5 Reasons You Should be in the Photos of your Online Shop
Isn’t this a welcoming photo that would be perfect for an About Us page ?
(photo by Kampus Production on Pexels)
Yes, your online shop should have more than photos of the products you are selling.
One of the joys of writing this blog is that I get to interview hundreds of business owners. From them, I find out what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve my own business. These business owners typically have both an online shop and host regular in-person events. Interestingly, it’s the latter that brings in the most sales and new customers. The fact is, the online shop tends to be a secondary revenue stream, and they are unsure of how to grow that part of their business.
Well, for many of them, I have a pretty good idea why that is. Now I don’t want to tell anyone how to run their business. When I interview business owners, I prefer to let them share how they prefer to run things. However, if there is one correlation that I have found, it is this:
Those businesses that don’t generate a lot of online sales typically do not make good use of photos.
Specifically, they don’t include photos of people, especially themselves. Good photos, in my experience, are a big factor in generating interest in products for sale online. So, let’s delve a little deeper into why that matters, with five important points about photos for your online shop.
Photos of Yourself and Your Customers show that your Site is not Bot or A.I. Generated
Petals-for-Jean owner Raya’s lovely photo on her website tells customers there is a real-live human being behind her online store (photo by owner)
If there are no photos of people on your site, even if you have the most spectacular photos of your products, then the message is that there is no one standing in the shop. You might as well hang up a sign that says, “Nobody’s here, but go ahead and buy something anyway.” That doesn’t generate trust or interest.
Your site also needs to stand out from the competition. If not, why should customers not buy elsewhere? If your shop looks generic, boring, and automated because it just has photos of things and not people, then it becomes a basic-looking commodity. This drives potential customers to focus on things you can’t control, such as competing pricing on other sites… and you don’t want them leaving your site.
Customers want a personalized experience where they feel appreciated, heard, and welcomed. The fastest way to make them feel unimportant and just another number, is to make them feel they are only interacting with a machine. It makes the experience artificial, and they can find that on thousands of other sites other than yours.
2. A Photo of Yourself Shows that You Stand Behind Your Products
What better photo to show that you literally stand behind your products?
(photo by This-Is-Engineering on Pixabay)
As mentioned, shopping is about building trust. If you show yourself prominently on your website, you help build that trust. If you want customers to open their wallets, then you need to make them feel safe in doing that. A photo of yourself shows, in the most basic way, that you believe in the products you sell and that you’ll be there if there is a problem.
Even for people who have purchased items online for years, there is still that thought in the back of every customer’s head that there are too many scams out there. It’s all over the news, it’s all over their email, and it regularly pops up as a warning on their phones. You need your customers to believe that you are not a scam.
Your picture helps alleviate that worry. Even if you don’t have a photo of yourself on the home page, you should at the very least have it on the About page. It should also be on the contact page. People want to know when they reach out that they are talking to a real person.
3. There Should Be a Photo of You Making/Assembling the Products You Sell
Seeing you working on your products tells people that what you’re selling isn’t mass-produced in a distant factory
(photo of owner Desmond Bowe carving a Tiki Tube Amp)
I can’t tell you how many people forget to do just this, and it is so important. This goes back to the issue of trust and scams. If you include a photo of yourself designing, assembling, or even just holding the products, then it tells your customer that the products are real, useful, and dependable.
Customers want to know that they are purchasing something that has value to justify the cost that they are opening their wallets for. One of the best ways to show that is to demonstrate how your products are designed, made, and sourced. If the customers see you working diligently on your products, then they know these were made with care. Likewise, if they see you using it, they will know that it has a function that they too can make use of as well.
4. There Should be a Photo of a Customer with the Product
A photo of a happy customer trying on your products is worth more than a whole page of text-only testimonials.
(photo by Sean P. Twomey on Pexels)
You can think of this as Proof-of-Concept. If another customer is using the product in a photo, then that is an experience that a new customer can expect to have as well. This photo should be of a happy customer, so make sure they are smiling.
Now this is similar to a testimonial, and many people have these on their website. However, I seldom see testimonials with a photo – it’s usually a quote. If you can include a photo with these testimonials, it will carry much more weight. Of course, that is hard to do – once customers purchase something, getting them to come back and provide feedback is hard enough, but to then have them include a good quality photo of themselves with the product is going to be like pulling teeth. It’s great if you can get those, but it’s going to be hard.
Instead, bypass the difficulty and include high-quality photos of people, even if they are models (or your own family members). Include these photos on the product pages. Models can be expensive, I know, so if you can’t include them with each product, then feature them prominently on the first page/screen that customers see when they arrive at your shop.
The important thing is to show that your products have utility and that they bring joy/satisfaction. Including photos of other people who are happily using your products is the best way to do that. Remember to have everyone smile, too.
5. A Photo of You Makes You Recognizable
What better way for people to find your booth at the local fair, after they see this selfie on your website?
(owner Madelyn Cao of Amethyst Atelier)
This is one aspect that business owners often forget: you, as the business owner, need to be recognized. This is obviously true if you also feature photos of happy customers on the home page. People will associate that happiness and satisfaction with you, but there is another important reason.
When customers come to an event after visiting your online shop, or if they go to the shop after seeing you in a booth at the local fair, they need to be able to connect the two together. One of the ways our minds remember things is by association, so if you want potential customers to remember you, your products, and the positive experience, then using the mind’s propensity for association is one great way to do just that.
If they recognize you from a previous image in their minds, they will remember you. Psychologically, they will also have a positive association with it because human minds like things that fit together. So, it’s also a double benefit for you. Subconsciously, you are building greater trust.
…and all that from including a photo of yourself on your online store.
Conclusion
Your online shop may have the best products, but if this is your site, you will blend in with the thousands of other sites on Etsy.
(photo by Oberon Copeland on Unsplash)
So why don’t more business owners use photos on their websites? It’s true, just look at the thousands of Shopify and Amazon sites that have no photos of the people behind the shop. It may be that the templates for these sites hide that option deep in the setup process, but if so, then that’s an unfortunate oversight.
I have also had business owners tell me that they worry about having their photo out there. Well, if that’s the case, then that fear sends the wrong message to your customers. If you are too worried to have your photo on your online shop, then you are amplifying the customer’s apprehension about shopping online. Why should they trust you with their money on this site if you aren’t willing to show your face? As the business owner, it is up to you to show your customers that your online shop is safe.
In the end, sales is about building trust, and I know it’s an old adage, but competition is why you need to focus on trust. Online shop service providers like Etsy, Facebook Marketplace, Shopify, and others, make it so easy for anyone to grab a template, upload product photos, link up PayPal, and start selling stuff. If that is all you are going to do, then you are no different from the thousands of other online shops.
It should also be noted that putting up a generic site with no personal photos is what A.I. site generators typically do. The sad reality is that these AI site generators are already doing that with algorithms that can put up hundreds of online shops in minutes. You simply can’t compete with that kind of volume.
So, don’t.
Make your site unique, engaging, trusted, and personalized. You can do that by using quality photos in addition to the photos for the items you are selling. This will make you stand out from the crowd, and when you do, your customers will notice you and your business.
