Amazon Customers Prefer Diverse Models in Product Photos

In a message to clothing sellers about product photography, Amazon said its internal studies show that customers prefer to see apparel displayed on a person – and they also prefer to see a diverse range of models.

“Highlighting clothing on models with different body types, skin tones, ethnicities, hair colors and textures, physical abilities, gender expressions, and ages is an effective way to connect with customers and improve their shopping experience,” Amazon wrote.

“To give customers the best possible experience, you may see your off-figure images for adult apparel replaced with on-figure equivalents. We suggest that you use on-figure images for your Main images to support this experience.”

Amazon also gave some tips on how sellers could improve their apparel images.

Sellers commenting on the post seemed confused about whether it was a mandatory change or simply a recommendation. One seller wrote, “When will this policy start being enforced? We currently have thousands of t-shirt ASINs that are all off-model images as the main. We will need to re-do all of our images on-model now and need to plan accordingly.”

You can find the post on Amazon Seller Central.

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.