Taking product photos on a white background is not just for Amazon sellers. In fact, white background photography is the gold standard of e-commerce photography. Why? Well, there's two reasons. Firstly, there's a technical reason why you should photograph your products on a white background. Most online retailers require it. If you want to sell your products on Amazon as you grow, or you want to work with the big box retailers like Target, they will require a photograph of your product on a white background.
The reason is that it unifies their website. Imagine you're on target.com looking through bedding and each photo has a different background. It would make you frustrated and you would probably want to leave the site without buying. The other reason is that from a marketing and branding perspective, products on white completely remove the branding. So, why would this be a good thing? Here's an example. Pretend you're selling a water bottle and in the branding, there's a millennial woman selling the product to you.
As a potential customer, you may not relate to her, or you may not, if you're a 50 year old male. Though, when branding is removed, it can open up the customer base. Also, when a potential customer is considering purchasing your product on white, they're ready to buy. They're looking at your product from an objective standpoint, and simply want to know if the product will do what it promises. This is important, because the goal of your product page is different from the goals of your general marketing.
As an expert on white background photos, I'll tell you that they're deceptively difficult to create. I mean, they look pretty simple, but you'd be surprised how difficult they can be to photograph well and creatively. One thing that you want to think about when creating white background photos is how to set your product apart. So if you think about Amazon, for example, I'll show you how I'd think about this. Let's look up a product like seasoning salt.
For products on white, we wanted to do an experiment with one of our favorite Amazon consultants, Charmac Solutions, to try and make one of our mutual customers, "Paleo Powder," stand out. So we shot their product at a really low angle and we used some creative beauty lighting on it to make it really stand out. And here's the Amazon listing after the shoot and you could tell it makes it look a million times better.
And I think what's interesting is how it affects the look of their Shopify website as well. It looks great. The bold lighting and you can see the powder. It's led to more sales. Now ask yourself again, looking at the new listing, would you trust this company? The overall idea is to make your product stand out and when you're creatively restricted, to get the best main listing image possible.
