This week, we spent some time developing the thing that brings comfort to any team during periods of tumult and uncertainty—perspective. A truthful thread of logic that gets us out of the moment and helps us all to see the big picture. 

Images play a huge role in the success of an eCommerce website. They can impact conversion rates, return rates, and even the number of people who actually see your merchandise . Obviously, with so much at stake, it’s important to get your eCommerce images exactly right – which means you have to master not just product photography but also planning and some post-shoot optimization. Here, we lay out a can’t-lose strategy to ensure your eCommerce images are up to the task of boosting your conversion rate, lowering your return rate, and improving the overall experience of customers who visit your site.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of visual content on an eCommerce website. It feels like “product imagery” includes more advanced formats like video, interactive 3D and augmented reality and has to do the work that was once done by physical products themselves: helping shoppers make a decision about whether or not to buy what you’re selling.

As part of our Visuals Make a Difference launch, we’re taking a close look at the problem of eCommerce returns and what retailers and shoppers can do to prevent them. Guide: Part 1: 6 Tips Guaranteed to Cut Return Rates for Retailers Part 2: 7 Easy Ways YOU (the online shopper) Cut Back on Product Returns

Returns are a serious problem in eCommerce. They cost retailers about 10 percent of their overall sales, and they’re increasingly something customers want to be free and easy. But the real cost of returns goes far beyond how they affect eCommerce retailers’ bottom lines.

Compelling visuals and product experiences don't always top the "must do" list for eComm marketers...but they should. When imagery fails to accurately convey all of a  product's features and benefits, it's the brand that pays. 

Great news, everyone: the ecommerce product images you’re already including on your site can help boost your performance in search (aka, boost your SEO, or search engine optimization). But there’s a good chance that the images on your site right now aren’t as SEO-friendly as they can be.

In Part One of “The Visual Economy,” we dove into how our innate visual tendencies have been made more apparent with the advent social media and which brands have thrived in this new world. In Part Two, we’ll look at why it pays to meet consumers’ visual expectations and how brands might go about tackling this challenge.

In this two-part series, we'll explore the human predilection for visual stimulation, the explosive growth of visual technology and how businesses can actually exceed customers' visual expectations, even as those expectations grow at an exponential rate.  Part 1: How Imagery became Currency