Why Your Product Images Could Be Killing Your Sales | Siddharth Sinha

Matt Edmundson

00:00:05.840 - 00:03:05.850

Welcome to yet another episode of the E Commerce Podcast. My name is Matt Edmundson and I will be, as always, your host for the next few minutes as we chat about all things to do with E commerce.

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Siddharth Sinha, CEO of Dresma Incorporated, a startup revolutionizing visual content creation for E commerce. Now he's on his third venture because, you know, one is never enough.

And he brings over 20 years of experience across industries from tech innovation to cement manufacturing. That's really helpful for an online company. It's why we got him on the show.

With degrees from Cornell as well as a whole bunch of other places, he's blending business expertise with cutting edge tech to reshape how e commerce brands create standout visuals. Siddharth, welcome to the show. Great to have you, man. How are you doing?

Siddharth Sinha

00:03:06.150 - 00:03:10.610

Great. Great to be here. Matt, lovely talking to you and thank you for the introduction.

Matt Edmundson

00:03:11.030 - 00:03:14.730

No problem. I mean, let's get straight into it. Cement. What was all that about?

Siddharth Sinha

00:03:17.190 - 00:03:21.370

I thought startups weren't hard enough, so I went into the real world.

Matt Edmundson

00:03:25.450 - 00:03:28.050

And so you thought, I'll just do cement as you do?

Siddharth Sinha

00:03:28.090 - 00:03:28.914

Yes, yes.

Matt Edmundson

00:03:28.962 - 00:03:33.590

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you know, have you got an inordinate amount of expertise on the topic of cement?

Siddharth Sinha

00:03:34.010 - 00:03:40.030

Well, I did run a cement manufacturing facility for 10 years. So what? I didn't know. I do know now.

Matt Edmundson

00:03:43.450 - 00:04:41.914

It's brilliant. I mean, in a separate conversation, as much as I'm tempted to go down this road, I might have to pick your brains at some point.

I've always fancied in my spare time, Siddharth. Not many people notice.

I think I've mentioned it before in the show, but part of my downtime, part of the thing I like to do to sort of relax and downtime is joinery. I like to make furniture because it's not digital, it's real. You have to touch me and it's not pixels. And I find it.

I find my wood shop is a wonderful place to go. I've got, I've got a great little wood shop.

But one of the things that's always intrigued me are the concrete kitchen worktops, you know, where you, you sort of, you cast them in place, don't you? And you polish them and you color them and, and it just looks wonderful and everybody makes it look so easy.

And I'm sure it's not actually that easy, but I've always been intrigued by that. So at some point I might have to pick your brains about how to do that work.

Siddharth Sinha

00:04:42.082 - 00:04:42.790

Sure.

Matt Edmundson

00:04:44.130 - 00:04:46.310

Have you ever done anything crazy like that?

Siddharth Sinha

00:04:46.940 - 00:04:56.948

Not really. I do. I mean, the craziest I Get to is I do cook a lot, so I do some, some interesting dishes. I like to, like to experiment in the kitchen, so.

Matt Edmundson

00:04:57.084 - 00:05:12.960

Okay, very good. Well, maybe we should also trade cooking tips. I'm sure your food is much tastier than mine.

I mean you're in, you're in Delhi, aren't you, at the moment. So I'm sure you get much more interesting spices than I do.

Siddharth Sinha

00:05:15.050 - 00:05:23.666

Fortunate thing about Indian cuisine, it's actually much more varied than, than people realize because it's, it's completely different north to south, east to west.

Matt Edmundson

00:05:23.738 - 00:05:24.706

So it's. Yeah.

Siddharth Sinha

00:05:24.818 - 00:05:32.790

I mean obviously the. India is like Europe in a single country. It's that much variety both in terms of culture and food and architecture.

Matt Edmundson

00:05:33.130 - 00:05:59.932

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I can, I can only imagine. And the, the, I'm sure the feast of flavors is phenomenal. And so yes, I, I'm probably slightly envious of your kitchen.

So, so we should probably talk, start talking about E commerce before my, before my belly starts rumbling, wanting food. So tell me about Dresma and how you got involved in that.

Siddharth Sinha

00:06:00.116 - 00:07:10.170

Yeah, so my two co founders were running a photo studio in Delhi as well as doing a lot of post production work for a large number of retailers, e commerce studios around the world.

And we quickly realized that it was an extremely painful process, very manual, very expensive and extremely time consuming, which was not at all suited to the whole online selling paradigm. And if you think about it, I mean, AI content, at least till a couple of years back, hadn't had a lot of innovation, a lot of investment in it.

