One of Europe’s biggest tech companies runs a targeted advertising platform that deals with tens

When shopping online, customers don’t have the chance to look at the item they want to buy up-close. For many people, this is the main factor for not buying things on an online marketplace. Product images are designed to remove this barrier as much as possible. In most cases, the product image plays a key role when making a purchasing decision.

As soon as customers see the product image, the item makes the impression. «A team of neuroscientists from MIT has found that the human brain can process entire images that the eye sees for as little as 13 milliseconds».What happens if a marketplace uses a poor-quality image? Let’s imagine a customer shopping for pants. The buyer goes to the marketplace and finds a pair they like, but the photo of the pants is poor quality. In this case, the following can happen:

• The customer will not buy the product.
• Customers might end up buying something they didn't want initially because the wrong image was shown. This leads to more returns.
• Such situations might affect customers’ opinion about the marketplace in general.
• After that, the customers might share their experience and opinion of the marketplace with other people. They won’t just say that the image was bad, but they will probably share their opinion that “the marketplace is sketchy, broken items are sold there”, “they probably try to pass second-hand items off as new”, and “you never know what to expect, so it's better to shop elsewhere”.

Image moderation

To prevent all of this from happening, most marketplaces don't let suppliers upload any image they want. They moderate images first. Some of the moderation rules are aimed at preventing a negative customer experience. This greatly reduces the chances of an image causing a negative reaction to the marketplace as a whole and immediately eliminates two of the three loss areas. It is the absolute minimum for earning and maintaining a customer's basic trust.

To prevent all of this from happening, most marketplaces don't let suppliers upload any image they want. They moderate images first. Some of the moderation rules are aimed at preventing a negative customer experience.

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These measures are usually enough if a customer wants to buy an expensive gadget with quantifiable characteristics, like an iPhone. The basic selection and research of the product takes place on other sites and the client already knows exactly what they needed. This doesn't apply toall tech, though. For example, if we talk about laptops, the number and types of ports or the lack of a number pad can come as a nasty surprise for the customer. Just a few photos from the right angle would help avoid this situation.

What can you check with moderation?

Image quality

Image resolution, amateur photography, rotated photos, blurry and overexposed images, and images with glare or broken pixels. Why do we check this? Image quality directly affects the likelihood of a purchase. At launch, Airbnb doubled sales (and more) by replacing low-quality images with professional ones. "67% of consumers say that the quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing the product". Shading may make the product look heavier, distorted, or sloppy.

Background

Background check. A light, transparent, or white background usually creates a better impression, while dark and multicolor backgrounds might not be as good (though there may be exceptions for specific categories). Why do we check this? The background affects the overall perception of the image and the product. Take these examples from background guidelines on these two platforms:

• Amazon: Pure white
• Ebay: white