Product photography plays an important role in sales conversions. If your customer can’t get a clear picture of the product, they won’t know what they’re buying, and are therefore less likely to buy. Make sure your product photos are presented beautifully and you might just get a few more sales.
Crate & Barrel
This furniture e-commerce site features large photos, retouched lightly but professionally. Swatch buttons allow easy preview of different color schemes for products that have them. The clear white background is a perfect choice that provides two key features: visual unification of many different types of products, as well as the opportunity for the customer to judge the colors and patterns without interference of colored backgrounds.
Entertainment Earth
With tens of thousands of products from hundreds of manufacturers, this memorabilia and collectibles website is a giant among online stores. Once again, a clear white background serves as a base on which consistency in product photos is built, and the photos themselves are given ample space and attention – large, sharp, cut out and retouched to perfection.
http://www.entertainmentearth.com
Gazel
Selling a small assortment of 100% organic Turkish cotton bath-wear, this site sports some outstanding photos. If you think to yourself “I can actually count the knots of cotton” don’t rush with the task – mousing over any of the product images will zoom the image in and allow you an even more compelling look at the goods. You know you want to touch them, and you almost feel like you can.
Godiva
These tasty photos of sweet treats are likely to make you water at the mouth. Notice how the creamy colors used in the design complement the colors of the products themselves.
Heartbreaker
Brilliant photos made by someone who knew what they were doing. Nothing was left to chance when it comes to product photos found on this vintage inspired fashion store. From the careful selection of models to the custom hair-dos and fitting footwear, these photographs build upon the website design and it’s core philosophy – the 1950′s are back and they are just a few mouse clicks away.
http://heartbreakerfashion.com
itself
Selling a variety of designer shirts, this online store is happy to minimize the website eye candy and let the shirt designs speak for themselves with large, clear photographs.
JD Cycles
This online bicycle store features large photos, shot specifically for the website to provide consistency in the presentation of many different manufacturers. Retouched and cut out with care, these are scaled down to leave room on the product page for elaborate product information, but a zoom function lets you take a look at the full size versions which look sharp, professional and clean.
Klokkerent
Klokkerent sells a small selection of watches and sunglasses, and has mastered the use of photos in an online store. The photographs of their watches you see on screen are actually larger than the watches are in real life, and it really makes them say more than a thousand words (per photo).
Loft
Photos you will find on this website should speak volumes about the benefits of hiring a professional photographer and retoucher. The consistent studio lighting and light-gray background (carefully cleansed of footprints during retouching) lets each piece of clothing show its textures and colors while providing a method of visual unification. The result is not only a great set of product photos, but a navigation dominated by large thumbnails which allow you to take a good look at any given product before you even open its page.
mas Design
With a very small assortment of designer handmade titanium back-covers for the iPhone, this website is designed to build upon the exquisite product photos. Each product is represented by three to four images that showcase color and texture beautifully, and can be zoomed in for even finer detail.
Music Room
While most of their products offer very few options in the way of creative use of product photos (being books, DVDs or digital downloads), the Instruments & Accessories section of Music Room makes for a great example of how to maximise the use of photos in an online store. Sharp, crisp photos of guitars, trumpets and the like will fill the height of your browser window, and still let you click on them for a zoomed in view offering even more detail.
Narwhal Co.
Wallets, passport covers and wrist wear made out of old recycled neck ties. Who would have thought, eh? When each item you sell is one of its kind, you owe it to yourself to present it with a beautiful photo – and that is exactly what people at Narwhal Company do.
Natural Soap Boutique
Feel free to mouse over one of these soaps for an automatic zoom function. You can feel the texture, can’t you? It’s quite possible your monitor would start emitting a lavender odor if there was one more zoom level.
http://naturalsoapboutique.com
Orvis
Crisp, clean photos, with a touch of the drop shadow effect to avoid sterility and swatch buttons that allow you to quickly and easily preview the different color combinations available for each item of clothing.
Shop Bop
This is arguably the top dog on this list. Professional photography and retouching similar to that found on Loft; a detail-zoom function that tops the one found on Gazel; swatch presets found in several of the sites above. Shop Bop combines them all seamlessly and graciously to bring you an online store that is hard to top when it comes to beautiful product photography presented with style.
Shoe Guru
An unconventional design that sacrifices no functionality to form, and makes heavy use of some excellent professional photography.
Steve & Co.
Specializing in men’s accessories, Steve & Co. presents its superb product photos in a minimalistic website design that lets their colorful products really shine.
Tilly Moss
Selling a handful of beautiful Macbook and iPad sleeves, this small online store presents its products in no more and no less than two photos per product – an overall shot displaying the entire design and a closeup that lets you get a feel for the texture of the fabric – both of which are made with taste and knowledge, and retouched to perfection.
Tiffany & Co.
Stunning jewelry, photographed by top professionals in ideal studio conditions, retouched to the most minute detail, presented in an absolutely perfect manner. Someone should do some research and figure out who boosted Tiffany’s sales more: Audrey Hepburn or these beautiful photographs.
Martique designs
Selling women’s handbags in a wide variety of styles, this online store makes sure each of its products is presented in a consistent, easy to navigate fashion. Swatch buttons are refreshingly different from the default square style found almost everywhere else. While the photos found on product pages are made somewhat smaller in an attempt to streamline the overall design, the zoom function provides access to much larger versions which are sharp, colorful and professional