You think about logistics or payments or customer tracking, all of that had a lot of tech go into it. But for some reason content creation still was being done the old fashioned way.

So that's what we decided to work on and first started off with a mobile app that essentially helped sellers to click their own product images, then from then on essentially added functionality to creative images with AI backgrounds, AI generated models as well as a bunch of higher engagement content. Like a content that we. For Amazon.

Matt Edmundson

00:07:10.330 - 00:09:04.506

Yeah, fantastic.

And I mean I've had obviously a look at what you guys do and I think there's intriguing, like you say, I mean we've had many, many years of innovation in a whole bunch of things. And I think probably the biggest innovation.

If you were to ask me before the show started, excuse me, still getting over the old man flu, so I apologize for the odd cough, but if you'd asked me what the biggest innovation in content creation was, I would have, I'd have probably said, well, the smartphone was probably a big innovation because it made content creation portable and I didn't need fancy DSLRs, which we all had years ago. You know, the sort of the big step we.

I remember in one of our warehouses, we put like a little photo studio with the lights and the infinity background and all that stuff, just so we could take a product shot. And.

And now it feels like actually the shots that work the best are the ones usually shot on a smartphone with some, you know, kind of lifestyle shot, or you take a photograph of something and then spend hours cutting out on Photoshop, you know, trying to get rid of the background. And we've done all of those for many years.

But I think other than the smartphone that could do photos and videos, there's obviously been a few clever apps. Canva, I think, came and changed things a little bit, didn't.

And then you, I suppose you had AI arrive that sort of became okay at creating written content and tried for a while to create actual images. And I just remember, you know, people with 20 fingers and stuff like that, because.

And so we sort of seem to be slowly getting better at images, although you can still spot them a mile off. So unless I've missed something, I think you're probably right. I can see why you would go there.

Siddharth Sinha

00:09:04.578 - 00:09:21.594

It's. It's only been, you know, the last, I would say 18 months or so that the. That the AI is getting good enough in some sense to. To readapt images.

And what I mean is that, you know, if you have a product image that you clicked on, click for your, you know, white background Amazon shot.

Matt Edmundson

00:09:21.642 - 00:09:22.058

Yeah.

Siddharth Sinha

00:09:22.154 - 00:09:47.958

You can take that image and then transform it into a lifestyle short or create social media, you know, piece about it. And it's getting to the point that it can get photorealistic, you know, with changing backgrounds, maintaining colors and shadows and all of that.

And only in the last, I would say, nine months or so, has it really gotten to the point that you can actually do real model generation in the sense that's something that you could.

Matt Edmundson

00:09:48.014 - 00:10:19.090

Substitute studio imagery for, which is interesting, isn't it? I mean, do you think AI will get rid of the need for us to do, like, product images? So I'm thinking, you know, if I take a product.

Let me take this cup, right? I'm holding a very nice mug. I know if you're listening to the show, which most of you do, you can't see it. It's a lovely little mug.

Well, my wife bought me for Christmas, so I treasure my mug. But let's Say I sell this right, online, this is my thing. Oh, you've got a mug as well. Very good. Cheers.

Siddharth Sinha

00:10:19.430 - 00:10:20.126

Cheers.

Matt Edmundson

00:10:20.238 - 00:10:34.958

And so we've got a mug selling business online. Notoriously difficult to get a good picture of this because of the way light reflects off of it and so on and so forth.

But I meant, do I need to do that these days or can AI do everything for me?

Siddharth Sinha

00:10:35.014 - 00:11:43.630

So, I mean, if you think about how AI works, I mean it really works on what Nvidia C or Jensen likes to call priors. It likes to work on something it's seen before or something like it's seen before.

But you know, when it comes to products, this, it is your product, it is unique, right? So you don't worry. So if you have only one angle, click for, for a product if you need to.

If you need to show it at a different angle or, you know, the other side of the product, the AI is only going to do a best guess that's not what you want out on when you're selling, right?

So whatever savings you get on, you know, the photography and the imagery, you're going to have so many higher returns because people are going to find out that it doesn't really look what you might have insured online. So the photography of the product I don't think is going away anytime soon. So you do need to click very high quality images of your product.

You can then transform and reuse those images in multitude of different ways. But you do need very high quality images of the product that you're selling.

Matt Edmundson

00:11:44.410 - 00:13:24.846

Yeah, it's an interesting point, isn't it? Because, I mean, if I look at the products on my website, you've got the standard. Well, let's talk about the mugs.

You know, the standard mug with the white background.

