A picture says more than a thousand words they say! For a great eBay listing you really do need a great photo, and while the text that you include in your description and your listing title is vitally important as well, it’s the photo that could really help to catch the eye of an interested buyer.
There is absolutely no excuse not to include a picture with your eBay listing. It may be that your wholesale supplier has offered pictures that you can use anyway, but if not then you will need to take your own. Don’t have a camera? Does your mobile phone? If you don’t have a professional digital camera that will still do, and no matter what the quality it will be better than having no picture at all.
I’m not a photography expert, but I know a good picture when I see one and unfortunately many of the images captured by sellers on the eBay website really don’t sell the products that they are trying to offload successfully.
Don’t worry, you don’t need to go and find a local photography course to improve your skills (unless you want to of course). You can start by paying attention to these four tips for taking the perfect photograph and go from there!
Tip 1 – Light your scene
If the room you’re taking your photos in is gloomy then it will be difficult for an interested party to really see what it is you’re offering. If you have some spare cash lying around then you could purchase some studio lighting which would certainly help you to direct a beam of light onto the item to illuminate it beautifully, but if that’s not an option then never fear. You already have all you need to help to improve the lighting of your scene.
Why not try shooting your pictures in daylight with the curtains open? This natural light could help to illuminate your product successfully. Alternatively why not unplug a bedside light or two and bring them to the location of your photo shoot to add a bit of extra illumination. Just make sure you position them out of sight of the actual photo.
Lighting makes a world of difference to your photos. In this example just a little natural light could have really brightened up the image and made the bag stand out instead of blending in with its background as it does at the moment.
Tip 2 – Check your background
What is it you want a buyer to really take away from the photo? Is it the background of the image? The mess that’s behind the product? Or the actual item that you’re trying to sell? It should be the latter. If at all possible you should try to position your item on a plain coloured background, preferably white if at all possible though any light colour will work.
In this example the seller has used a very stripy background and unfortunately it takes your attention away from the bag and onto the different colours appearing behind it.
Tip 3 – Focus on your product
Your item should fill the majority of the photograph. Preferably 75% or more of the space within the image should be your product. If it’s something small that you’re photographing then move the camera closer to it! Or alternatively if your camera provides pictures of a high resolution then you can always crop them using some image editing software after uploading it to your computer.
I feel like I need a magnifying glass to make out the detail of this particular handbag, it’s so far away in the picture. You really can’t distinguish the detail of the patterning that would have been so evident if the bag was a bit closer to the camera.
What’s more, this can actually leave potential buyers wondering if you have something to hide. Perhaps there’s a big stain on the bag that the seller is trying to hide? Perhaps there’s a tear that you can’t see because it’s too far away? I doubt that either of those statements is true, but because we can’t make out the detail we can’t be sure.
Tip 4 – Don’t put anything else in the picture
Unless it can really be avoided you must try not to include anything in your photo apart from the item that you’re actually selling. If you really want to prop your item up then try to do it from behind with an item that can’t be seen in the photograph, not a hand or some other item from your house.
I don’t think this seller really wants to sell their smartphone with the handbag that’s on offer, so why have they included it with the photo? It certainly doesn’t add anything, and as the title of this listing is particularly unhelpful who knows, maybe it is a bag that comes with a phone!
Try not to fall into any of these traps with your own photographs. Make them clear, make them attractive and avoid any clutter or confusing backgrounds and you’ll do well enticing buyers to your sales pages.