Provided by Vizit
The adage “image is everything” has never been more true than in online retail today. The jumps we’ve seen across the e-commerce landscape are staggering, with the global e-commerce market estimated to hit $6.3 trillion in 2023.
Major lifts in the e-commerce industry translate to massive sales opportunities for small businesses — but only if they are able to capitalize on the moment and create visual experiences that motivate shoppers to move seamlessly along the customer journey.
In today’s fast-paced digital retail environment, the power of your images is unparalleled. As attention spans shrink, image recognition is overtaking read time and playing a critical role in purchasing decisions. Sellers often have a fraction of a second to stop the customer’s scrolling thumb before they move on to the next option.
Consumer behavior trends underscore just how significant your images are when it comes to driving online sales. Studies have found:
Not only do images motivate shoppers much faster than text, but they also give leading brands a way to deliver measurable results. In fact, the #1 ASINs (Amazon Standard Identification Numbers) for the top 500 search terms on Amazon have an average of 5.64 images each.
So how do you know which images are most likely to motivate your customers to move forward along the path to purchase? Most images are chosen on gut instinct and come with zero testing to determine how effective they will be with the intended audience.
Even if small businesses wanted to take a more scientific approach and test the images being used, existing testing processes are slow and cost-prohibitive. By the time you recruit a focus group or research panel, conduct surveys and analyze the results, consumer preferences have likely already shifted.
To remain competitive, businesses require agile, data-driven processes to select the most effective imagery for the digital shelf and react in real time to quickly evolving consumer sentiment patterns.
Often, sellers put all their energy into tactics like site search capabilities, stock inventory updates, pricing optimization, on-platform ads and product ratings and reviews — all details they can control directly. While these are crucial e-commerce levers, none offer insights into whether or not the images being used are optimized for maximum performance.
To put a focus back on images, sellers need to consider the following four questions:
These four questions help clear the path when it comes to choosing the most effective visual assets and creating impactful visual experiences.
To truly win online sales, small businesses will need AI-based predictive visual intelligence insights that help them choose the right imagery to motivate consumers to click the buy button.
Artificial intelligence that thinks, acts and learns in the same way your consumers do, and sees the world the way your customers see the world, empowers you to choose images based on data in real time.
No more going on gut instinct or waiting weeks for results from traditional research methods. Vizit’s platform gives brands the visual intelligence data they need to choose the right image faster, accelerating creative design times and greatly increasing the competitive edge.
With so much money on the line and competition increasing at every turn, tailoring your visuals for your target audience has never been more important or more impactful. Optimized hero images in ads and organic can help brands increase traffic to their product pages by 25% or more. Once on the product page, carefully crafted carousel images can persuade shoppers to buy, growing sales and conversions by 30% or more.