Now actually on our website, that shot was 3D rendered from design files, which I couldn't actually do for this mug that I'm holding, granted, but I certainly could for the products that we had on our website, which gave us much better lighting control and it's photorealistic. So, you know, it's just, it's a simple supplement bottle.

So I don't have too much issue with the 3D render because it is, it is a genuine like for like.

But if I'm, if I've not got a product like a mug, for example, that's not necessarily easy to, to replicate with 3D renders, I can invest, it seems, Siddharth, I don't know if you've noticed this, but you can invest anything from taking the picture myself on a white background smart mobile.

I could get an app maybe like yours, or I can go to a, to some really high end photography studios that charge tens of thousands of dollars to do the shots with insane cameras and create insane videos and stuff. Most of us aren't there, are we, with that, with our camera budgets. But I'm intrigued.

Is it, is it a case of if I've got some product, you know, I'm selling my mug?

Actually it's not a bad thing to go and invest in some proper professional photography if I can afford it, rather than trying to do everything myself.

Siddharth Sinha

00:13:25.038 - 00:14:37.040

Yeah, I mean it actually depends to certain extent on what you're trying to sell.

I mean if you have something that is reflective like a metal piece or you're setting selling jewelry, then at the very least it makes sense to invest in a soft box, if not professional photography because you want to be able to create the environment or control the environment that you are clicking the images in. So that's important.

So for those kinds of things, it's important to be able to get the setting right and have the camera settings right and the studio settings right.

But for a bulk of the products, if you're selling toys, for example, I just want toys and the packaging that they come in, you can do that photography yourself. The real power of AI comes in when you want to use those product images for other types of content.

So for example, if you want to do infographics out of the product images or if you want to do an A plus listing out of the same product images that you clicked, that's where the real power of AI comes in. It really gives you that much more adaptability as to what you want to do, be able to do with that image.

Matt Edmundson

00:14:37.540 - 00:15:03.250

So you, I mean you start off with good images of your products. Like you say you can feed those into AI, which gives you these, these sort of alternate images.

So if we're, and I'm intrigued by this conversation, Siddharth, because I've had lots of conversations about email, about conversion rates and about all those kind of things. I've had very few conversations about the images that we use on our websites and I've noticed any.

Siddharth Sinha

00:15:03.290 - 00:15:10.750

Right. Because it's, it's probably the one factor that really drives your conversion on, I've both discovered and conversion on the site.

Matt Edmundson

00:15:11.050 - 00:16:00.250

Yeah, more than most things actually. And it's because we're, we're still all quite visual, aren't we?

And like you say, it's, you know, I don't know if you Ever saw the movie Falling down with Michael Douglas? That came out years ago.

You know, he, he totally loses the plot when he walks into a burger restaurant and the burger that they give him looks nothing like the photo you on, on the, on the poster.

And of course it doesn't, you know, and, and we, we can go to these incredible extent of taking these, these amazing photos and like you say, if it doesn't match what is delivered, there's, there's a problem. But I think we do that because actually the photography matters.

The reason McDonald's hamburgers look so good on the pictures is because the photography really, really matters and the image sells the product on a quite a subconscious level, I would have thought.

Siddharth Sinha

00:16:01.110 - 00:17:05.452

So it's interesting and it's becoming even more so because if you look at how content is getting consumed on mobile, it's very rare.

For example, if you go on for the Amazon listing, you see the main product image, maybe you flip through a couple of the infographics of the lifestyle images, just tell you a little bit more about the product. It's very rare that people scroll down and actually read through the product descriptions and the metadata and all of that that comes in.

So their decision to buy is really on the carousel that's right at the top. It's only reinforcement information that's coming from the metadata and the descriptions.

So if they like the product, then they're scrolling down and seeing, okay, does this happen? Specifications that they want.

So both from, you know, and if you go one step before, when Amazon is showing you the listings or these search matches, you're only seeing the hero images and deciding which one you want to delve into based on that one single image. So the entire customer journey is gated by the images that they see.

Matt Edmundson

00:17:05.636 - 00:18:33.184

Yeah, yeah.

And it's such an important point, and I'm really glad, actually, we're talking about this because the amount of websites I go on, the images just aren't great. And you kind of think, I can see you've spent tens of thousands of pounds on the, on the website, but very little on the, on the photography.

And the balance is all wrong. It's all skewed somehow. I mean, I've just, I mentioned to you earlier, I just finished a recording with Gareth Everard from Rockwell Razors.

So I don't know when this episode comes out in relation to Gareth, but we recorded this like an hour after I finished talking to Gareth, and it was a great conversation, really great website, love his products.

