Beyond the Click: Harnessing the Visual Language at Ecommerce marketplaces

As a parent to a curious 12-year-old daughter, I've been fascinated by her growing involvement in our online purchasing decisions at home. What strikes me most is her focus towards the visual content.

She hardly reads the product descriptions, her eyes are drawn to the images and videos accompanying each product listing.

It's not just about the presence of visuals, but rather their quality and ability to captivate her imagination that truly influence her engagement. It got me thinking about how important it is to not only build inspiring-creative-visuals but also combine text and visuals when listing product pages on digital marketplaces.

Here are some of the examples from Amazon listing pages of the great quality visual content:

And too often, brands struggle to go beyond basic pack shots when selling on online platforms. Even with the latest Generative AI models capable of producing much more engaging images, it's still a daunting challenge for ecommerce teams to create compelling visuals for their products. Here's why:

1. Firstly, working with Generative AI models at scale for every product becomes impossible for ecommerce marketplace teams. There is a never-ending array of excellent models, each with its own unique capabilities —from text to image generation, micro animation, cartoonifying, image scaling, to background changes, and more.

2. Secondly, every product brand has its specific color palette that must be followed when generating new images including validating copyright infringement rules. This means creating prompts for each image request, ensuring they align with the brand's guidelines is a herculean task. Local markets often have their own specific guidelines, requiring images tailored to meet their needs. This leads to an unprecedented complexity in generating several prompts just for one product, and consolidating the output to meet expectations on quality and brand persona.

3. Lastly, even a small brand typically has thousands of products serving hundreds of online marketplaces globally. Executing the image optimization process at scale is impossible without integrating into the existing systems like digital asset management systems, content syndication systems and product information management systems. Ecommerce marketplaces teams lack the technology that integrates into their existing enterprise systems.

Challenger brands often show a nimble approach in addressing the above mentioned hurdles, outmaneuvering many established counterparts. However, as these challenger brands scale in product range, they start encountering the same obstacles. Notably, products topping Amazon charts boast superior image quality, driving heightened engagement and potentially soaring conversion rates.

We believe the true winners in digital marketplaces will be brands that invest not only in exceptional product quality but also in digital shelf optimization; success hinges on rich, search-optimized content and compelling visuals that capture attention, build trust, and drive conversion at every stage of the shopper journey.

Some more examples of great visual images from Amazon listing pages: