In a recent poll of ecommerce merchants, 53 percent of respondents indicate that they don't have enough imagery of their products. Among the respondents, 13 percent say photography is expensive or takes too long, while 20 percent point to photo editing as the main reason they don't have more product photos.
In a recent poll of ecommerce merchants, 53 percent of respondents indicate that they don't have enough imagery of their products. Among the respondents, 13 percent say photography is expensive or takes too long, while 20 percent point to photo editing as the main reason they don't have more product photos.
The lack of product imagery is holding back their marketing efforts. Roughly three out of five merchants say that they want to post more product images to social media: 58 percent for Instagram, 60 percent for Facebook, and 57 percent for Pinterest.
Merchants who use camera phones for product photography are much more prevalent in the ecommerce landscape, the poll shows. Historically, the rise of high-quality camera phones has made product photography more accessible and affordable. The new survey reveals that 84 percent of respondents prefer using their camera phones, compared with 9 percent opting for services like Soona.com and 19 percent for professional shoots.
The poll also explores preferences for image editing, revealing a fairly even distribution among different platforms:
"Camera phones have made it easy to capture high-quality product imagery, but there remains customer pain around the image editing process and it's holding merchants back from creating a great social media experience for their shoppers," says Tom Rikert, CEO of Masterful AI, a company developing Generative AI tools for Shopify merchants.
This poll reveals an insight about ecommerce merchants: there is a dichotomy between the accessibility of camera phones for capturing high quality product images and the challenges faced in the editing process. The dissatisfaction around editing points to an area of potential improvement and innovation.
Masterful AI commissioned a poll of 214 e-commerce merchants, partnering with an online polling firm. The median monthly gross merchandise value of respondents was between $1,000 and $9,999. Shopify, eBay, Etsy, Amazon, and Wix e-commerce platforms were all represented.
Masterful AI is the developer of SceneCraft, a tool that gives eCommerce merchants AI superpowers to tell a more vivid story about their products to boost sales. SceneCraft generates stunning social posts in seconds using Generative AI, including images and text captions that incorporate a store's brand language and visual style.