But I can tell you now, all I'm Saying that on the basis of the fact that I have looked his website, got an instant impression from his website and looked at the photography that he has used to show me his razor, right. And it's done so well.

You kind of go, I really like, I mean, it's a beautiful product and I think it's a beautiful product because of his photography. I've not read any of the descriptions. I really, I know which one I'm gonna buy, right.

But I've made all of that decision based on the photograph and the number of ratings next to it.

The two things that I've looked at which I, I was sort of sitting here thinking about that before we got on the call and thought, well, isn't that interesting how my brain has worked sort of over.

Siddharth Sinha

00:18:33.352 - 00:19:24.338

It's interesting what's, what's happening. And you're talking about, you know, at least you're, you know, as a, as a buying decision, you are a person looking at this image.

But what's happening now is, you know, people are shopping much more by use rather than by product. So it's much more likely today for somebody to search for a summer dress rather than, you know, a sleeveless white type of dress.

So it's much more usage driven rather than product descriptions. So it really matters. I mean, all the searches now are multimodal so they can actually see images in some sense.

So you better have a, you know, dress being worn to a summer party if that is the search that is happening on Marketplace. Wow.

Matt Edmundson

00:19:24.434 - 00:19:27.042

Yeah. So it's a really interesting point.

Siddharth Sinha

00:19:27.146 - 00:19:56.428

And you know, if you were going to do this through traditional photography, imagine how you would do this. You know, three weeks into the season you realize that your dresses are being searched by summer party. How are you going to get that image?

I mean, the only way you can get that image today is you use AI to create that image.

Otherwise you have product coming out of your warehouse, going to a studio, getting shot, getting worked on and then coming back onto your listing, which is a six, eight week affair, maybe more and thousands of dollars.

Matt Edmundson

00:19:56.604 - 00:19:58.284

So it's such a valid point.

Siddharth Sinha

00:19:58.372 - 00:19:59.120

Interesting.

Matt Edmundson

00:20:01.620 - 00:20:41.850

It's really interesting. You talk about context aware search, so you're right, the search engines are getting smarter. They can actually start to see images.

Whereas before we always used to have to write alt tags, this is an image about. Now they can actually see the image itself and understand it. And so, yeah, I've not thought of that actually.

That's such a clever point that you now have this context aware search. The other thing that I've noticed is you take something like Amazon, right?

And I, I'm always, I'm always aware of trends on Amazon and they, they always happen for a good reason.

Siddharth Sinha

00:20:41.970 - 00:20:42.250

Right.

Matt Edmundson

00:20:42.290 - 00:21:50.268

It's, it's not like, it's not like accident, you know, they, there's a lot of thought gone behind it and I suppose a few years ago I noticed it that they moved away from just the photo with the white background. So that's the first photo, isn't it? It's always in the product listing, but it's changing more and more.

So you take, yeah, you take something like supplements, which I know the field very well.

You've got the front of the bottle, the back of the bottle, you've got the products, the supplements, outside of it, you've got the box, the inside of the box, the outside of the box, product with the box. I mean, you've got all these different shots so people can actually read the box before they buy it, which was always, always sort of blew my mind.

But now we're starting to get pictures of the. So you've got the product, but you've got infographics, you've got text, you've got stuff that we were always told never to put in images.

You've now got in images. Right.

And so it's almost, we've almost acknowledged that people aren't going to read the product description, they're going to scroll through the images. So we best put the key benefits on the image as well now.

Siddharth Sinha

00:21:50.324 - 00:22:39.790

Yeah, and not just any image on your HERO image, because if you look at how search works on any of these platforms, you are going to see a bunch of HERO images show up in front of you and if you can stand out there by use by benefit, that's the image that you're going to click.

So, for example, if you were selling, for example, a desk organizer, if you could show that desk organizer in a desk, that tells you what size it is, whether it's going to fit you on your desk, that is much more likely to be clicked rather than just a desk organizer on a white background, because there. I can't tell scale. There is an uncertainty about that product.

The one within context has that much more certainty that I can go through and find something that I can use.

Matt Edmundson

00:22:42.090 - 00:23:03.644

Another valid point, because going back to the supplement site, we found that when we start to add images of the supplement in somebody's hand, conversion rate went up because they understood how big it was. Yeah, exactly. It gave it context. Whereas if you just put the supplement with a note saying this is 5 millimeters long, people.

It's not contextual enough sizes.

Siddharth Sinha

00:23:03.692 - 00:23:12.480

I mean, people are challenged when it comes to converting numbers and units into actual physical dimensions.

