A picture is worth a thousand words. You’ve seen it written in hundreds or thousands of articles. But what does that relate to your home furnishings business? In our industry, photography is a vital component to brand identity. Your products in the showroom can illustrate the best components of your brand. Yet how do you convey that message to your online showroom? Product image photography is more than the standards of old print catalogs. Now, your shoppers expect the same in-store product presentation on your website.
Your website and your brand rely on product visualization to sell a shopper at first glance. The other details follow. For too many retailers and manufacturers, product image photography takes a backseat to some of the important overhead priorities. However, recent studies show that a brand without a strong visual representation online converts fewer buyers than their counterparts. For manufacturers, this is even more compelling because of the control your photography carries over to the retailers selling your brand. How do you make sure your product image photography stands out from the other brands in the same retail store?
Importance of Product Photography Online for Manufacturers
We know you put a lot of work into making your showroom as eye-catching as possible. We see the displays of outstanding product presentation at every furniture market showroom. But are your clients getting the same representation when they visit your website? We want to take this time to underscore the importance of product image photography on your website.
While working with manufacturers in the home furnishings industry, we’ve heard many discuss the technical pitfalls of product photography. Putting together examples of silhouettes and multiple variations of room scenes takes weeks of production every season. When a new collection launches, the same process repeats and suddenly your product image photography is outdated. Plus, the time it takes to share with your retailers for their websites is maddening. However, as technology changes, there are newer and more advanced ways to save time and still have the brand visibility for every collection.
Product Image Photography Benefits for Retailers
Many retailers have started to use their online showroom to price products. This first step to eCommerce is a challenge for many retailers. When product catalog data is hard to come by, photography is last priority on the list. However, eCommerce thrives due to the online representation of the physical product. When shoppers see something they like, they want to send it out to everyone they know immediately. Some will add that product to a Pinterest board and engage with peers socially to rate the product. All based on the photography you’ve presented on your website.
Your products get more mileage in the age of social gamification and community shopping.
Many retailers may be at the frustration point when they ask “why shouldn’t my manufacturers be doing this for me?” To that, we can say that the manufacturers have beautiful photography available for your website. But, is your website set up to show your brands online?
Websites on MicroD’s platform get instant access to brand feeds that plug right into your website. That means you get the high-quality product image photography from the manufacturers to your website—and we take care of it all.
Better Product Photography Sells Furniture
Okay, now that we’ve put in our shameless plug for a MicroD website with product catalog data, let’s talk about why the product image photography really matters. It sells your furniture. There’s really no better way to say it. As we mentioned, a picture is worth a thousand words. It could also be worth thousands of dollars in revenue if you’re using high-quality product images on your website. You always want to put your best products on display when it’s time to put on a promotion. Which technique will do more drive business towards your store? Professional photos tell a visitor everything they need to know about a product at a glance is what you need to drive traffic. We can’t overstate how the right image can become one of your best online selling points.
This doesn’t just mean using product image photography for your product images on the online product catalog on your website. This means using the top fold of your website to create beautiful room scene graphics to highlight a certain promotion or new collection. Many call this a conversion rate optimization tactic. Companies like MicroD can showcase the best images in slideshows on your homepage and make them shareable across different social media platforms.
You can create a unified advertising experience across various mediums. And having professionals helping you in these efforts allows you to transition smoothly between different promotions. Why not focus different image sets for different holidays, like recliners for Father’s Day or dining room tables for Thanksgiving?
Cost-Effective Visual Storytelling
We touched on reusing your professional images in different ways for advertising purposes. The ability to build up a repository of photographs for repeated use helps you quickly recoup your up-front costs in obtaining them.
Another benefit MicroD provides to our clients is creating brand-specific landing pages. We know that for manufacturers, it’s hard to control your brand’s visibility across all the dealers in your market. That’s why we’ve made an even stronger connection between the website for your retailers and the brand you represent. Brand visibility is challenging but we see it as a priority for manufacturers and a benefit to retailers. You can feature them on your home page and steer traffic in their direction to drive sales. Doing this allows you to get the most benefit you can from your partnership. Our company can help you visualize concepts beyond standard image layouts to create something genuinely evocative of a specific brand.
Move Your Showroom Online
Great photographs can carry over the same experience visitors get when stepping inside your store to your website. You can focus in on brands representing the type of merchandise your store favors. One advantage online shoppers gain over those inside your store is the ability to immediately customize items to their liking thanks to the cutting-edge product visualization technology used by MicroD.
Our company gives you the tools to showcase any brand, product, or collection the way you want. You can communicate the value customers gain by indulging in a more luxurious line of furniture or sell value when it comes to more economical pieces. Our professionals can make the story you want to tell come to life with powerful images designed to appeal to visitors.
