over 170,000 e-commerce websites vying against one another for business on the Web. In that year, French e-commerce as a whole raised over 60 billion euros – 10% more than in the previous year.
Yet not all e-retailers who launch a business will see their trade flourish. As a matter of fact, French e-commerce is currently a market dominated by oligopolistic competition. In other words, only a few websites share the bulk of takings between them. These, it will come as no surprise, are the key historic players like Amazon, Ebay, CDiscount and PriceMinister.
The upshot? E-commerce is an ultra-competitive market experiencing double-figured growth every year.
So in a context where only 0.5% of online shops account for 70% of the total turnover in French e-commerce, what can you do to toughen up your competition against the 99.5% remaining websites and urge cybernauts to purchase your product?
Well-clipped high-quality photos boost e-commerce sales
If there’s one element that you should work on to hike up your conversion rate, it’s the quality of your photo clipping. Indeed, according to a study carried out by Packshot Creator, the information that will prompt a cybernaut to make a purchase can be ranked as follows:
1. Photo(s) showing off the product
2. Product description
3. Consumer opinions
4. Animation(s)
5. Demonstration video
It’s plain to see that having well-clipped high-quality photos is crucial in e-commerce because they are the leading factor to influence the purchasing decisions of cybernauts.
And it only makes sense: photos offer online shoppers their first impressions of your product. If an image’s quality is impaired by poorly executed clipping or if it fails to show off your product adequately, you will lose the interest of the Internet user who won’t bother to read its description but prefer to look elsewhere. On top of this, presenting high-quality clipping is a way to win the trust of cybernauts as it demonstrates your rigour and professionalism.
It comes as no surprise that absent or overlooked visuals top the list of obstacles to purchasing. So getting your product photos clipped carefully proves especially important.
If you wish to really smarten up your e-commerce shopfront, Simataï will be delighted to accompany you. By entrusting the clipping and retouching of your images to post-production professionals, you ensure that your clipped product photos become powerful selling points.