Matt Edmundson

00:23:12.940 - 00:24:22.130

Yeah, no, totally. And so we saw these context photos. So this is where I think AI is actually becoming quite interesting, isn't it?

It's creating these sort of playgrounds where you can, I can invest in getting a good original image with the white background, you know, all cut out, nice png, high resolution. Because cameras these days, I mean, it's just insane how high the resolution is. So I can get those shots done, invest in that.

But beyond that, actually I can start to use AI in quite creative ways now, so I don't have to invest in these quite expensive photo shoots. Right. Excuse me while I cough. Sorry about that. Let me just make a little note. We'll cut out the coughing. What did I last say?

Siddharth Sinha

00:24:22.910 - 00:24:26.930

Yeah, you're talking about AI using AI to sort of give context to.

Matt Edmundson

00:24:27.230 - 00:24:45.730

Yes. So maybe I. Maybe then how do we. How do we. So how do we get AI to help us to create these images? We've got our original shot.

How can, how can AI help us?

Siddharth Sinha

00:24:46.030 - 00:25:46.990

So, for example, on our platform, you can come in, you can put up, you can upload your product image if you've already shot it, or you can use our app to click images. It will suggest, depending on your product category and product, it'll suggest different kind of backgrounds to create.

If you want to create a lifestyle image, you can click on any of the references that we do. And our references are constantly updated. We have, essentially, we look at lots of different data sources and pull references for you.

So it's like an automated mood board that we create for you that you can pick what kind of context you want to put your product into. We also have, we are going to Release in early Q2 an automated infographic generator.

So we can actually take up a product image and it will suggest different kinds of formats to use for infographics and either pull product information right off your label or you can update product information manually as well. So you can create infographics, you can create lifestyle images. You can create full A pluses out of that as well.

Matt Edmundson

00:25:48.010 - 00:25:59.746

So, I mean, AI then can start as it seems, do a lot. But can it help us with video? I mean, is it clever enough with video yet, or is it just really more static images?

Siddharth Sinha

00:25:59.938 - 00:27:24.140

So the challenge with video is, ideally you want the product in motion, right? You want somebody to move the product around in their hand. So you are capturing portions of the product that may not be photographed.

So the AI is second guessing what your product is in that angle in some sense. So you may get augmentation or changes in the way the product looks. So that's something that you do need to be careful about.

Other than that, we will have a video generator available, Q3 of this year as well, which will allow you to essentially transform voice, change looks of models, change the context that imagery is taken in. But we do suggest you actually photograph the product in the various angles and contours that you want it to, to appear at.

Because the last thing we want you want to do is, you know, have, have your products get higher, higher return rate because it doesn't look exactly the way it actually is in real life.

That's something because I mean, as you, you probably know better than I do if you just have a marginal increase in the return rates or anything you save on photography or content creation will go out of the window very quickly.

Matt Edmundson

00:27:24.220 - 00:28:55.860

Yeah, absolutely it is. And it's interesting, isn't it?

I mean my, my understanding is having used AI a little bit across various different playgrounds now is you AI is good until it has to start making things up and, and then when it, it doesn't know stuff, it kind of tries to fill in the blanks. And that's usually where the problems lie. And so I, yeah, I, I get that. I'm intrigued because actually for, I put, if I take my phone, I've got the.

What is this?

This is the iPhone 15 Pro Max, I think it's not the latest model, but it's, you know, the one below, it's got three cameras and a LiDAR scanner on the back. And I'm intrigued whether with the, you know, with the lidar scanner, Basically I can 3D scan. Yeah, pretty much most things, can't I.

With the cameras you can take some, you can take the, the images and build like an interesting 3D model. I've seen people use them to build out rooms. And then, you know, there's an app I've got because my wife wants you to redecorate part of the house.

So we can take a scan and we can go, I wonder what this color looks like. And it will show you and it's great.

So I can we, I can imagine then somewhere down the line, if it's not there already, you'll be able to 3D scan with your phone. These products for videos, I would have thought, and also maybe for still images.

Siddharth Sinha

00:28:56.020 - 00:29:22.464

Yeah.

So you can 3D scan and you know, the conversion of, you know, or you know, getting a numerical representation of the shape of a product is not that difficult. You can actually do that today. So you have a. I mean the only caveat is it, it doesn't work very well for reflective products.

But you know, for, for anything that doesn't reflect light, it works pretty well to actually get you a shape of the product.

Matt Edmundson

00:29:22.632 - 00:29:23.264

Yeah.

