Fashion Editor vs Professional Photographer: Which is More Profitable?
Wiki Article
If you're an online retailer like myself, you're probably looking for every possible way to improve both the design and operational aspects of your business. The trend in e-commerce changes rapidly, however one of the most important factors for capturing the attention of potential customers is the visual content of your store. Prior to discovering the capabilities of an AI Fashion Editor, I believed that the best way to create attractive images for my products was through hiring a professional photographer. I had previously utilized the services of a professional photographer for all product photography in my online store, which provided me with a consistent quality of high-resolution product images in a controlled environment with proper lighting and on-model. I found that the combination of high-quality images, along with the proper styling, has always resulted in images that would create interest in the products and interest in purchasing from my online store.
The downside to professional photography is the time and cost associated with shooting a batch of products. It took days to set up photography for a batch of products due to the time required to organize models, location (studio), and edit the images. Each day that I was unable to capture and display new images of product offerings on my e-shop was another day that I lost the opportunity to entice customers to make that all-important purchase. This realization led me to explore a different way of producing product images: by using an AI Fashion Editor. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) for editing product photographs can help automate changes made to images such as brightness, contrast, background, etc. My first step in using Visboom, an advanced AI tool for photo-editing, was to enhance my product images. To my surprise, the photos turned out excellent! They have consistent lighting, angles, etc. and look much like traditional high-quality professional images without having to wait for a photo shoot.
The primary advantage of applying AI technology is efficiency; for instance, I can edit 100's of product photographs in one day! Imagine the time involved if I were to hire a professional photographer; I'm sure it would take much longer than a week! Also, my overall costs are reduced. For the cost of one photo shoot, I can use AI to edit every photo in my catalog, including adding other variations/colours, which would otherwise be almost impossible using traditional means.
There is, however, a major difference in creativity. Professional photographers bring a creative eye to the images that AI cannot replicate. They are skilled at capturing moments of nuance, expressions, and other details that AI is not capable of reproducing. For this reason, I still hire photographers for special campaigns featuring high-end premium products since customers will expect to see these types of photographs and feel an authentic experience when viewing their high-end premium products.
Nonetheless, AI is definitely the best solution for my standard catalogs and high-quantity products.
In addition, Visboom provides me with the capability to create a customized look for my visual branding. It allows me to determine what types of filters and editing styles will be applied to my entire e-commerce site as well as what type of tone I want my site to exhibit. Consistent visual branding is a significant component of creating an environment where customers can feel a higher level of trust, and thus feel more comfortable interacting with my online store. With the use of AI, I can create photos specific to my brand, without having to pay to hire a photographer to make even small adjustments to those photos.
Using AI has also changed how I approach marketing my products. Because I can now create quality photos of my products so quickly, I now have the ability to be much more aggressive when uploading new products, running promotions, and trying out different photo styles and formats to see which of those resonates with consumers the most. As an online retailer, the ability to quickly adapt to current market trends and demands is critical.
In addition to this, psychological factors play a role; some customers still perceive a store's professionalism as directly correlated to the quality of its lifelike images. Some consumers have told me they felt that some of my products appeared too digital or unnatural. Visboom provides me with the tools I need to achieve results that are much closer to being photorealistic, so I anticipate that in the future there will be less of a gap between the quality of my product images and the quality of the product itself.
Most products, particularly those found in the categories of Fashion and Apparel, have very high purchase influences on the visual appearance of the product due to the fact that, with the exception of a limited amount of clothing, most customers will purchase based on the overall image of the item they are considering purchasing. At this point, based on my own experiences, I would conclude that the Visboom integration gives e-commerce sellers an advantage over traditional photo editing tools in terms of the speed, costs and consistent branding of e-commerce sellers. While I still feel that professional photography has its place in premium products and special campaigns, when it comes to daily operations of e-commerce sellers, using an e-commerce-AI tool like Visboom is by far more advantageous in terms of their ability to do more and have access to the tools that allow them to develop a professional image without breaking the bank.
In my experience, a combination of both types of tools has been a huge key to my e-commerce success as an e-commerce seller. Professional photographers are my go-to for content that requires a human touch and creative flair. The vast majority of my product catalog is produced using AI-based content creation. The combination of the two has allowed me to maximize the profits I make from my business without having to sacrifice quality. With the way e-commerce continues to change, AI tools like Visboom are giving new ways for sellers like me to remain competitive in the marketplace.
As a result of my experience applying AI technology to my product photography, I believe that the AI Fashion Editor isn’t intended to replace a professional photographer completely, but instead, is a great tool for e-commerce sellers to increase their efficiency, reduce costs, and drive their sales. For me, that makes it a great win-win solution.