Spring Clean Your Etsy Shop Part 8

Previous Posts in the Series:

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII: Photography

Today's "assignment" is going to focus on photography of our products. (The next part of the series will be posted in a week to give us all some time to work on this.)

One of the most - if not THE most - important aspects of selling online is photography. Your customers cannot pick up your product and look it over online like they can in person. Your photos need to be clear and accurate.

Photography can be tricky. I have a relatively inexpensive camera that I think does a good job in conjunction with photo editing. If you are taking photos of little things (like jewelry for example) you will want to have a light box. The good news is that a light box can be built from things you likely have around the house. Here's a great tutorial that I used.

As far as cameras go, I can give my suggestion for taking photos of small items, but I don't have a lot of experience with larger items. For small items like jewelry, the macro setting is essential. Also, you want to get as many megapixels as you can afford. That is the advice I was given and I have been very pleased with the improvements I have had since getting a new camera.

I use Picasso to do my photo-editing. It is easy to use and FREE! The color may be off when you took a photo, or you want to crop the photo....Picasso is great for that.

My Plan and Yours if you chose to accept it:

-> I am going to go through all of my listings and make a list of what items could use some better photos.

I am going to start with the worst photos and start re-shooting products and loading new photos.

I didn't start doing this yet, but plan to during the week! Feel free to post here if you would like some feedback!

(Also, if you didn't finish Part IV - Descriptions, you can also do this in conjunction with your photos!)