Siddharth Sinha

00:29:23.392 - 00:29:30.780

Texture is something that is very difficult to do because if you think, think about, you know, velvet, for example, it has a very different look.

Matt Edmundson

00:29:31.080 - 00:29:31.600

Yeah.

Siddharth Sinha

00:29:31.680 - 00:29:58.530

One side or the other.

Or if you have, for example, product labels, once you have your product shape done for a product like yours, it's always better to go back to your actual print files that you release to actually get the label printed. Take that and slap it back onto the 3D generated model. That's what gives you the best outcome.

Because scanning of textures is actually very difficult to do. The shapes actually are the easier part.

Matt Edmundson

00:29:59.630 - 00:30:55.390

That's an interesting. Yeah, I'd not really thought about texture. I sell vitamins in some respects, so there's not many textures.

We, we had, we had an issue when we took photographs of the product.

The reason why we went to 3D renders, just to clarify when we actually photographed the product, because the cameras are so good, they're so much better than the actual printer. The, the print quality. Right.

So that the labels with very small text on, there's only a, there's only a certain amount of print quality you can get with what we legally have to put on the label.

And so what we were noticing was actually when we took these high res images and put them on the screen, the labels look really bad and they didn't look that bad in real life. It's just that the way the cameras are so good and so we were like, we just have to put the actual, you know, graphics. Yeah, yeah.

Siddharth Sinha

00:30:56.290 - 00:31:10.016

That's typically where any product type there if you want 3D generated. So the shape is actually the easier part to get get done. And then you essentially get into the texturing which, which is the problem.

Matt Edmundson

00:31:10.168 - 00:31:40.170

Yeah, no, that's a fair comment. I suppose if I tried to do it on a furry hat, it wouldn't work as well. Unless I got Pixar maybe to come 3D render.

But then I'm sure they'll charge me a few quid for that. Where do you, where do I mean? You've obviously got access to a lot of customer data. You know, people use the album stuff.

What are some of the trends you're seeing in imagery then? Product imagery that's working well, at the moment, what are some of the takeaways?

Maybe that we can go, oh, I could try that or I could do that from my own site.

Siddharth Sinha

00:31:40.470 - 00:33:22.010

So it depends a little bit on, on the product vertical.

So with fashion definitely, you know, more fluid poses and fluid, you know, most more natural photography where trends are going, especially in Europe, that's, that's definitely a trend.

So you're seeing that, you know, people are, our brands are, are leaning much more towards more natural looking models, more natural looking scenarios and more casual poses. So that's the, it's definitely a trend in that part of the world. In Asia things, things are a little bit more, this is still stuck in some sense.

The older ways of doing things they want very much sort of studio, you know, looking shots and you know, poses and all of that. So from a trend perspective, both from, from vertical and geography, that that sort of is changing.

With anything that has, where product specs become important. You know, supplements are a great example of that or electronics.

You are definitely, I mean you are seeing now Amazon listings that are all infograph. So all six, seven images are infographic images because that's the only thing that people are actually seeing.

So bulk of the traffic that sites are getting are all mobile traffic and on mobiles people just don't read. So the images are all that they're seeing and that's where the buying decisions are happening.

So if you're seeing for anything where product specifications, features, those are important to convey, it's all infographics.

Matt Edmundson

00:33:22.990 - 00:35:14.720

And again maybe it's something that I've noticed more and more. It's not just a case of here's a picture of the front of the product.

So for us with the supplements you would start it when we started out, you're like, this is the picture of the bottle from the front. And then we had a second photo. This is a picture of the bottle with some of the supplements kind of around it.

And then we figured out actually we should put a picture of somebody like say the supplement somebody's hands, they were sort of the go. The go to. Then it became about, well actually we also need to show what the back of the bottle because people are intrigued what's on the label.

And so then we had to show that photo and then it went further. It's like what packaging does this come in? Can we see a photograph of the packaging? Can we see a photograph of the packaging from the front?

Can we see it from the back? Can we see it from the side? It's like all of A sudden we went from wanting just one or two images to not necessarily an overload of images.

But I'm kind of, I'm aware now with data speeds being what they are and actually it's not really a problem for most people. More images is not really, it seems an issue at the moment. And, and so we, there's like, if I go to.

Not really an E comm example, I suppose, but if I go to say rightmove, which is an estate agency app here in the uk, so if I want to see what houses are for sale, I can just go into. Right, move.

There are 30, 40 photographs per house because it's free to take the images, it's free to store them and it's quick and easy, it's online, just no problem. And I noticed actually going back to Rockwell Razors, they had quite a lot of images. It's a razor.

