“A picture is worth a thousand words”, the old saying goes. This is especially true when it comes to pictures on e-commerce websites.

As an e-commerce retailer, your website is the “shop window” through which customers view your products. So it’s critical to choose the right kinds of high-quality product images for your site. This will vary depending on the types of products you’re selling, such as clothing or home goods, and your customer demographics.

Clothing and fashion: Models or mannequins?

For online fashion retailers, one big question is whether to show clothes as flat images or worn on live models or mannequins. A model is a real person, so there’s a human connection that can make it easier for customers to see themselves in the clothes. But this can be a distraction if customers focus more on the model than the clothing. Also, if the model is a different size and shape than the customer, it can be hard for the customer to envision themselves in the clothes.

In tests, shoppers say their biggest obstacle to buying clothes online is that it’s hard to gauge size and fit. Using images with live models can sometimes help overcome this obstacle.

A fashion retailer had been using photos of clothing on mannequins but wanted to see if using live models might boost conversions. In our testing, switching to live models resulted in a 10% increase in the conversion rate. Customers said that the live models helped them better visualise the size and fit of the clothes on themselves. When we tried the same test on a different men’s fashion retailer, we saw a 7% decrease in conversion rate.

Another fashion retailer wondered whether models’ faces were a distraction for online shoppers. So we performed tests in which we cropped off the models’ heads. For women’s clothes, this resulted in a 6% increase in the conversion rate.

Household items: Lifestyle settings or standalone products?

For online sellers of household items like furniture and appliances, a big question is whether items should be shown in a lifestyle setting, such as in a home or kitchen, or by themselves. Showing items in a lifestyle setting can help customers with size and scaling, but the surroundings can also be a distraction.

We tested this with an online appliance retailer by using images with just the appliances and compared the results to using images of the appliances in a lifestyle setting. Using the lifestyle images resulted in a 3% conversion rate increase.

Shoes: Product placement and presentation

An online shoe retailer wanted to test lots of different ways to present product photos to see which ones resulted in the highest conversion rates. So we ran seven different experiments over 12 months, using different kinds of product photos in different positions on the pages.

Based on our tests, we determined the best kinds of product photos to use and the best ways to position them on the pages. The result was an 18% overall conversion rate increase after one year.

Test, test and test some more

It’s important to remember that even within the same product category, the results of using different kinds of product images can vary widely. The best way to determine the right kinds of images for your products is to test, test and test some more. Then you’ll know that you’re making decisions based on data, not just hunches or gut feelings.

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