How to increase sales volume in Magento 2 with Images

No one can deny the effect that images have when it comes to eCommerce sales. In a physical retail store, the customer can see and feel the product. When that same customer is shopping in an online store, all he or she has are photos of the product. He can only rely on what the images show him and it is solely the images that depict what the product really looks like.

Imagine having to purchase something that you have never bought before, and not being able to visualize it. Statistics show that more than 90% of customers say that visuals are their biggest influential factor in making a purchase decision. This is why customers feel more at ease when they can see images of a product from different angles and in different variations.

Why Is Image Optimization Important?

Say you need to purchase a red cap. You don’t want to waste too much time making a simple purchase but your website takes forever to load a high-quality photo. What will you do? Chances are that you will leave the website and look for the cap elsewhere.

This is because when a customer wants to make an online purchase, there are several factors he automatically takes into consideration. First of all, he wants to get done with the purchase as quickly as possible. Secondly, he will only look at the first few search results. Thirdly, he will look at the color and see if the hat shown is the shade of red he wants. Finally, he wants to see crisp clear photos where he doesn’t have to look for the cap. It’s right there waiting for him to look at.

This is why image optimization is important for eCommerce business owners. As an eCommerce merchant, you want your product to appear in the first few search results. You also want your page to load quickly so the customer does not wander elsewhere. All this isn’t possible without image optimization.

Magento is one of the most powerful eCommerce platforms out there and takes image optimization very seriously. Read on further to find out how to instantly increase sales in Magento with images, text and image swatches, and colors by yourself, or hire Magento optimization services to facilitate you.

How Can You Boost Sales Using Images?

There are several ways that you can increase sales in Magento using images. Images are more than just photos when you are using them on an eCommerce website. They have attributes, descriptions, the size of the image matters, and they even have their own search engine optimization. Here are some ways that you can boost eCommerce sales using images.

1. Give your images a name that is simple and descriptive at the same time.
2. Choose the alt attributes for your images carefully.
3. Use photos with carefully determined angles and image dimensions.
4. Keep the size of your images as low as you can while maintaining the quality so that you don’t increase the page loading time.
5. Utilize image sitemaps
6. Optimize your thumbnails
7. Choose the correct image file type.
8. Don’t use cluttered or decorative images.
9. Test your images first.
10. Be careful while using content platforms and CDNs.

What Are Swatches and What Are The Basic Types of Swatches?

Swatches can be used for configurable products in several ways. For instance, they can be used in layered navigation such as filters, they can be used in product listings, and finally, they can also be used in product pages.

Swatches present options to the customer as color or text blocks that can be selected and often visually represent the color or style selected when the option is chosen, or in some cases, even hovered upon.

There are three basic types of swatches:

The Color Swatch

This enables you to display your options in the form of colored, patterned, or textured blocks that can be selected. If the option is unavailable or out-of-stock, the option appears as crossed out, faded out, or unclickable.

The Image Swatch

Instead of little colored or patterned blocks, this takes swatches to a whole new level by giving customers the ability to view different versions of the same product and choose the one they want. For example, this could be a child’s version of the product or a different sleeve length in a dress.

The Text Swatch

Even when you can’t display images, colors, or patterns, you can display text “buttons” as swatches. For instance, you can enable your customers to choose different sizes in products such as clothes using text swatches, or even types of apparel fit such as “Tall” or “Petite”.

How Can You Expand The Default Magento 2 Functionality?

As you are probably already aware, Magento 2 enables you to set up swatches only for configurable products in layered navigation, on the product page, and in product listings, as mentioned before.

You can use this article to understand how to use the Magento 2 default functionality and configure the swatches to be able to use them at their best. This includes text swatches as well as image swatches. In simple terms, you can use the Advanced Products Options extension to substantially expand the default Magento 2 functionality in this case.

The extension enables you to add text-based swatches, color-based swatches, and image-based ones for basically any product type, which lets you leverage the product variant to its maximum use.

It basically lets you add text and image swatches, use multiple images for one option, replace standard images of a product with the image of an option, create effects such as an image overlay effect, and display the images given in options in the tooltip preview.

How to Add Text and Image Swatches

• From your Magento 2 dashboard, go to Products, then Inventory, and then Catalog.
• Select the product that you are adding swatches to.
• You can configure your swatches by clicking on Customizable Options.
• To add text swatches, check the “Is Swatch” box.
• If you want to use images as a tooltip, you can upload the images for each option separately, and then choose the tooltip option.
• For image swatches, you will have to choose Base when you are configuring the image options.