I'm like, how can you get that many images for a rep? You've done it really well, you know, really quite cleverly. And so, yeah, how many images, I suppose, do we need?

Siddharth Sinha

00:35:15.420 - 00:36:06.016

So, I mean, it's, I mean, in some sense it's, it's a no risk investment, Matt, because I mean, if you think about how much it costs you now to actually get high quality images, it really is much cheaper than it used to be. So you can, you can get a, you know, I mean, professional quality imagery.

I mean, on our app you can get, you know, professionally retouched images for, for a pound. So it's, it's, it's really not that much investment.

The, the question is, you know, will you risk, you know, you know, shaving off five quid on, on a product listing, will you risk the success of your product on that?

So it's, it's just, I mean, it, you might much rather err on the, on the cautionary side and have as much injury and con and, and information on the listing as possible. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Edmundson

00:36:06.048 - 00:37:00.368

So as many images as you, as you like. What have you noticed?

Because I'm sitting here thinking Siddharth and I, I'm aware that my expertise, as limited as it is, is usually around small products, right. So I sell supplements, small products, Deep Beauty, small products. I was talking about rock or razors, small products.

I'm thinking, well, hang on a minute, what, what happens if we take it larger? What happens if we hit sell a couch, for example?

And I'm, I'm now going in my head through the websites which sell couches and going, well, actually, it seems the bigger that it is the harder it is to forget the photography. Right. Because, I mean, close up, small items seem a bit more straightforward.

Siddharth Sinha

00:37:00.464 - 00:38:37.580

It's not just that, it's, you know, with furniture, photography becomes extremely difficult because if you, if you want to do a lifestyle setting, you can't, you don't just don't need a couch, you need a full room.

So you need to arrange for, you know, carpets, side tables, for bedside lamps, you know, cushions, all of that to, to come together to do a single shoot. So, you know, a single couch shoot when run you thousands of quid. It's a really expensive way to do lifestyle shoes where AI really shines.

There is if you've invested in reasonable quality shots. And we have customers that use our app or DSLR cameras in warehouses themselves.

So basically they've set up a white room where they actually just do the product photography and we use AI to essentially do lifestyle shorts for them.

It really cuts down on both the time that it takes for them to do the imagery and the cost because, I mean, they need to pull one product out of the warehouse. It's only a, for example, a couch manufacturer, they can just shoot the couch. We can put everything else together.

They don't need to buy props or rent, you know, carpets or side tables.

The other advantage is that, you know, if you have, for example, new stock coming in and it's being, we have customers that are, you know, US based furniture distributors and their stuff is being made in Malaysia or Indonesia, they can do the photography there and we can give them, you know, ready to go lifestyle shots that they can prep their listings much before the product actually hits their warehouses.

Matt Edmundson

00:38:38.560 - 00:39:49.354

Yeah, fascinating. So where do you see it all going? I mean, like you said, there's not been much innovation.

I think when I first started out in e Commerce In 2002, we, we showed an image of usually of the product on a white background.

If we could fast forward 22 years, we're still doing the same and we've added infographics and the images have got better and, you know, we can get AI to create lifestyle shots. And then we started to add video to the site and then we took it off because it made your movie mobile sites too slow.

And then we've put it back on because Google allows it.

I mean, you know, we've got, we've got the still images, we've got motion and sort of between us and I suppose we've got a few clever things now where if I want to know what this IKEA couch looks like, I can go into my room and use VR to take a photo of my room and sort of superimpose the couch, which I think is quite clever. I suppose that's another innovation I didn't think of earlier. Not really needed in the supplement world, you know, but maybe, I don't know.

So where do you see it all going? Because it all. A few innovations here, it's all been a bit static. Do you think it will stay that way or do you think.

Siddharth Sinha

00:39:49.522 - 00:41:14.220

So there are some interesting applications that are coming out of AI. I mean, I think they're maybe a year or two away from real production deployment. One is virtual try on of all different kinds of products.

So that doesn't work very well today. But I mean that's something that, that we should be able to solve for in the coming few months.

So that's basically taking any dress or clothing item or handbag on a Shopify store and say, okay, what would I look like with this on? So that's one, that's something that's definitely over the horizon.

The other thing that's happening is that content is becoming much more customer specific. So you have, you know, storefronts and marketplaces that really want to target customers with very specific pieces of content.