How To Replace Product Image With an Option Image

• From your Magento 2 dashboard, go to Products, then Inventory, and then Catalog.
• Select the product that you are adding swatches to.
• You can configure your swatches by clicking on Customizable Options.
• Set Image Mode to Replace and select “Replace Main Gallery Image”.

How To Create an Image Overlay

• From your Magento 2 dashboard, go to Products, then Inventory, and then Catalog.
• Select the product that you are adding swatches to.
• You can configure your swatches by clicking on Customizable Options.
• Go to Magento Image Gallery and select the image that you are using for the overlay.
• Go to Image Detail and select Image Overlay.

What About The Gallery Mode Option?

This option also appears in the Customizable Options and it enables you to regulate how images are displayed in the product options. This way, you can display the products to suit your customers or target audience. When this option is disabled, no images are shown. When the “Beside” Option is selected, the images are shown as thumbnails beside or under the product options.

The images can be seen whether or not the options are selected. In the “Once Selected” option, the images of the variants are hidden, and only appear when they are selected by the customer.

Wasn’t That Easy?

How you display your products and offerings can make or break a purchase and even a customer! That’s how important image and display options are in the eCommerce world. If you are relatively new to Magento and need help, you can always hire a good Magento 2 development company to develop and manage your eCommerce store.

If you’re currently on a different eCommerce platform and this article convinced you to switch to Magento, that’s even better. You can simply hire Magento migration specialists to migrate your store, and Magento integration services for all your integration needs.

FAQs:

Which is the best company for Magento Enterprise Development in the US?

If you are looking for a reliable, consistent, and technologically advance Magento Enterprise Development agency in the USA, Folio3 is undoubtedly your best bet. At Folio3, we come with over a decade of Magento development, customization, and integration experience for a wide variety of businesses ranging from Fortune 500 companies to SMEs and startups.

As a Certified Magento Solution Partner, we boast one of the most experienced and qualified team of Magento Certified Development experts that deliver a world-class Magento Enterprise Development solution; specifically customized to meet your business needs.

Some of the Magento development services offered by Folio3 include; Magento custom development, Magento design services, Magento Migration services, Magento customization services, magento optimization services, Magento custom extension development, Magento integration services, and Magento support services.

How to speed up slow loading images in Magento 2?

There are multiple ways to optimize slow-loading images in Magento 2 store, including; compressing the images within the store using various extensions, compressing images before uploading to the store, or using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are especially beneficial since they offer various built-in image optimization features. You can easily use the image optimization features offered by good CDNs to your benefit.

In fact, some of the CDNs also offer image conversion to modern formats, including JPEG 2000, WebP, JPEG XR, and others, as well as offer latency reduction and on-the-fly compression. The only consideration is to choose the right CDN as per your business needs and budget.

How to find the Magento B2B Development Services in Canada?

The best way to find Magento B2B development services in Canada is to go with a trusted and certified Magento Development Company. At Folio3, we are a Magento Certified Solution Partner offering comprehensive B2B Magento development services for businesses.

Our experience and expertise with Magento B2B development services enable us to deliver you customized development solutions tailor-made for your business needs.

Are Magento 2 Optimization services essential?

Yes. Magento 2 optimization services are required to assess and optimize the efficiency and performance of Magento 2 stores. It is important since the vital performance stats of your website can impact user experience, which ultimately may increase or decrease your overall traffic and revenues.

Also, the Magento 2 optimization services assess the search engine optimization of your site, which is essential to get higher rankings and more traffic on the store.

Does Folio 3 provide Magento Optimization services for an eCommerce Store?

Yes. As a Magento Certified Solution Partner, Folio3 offers comprehensive Magento optimization services, including analysis of your store’s hosting, assessment and optimization of Magento server, image optimization, search engine optimization, and various other performance parameters that may impact your online store’s performance.

Experts at Folio3 will assess all the critical performance parameters, identify problems and their causes, as well as recommend the best possible solutions to optimize Magento 2 store performance.

Is Image Optimization Equally Effective In Shopify?

While we are talking about Magento stores and image optimization, it would be helpful to see how Shopify (the biggest rival of Magento for the e-commerce market) competes with Magento for image optimization. So, with Shopify, you can download the image optimizer app, which can compress the images automatically to reduce the file size without compromising on pixel quality.

As a result, the store’s loading time will be reduced, resulting in improved user experience and better SEO ranking. If you’ve hired an experienced Shopify app developer, they will systematically use image optimization techniques to deliver a highly functional and high-performing Shopify store.

Not to forget, when you hire the Shopify store design services, they will select the most suitable base images that capture the audience and increase the sales volume. In particular, they make it a point to use high-quality and crisp base product images. Utilizing the right images will let customers gain a deeper understanding of the product, promising increased chances of sales.