So if I know that you are searching, for example, going back to the example of a summer dress or a garden, you know, something to wear for a summer, you know, garden party, if I know that you search for that, I might as well show all my relevant products in that context to you. That's the, that's the easiest way I'm going to get that conversion. Okay, yeah, that's, that's something that, that's also, that's around the corner.

So you will actually be seeing products in context as you would like to see them in context or for your use, particular use case.

Matt Edmundson

00:41:14.920 - 00:41:21.744

Well, so I mean, does that mean then websites are going to be spawn enough to generate these images on the fly?

Siddharth Sinha

00:41:21.872 - 00:41:23.008

On the fly.

Matt Edmundson

00:41:23.184 - 00:41:34.008

Wow, that would be quite interesting, wouldn't it? So the product image that I see and the product image you see are the same product image but they're the lifestyle different.

Siddharth Sinha

00:41:34.064 - 00:41:47.460

For example, if you're, if you're looking to buy, both of us might be looking to buy a white shirt, but I might be looking at, for, for a more formal occasion, you might be looking for a more informal occasion. And the, and the imagery would take that into account.

Matt Edmundson

00:41:48.880 - 00:41:57.794

That would be nuts, wouldn't it? I mean, that's gonna be okay. So that I think would be a bit of a game changer. I Think that that could be quite interesting.

And you say that takes technology is not very far away.

Siddharth Sinha

00:41:57.882 - 00:41:59.506

No, that's not very far away.

Matt Edmundson

00:41:59.658 - 00:42:27.530

Wow. Well, you heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. Watch this space. I'd be curious to see how that actually does work in real life.

Listen, Siddharth, I'm aware of time. I'm aware it's getting away from us.

So let me, before I've run out of it, let me ask you, what's your question for me, this is where I ask all my guests for a question and I will endeavor, as I said at the start of the show, to go answer this on social media. So over to you. What's your question for me?

Siddharth Sinha

00:42:28.390 - 00:42:36.050

Matt, you're deeply embedded into the, into the E commerce space. What would you be doing if E commerce didn't exist?

Matt Edmundson

00:42:39.430 - 00:43:10.648

That's a good question. A really good question. And I'm curious to think about this one. So, yes, great question.

If you would like to know how I would end up answer that question, come find me on social media at @mattedmundson, on Instagram or LinkedIn, which is where I'll be post. Well, I'll definitely be posting the answers on LinkedIn.

So come find me on LinkedIn and I will see you in there.

But Siddharth, if people want to reach out to you, if they want to find out more about Dresma, maybe about what you guys are doing with imagery, maybe even how you can help that business, what's the best way to do that?

Siddharth Sinha

00:43:10.704 - 00:43:18.720

Sure, they can always reach reach me siddharthma.com or through my LinkedIn account. That'll be great.

Matt Edmundson

00:43:19.500 - 00:43:53.930

Fantastic. We will of course put those in the show notes as well, which you. If you subscribe to the newsletter, they'll be in the email sent to you.

If you can't be bothered to subscribe to the newsletter, just scroll down in the podcast app that you're using to listen to this podcast. The show notes will be there as well.

And if all of that fails, just go to the website ecommercepodcast.net show notes will be there with the links to Sidot, to Dresma, and obviously to his LinkedIn profile. And you can see all the stuff that's going on there. Sidharth, anything else? Is there anything else that I should know about?

Siddharth Sinha

00:43:54.710 - 00:43:58.046

I think we had a long, good conversation.

Matt Edmundson

00:43:58.238 - 00:44:18.648

Yeah, I think we've covered most of the races. No, no problem at all. Thank you for coming on and thank you for sharing your insights on it. Like I say, it's one of those things. I.

I would never have thought to have a podcast episode about it and I'm glad that we did and it's made me think. So. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing and all the best, my good friend.

Siddharth Sinha

00:44:18.784 - 00:44:19.700

Thank you.

Matt Edmundson

00:44:20.240 - 00:45:16.270

Well, there you go. What another fantastic conversation. Huge thanks to Siddharth. In fact, I should do this. Sorry, I do this every time. There we go. Yes, huge thanks.

What a legend. Thank you so much for joining us as well. Now this show is produced by the wonderful people at Podjunction.

Big shout out to them that make everything possible. Of course, if you haven't done so already, like I say, go to the website podcast, ecommercepodcast.net to find all the show notes.

And in case no one has told you yet today, I know so many of you wait for this. I should probably get a. I don't know if I've got a drum roll. I haven't got a drum roll on my little thing. I should probably get a drum roll.

In case no. 1 soldier yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes. You are created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Siddharth has to bear it.

I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. So that's it from us. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world.

I will see you next time. Bye for now.